GOTHIC LIFE
The Gothic is wildly diverse. Ranging from ecclesiastical architecture and supernatural fiction to cult horror films and even rock music, the idea of the Gothic has influenced political theorists and social reformers, as well as Victorian home decor and contemporary fashion.
THE FIRST BLOOD – GOTHS
Gothic origins in Scythia suggest that ‘Goth’ was a new name for old barbarians. The Goths emerged only gradually from the profuse backdrop of barbarian tribes, appearing as auxiliaries serving in the Roman army in the early third century AD. They first ventured into Roman territory in the year 238, sacking Histria at the mouth of the Danube, subsequently skirmished with the Imperial legions Transylvania and regularly launched maritime raids from bases on the Black Sea.
According to the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus, the Empire had brought the seeds of destruction across its own borders. Romano-Gothic relations were tense and soon exploded into open conflict. The ensuing war was described by the poet Claudian who describes the Goths as supernatural, a threat emerging in dreams and ill omens, accompanied by ‘showers of stones, bees swarming in strange places, furious fires destroying houses from no known cause, a comet,’ and constant eclipses of the moon. The Goths seized the Roman imagination like avatars of nightmare. The Romans were comprehensively defeated and the Emperor Valens fell in battle; his body was never recovered.
VISIGOTHS
The Romans now attempted to contain the Theruingi(Visigoths) with federal treaties, but their new leader Alaric rebelled in 395 and led them through Greece, where they seized power. In 401, Alaric marched on Italy. He took Venetia, and then Milan, and by 408 he was in the Po valley. Rome was exposed – the city had little defence and was suffering a famine. Alaric’s sack began on 24 August 410, and lasted three days.
OSTROGOTHS
The Ostrogoths, meanwhile, consisted of two groups one: remaining in Pannonia with the Huns, the other in the Balkans as part of the Roman Empire.
GOTHICA
The founding myths of the Goths derive from the brief period of Ostrogothic sovereignty over the Visigoths. The identification of a shared Gothic origin enabled barbarian history to give a new perspective on the Romano-Christian world. True universality could only be achieved from the Christian world view, so emphasis shifted to those areas and peoples of the world not covered by classical geography and ethnography: the barbarians.