Gothic factions
The Thervingi Goths
The Thervingi (also known as Visigoths) were an ancient Germanic people from the Baltic coast region who migrated towards Dacia in the 3rd century AD, but before that they were reputed to have crossed the Baltic from their original homeland. They settled around the Vistula river and at some point the tribes divided into the Ostrogoths and the Visigoths, or Western Goths. The Western Goths were the first barbarians to carry out a major incursion into Roman territory and, while the other barbarians were even more brutal in their warmaking, the Goths struck fear into the enemies. Their practice of sacrificing captives to their war god, Tyz, was particularly horrifying.
This practice has been abandoned now that the Goths have adopted the Arian version of Christianity. They are, however, still dangerous warriors and well able to exploit any weakness in Roman lands or among their more barbarous neighbours.
Historically the Goths were driven across the Danube and into Roman territory by pressure from the steppes. While the Goths tried to behave peaceably the Romans treated them abominably. At the battle of Adrianople in 378 the Goths destroyed an Imperial army and killed the Emperor.
The naming of this people is problematic. Some time shortly after 291 Mamertinus made a eulogy of Emperor Maximian (285-308) in which he says that the "Tervingi, another division of the Goths" (Tervingi pars alia Gothorum) joined with a band he calls the Taifali to attack the Vandals and Gepidae (Genethl. Max. 17, 1). But about a hundred years later the term changes to Vesi. Correspondingly, the other branch was originally called Greutungi, but this was soon replaced by Ostrogothi ("gleaming goths"), and from the 390s and onwards the earlier terms are only found in epic poetry. The term Vesi or Visi came from Gothic Wisi, Wesi "the noble people", similar to Gothic iusiza "better".
By the 5th century the two main branches were known as Vesi and Ostrogothi whenever sources cared to specify them more specifically than Goths. When Cassiodorus wrote the history of the gothic peoples in the early sixth century, he interpreted Ostrogothi as "East Goths" and invented the term Visigothi to denote "West Goths." This usage has continued to this day, though since the 1970s, modern historians have started to use the contemporary terms instead of Cassiodorus' interpretations. Some scholars associate the name Visi with "Wise".
The Greuthungi Goths
The Greuthungi (Ostrogoths, Gleaming Goths or Eastern Goths), in distinction to the Thervingi (Visigoths, Noble Goths or Western Goths), were a Germanic tribe that influenced political events of the late Roman Empire. An older appellation, "Greutungi" (possibly "those of the steppe"), gave way to Ostrogothi "eastern Goths" (cf. OHG ostar, ON austr) and Old Norse gotar ("men") around the sixth century.
The Ostrogoths settled in the Ukraine until effectively subdued by the arrival of the Huns. Their recorded history begins with their independence from the remains of the Hunnic Empire following the death of Attila the Hun. Allied with the former vassal and rival, the Gepids and the Ostrogoths led by Theodemir broke the Hunnic power of Attila's sons in the Battle of Nedao in 454.
The Ostrogoths now entered into relations with the Empire, and were settled on lands in Pannonia. During the greater part of the latter half of the 5th century, the Ostrogoths played in south-eastern Europe nearly the same part that the Visigoths played in the century before. They were seen going to and fro, in every conceivable relation of friendship and enmity with the Eastern Roman power, until, just as the Visigoths had done before them, they passed from the East to the West.
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