Ostrogoths

The Ostrogoths (Latin: Ostrogothi or Austrogothi) were a branch of the later Goths (the other major branch being the Visigoths). The Ostrogoths, under Theodoric the Great, established a kingdom in Italy in the late 5th and 6th centuries. The Ostrogoths traced their origins to the Greutungi and a semi-legendary kingdom north of the Black Sea in the 3rd and 4th centuries. Migrating southward from the Baltic Sea, the Ostrogoths, at the time known as the Greuthungi, built up a huge empire stretching from the Dniester to the Volga River and from the Black Sea to the Baltic shores. The Ostrogoths were probably literate in the 3rd century, and their trade with the Romans was highly developed. Their Danubian kingdom reached its zenith under King Ermanaric, who is said to have committed suicide at an old age when the Huns attacked his people and subjugated them in about 370.

After their subjugation by the Huns, little is heard of the Ostrogoths for about 80 years, after which they reappear in Pannonia on the middle Danube River as federates of the Romans. However, a pocket remained behind in the Crimea when the bulk of them moved to central Europe, and these Crimean Ostrogoths existed until at least the 16th century.

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire (Latin: Imperium Rōmānum; Classical Latin: [ɪmˈpɛ.ri.ũː roːˈmaː.nũː] Ancient and Medieval Greek: Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, tr. Basileia tōn Rhōmaiōn) was the post-Roman Republic period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterized by government headed by emperors and large territorial holdings around the Mediterranean Sea in Europe, Africa and Asia. The extended city of Rome was the largest city in the world c. 100 BC – c. 400 AD, with Constantinople (New Rome) becoming the largest around 500 AD, and the Empire's populace grew to an estimated 50 to 90 million inhabitants (roughly 20% of the world's population at the time). The 500-year-old republic which preceded it was severely destabilized in a series of civil wars and political conflict, during which Julius Caesar was appointed as perpetual dictator and then assassinated in 44 BC. Civil wars and executions continued, culminating in the victory of Octavian, Caesar's adopted son, over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the annexation of Egypt. Octavian's power was now unassailable and in 27 BC the Roman Senate formally granted him overarching power and the new title Augustus, effectively marking the end of the Roman Republic.

Total war

Total war is warfare that includes any and all civilian-associated resources and infrastructure as legitimate military targets, and typically involves the use of weapons and tactics that result in significant civilian or other non-combatant casualties, whether collateral damage or not. American-English Dictionary defines "total war" as "war that is unrestricted in terms of the weapons used, the territory or combatants involved, or the objectives pursued, especially one in which the laws of war are disregarded." The term can also be applied when the war effort requires significant sacrifices by most of the friendly civilian population.

In the mid-19th century, scholars identified "total war" as a separate class of warfare. In a total war, to an extent inapplicable to less total conflicts, the differentiation between combatants and non-combatants diminishes and even sometimes vanishes entirely as opposing sides can consider nearly every human resource, even that of non-combatants, as nevertheless part of the war effort.

Goths

The Goths (Gothic: *Gut-þiuda, *𐌲𐌿𐍄𐌰𐌽𐍃, Gutans; Old Norse: Gutar/Gotar; Latin: Gothi; Greek: Γότθοι, Gótthoi) were an East Germanic people, two of whose branches, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, played an important role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of Medieval Europe.

An important source of knowledge of the Goths is Getica, a semi-fictional account, written in the 6th century by the Roman historian Jordanes, of their migration from southern Scandza (Scandinavia), into Gothiscandza—believed to be the lower Vistula region in modern Pomerania—and from there to the coast of the Black Sea. Archaeological evidence from the Pomeranian Wielbark culture and the Chernyakhov culture, northeast of the lower Danube, confirms that some such migration did in fact take place. In the 3rd century, the Goths crossed either the lower Danube or the Black Sea, ravaged the Balkans and Anatolia as far as Cyprus, and sacked Athens, Byzantium, and Sparta. By the 4th century, the Goths had captured Dacia, and were divided into at least two distinct groups separated by the Dniester River, the Thervingi (led by the Balti dynasty) and the Greuthungi (led by the Amali dynasty).

Ostrogothic Kingdom

The Ostrogothic Kingdom was established by the Ostrogoths in Italy and neighbouring areas from 493 to 553.

In Italy the Ostrogoths, led by Theoderic the Great, killed and replaced Odoacer, a Germanic soldier, erstwhile-leader of the foederati in northern Italy, and the de facto ruler of Italy, who had deposed the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, Romulus Augustulus, in 476. Under Theoderic, its first king, the Ostrogothic kingdom reached its zenith, stretching from modern France in the west into modern Serbia in the southeast. Most of the social institutions of the late Western Roman Empire were preserved during his rule.

Starting in 535, the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire invaded Italy under Justinian I. The Ostrogothic ruler at that time, Witiges, could not defend successfully and was finally captured when the capital Ravenna fell. The Ostrogoths rallied around a new leader, Totila, and largely managed to reverse the conquest, but were eventually defeated. The last king of the Ostrogothic Kingdom was Teia.