2. First Contact with Christianity. Ulfilas
and soon after we hear of a Syrian
priest Audius who founded a number
of small churches among them. The
new faith made appreciable progress
Ulfllas. owing to the tolerant character of the
people but,
while the numbers of converts grew rapidly,
Christian teachings exercised but
little influence on the spirit of the warlike nation till
the advent of
Ulfilas (q.v.). The latter, a descendant
of the captive Cappadocian Christians of 276, was
consecrated bishop of the Goths by Eusebius, the
Arian bishop of Nicomedia at Antioch in 341, and so
the heretical form of Christianity was introduced. In
the same year, however, the storms of persecution
broke on the Christian converts. In 348 Ulfilas removed his followers across the Danube into Moesia
where they followed a peaceful pastoral life. Ulfilas
did not abandon, however, his missionary labors
among the Goths north of the Danube, in the course
of which he reduced the Gothic language to writing,
as embodied in his translation of the Bible (see
Bible Versions, A, X.). The complete conversion of the
Goths to Christianity was effected when the pressure of the Hun invasion induced them to cross the
Danube
and seek a settlement within the -borders
of the empire. This the majority of the nation,
under the leadership of Fritigern, accomplished in
376 with the approval of the Roman authorities.
A portion of the nation under Athanaric remained
north of the Danube. The Ostrogoths had been
conquered and to a certain degree incorporated by
the Huns.
3. Alaric. Settlement in the Roman Empire
they overwhelmed an army com
manded by
Valens, Emperor of the
East, who lost his life in the
slaughter.
It was under Alaric, who first appeared
c. 395, that the Goths became thoroughly Christianized
and united; their creed was
the Arian, a circumstance of the utmost importance
in its influence on the fortunes of the future Gothic
kingdoms.
Alaric's ambition was to obtain for his
people a legally assured home within the confines of
the empire and it was with such views in mind that,
after ravaging the Peloponnesus, he turned, in 400,
against Italy. Repulsed by Stilicho at Pollentia
and Verona, he made a second attempt in 408 to
overrun the provinces of Noricum, Illyria, and
Pannonia, and failed again. In 410 he invaded
Italy and spread abroad the terror of the Gothic
name by plundering Rome, revealing at the same
time a spirit of moderation which may be taken as
proof of the sincerity of his Christian faith (see
Innocent 1.).
Alaric died before the end of the
year. Under his successor, Athaulf, the Goths left
Italy for Gaul, but it was only under the next ruler,
Wallia,
that the object for which Alaric had struggled was obtained. Aquitania Secunda, the land
between the Loire and the Garonne, was granted
to the Goths and as
fcederati
of the Empire they
ruled it, in nominal subjection to Rome till the fall
of Augustulus (476), in complete independence after
that. The Ostrogoths, meanwhile, had thrown off
the yoke of the Huns after the death of Attila;
united under Theodoric, they entered Italy in 489,
overthrew Odoacer, captured Ravenna in 493 and
erected a barbarian kingdom in the peninsula.
Both among the Visigoths of France and the
Ostrogoths of Italy, a sharp line of division ran
between the conquerors and their Roman subjects.
