When Theoderic the Great died on 30 August 526 his fame spanned the Mediterranean world. The Ostrogothic king ruled over Italy, southern France and much of Spain. His was the most powerful Germanic kingdom to arise following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, and his name demanded respect from the Eastern emperor who still reigned in Constantinople. Theoderic was a key figure in a crucial transitional period of European history, and in this excellent book Hans-Ulrich Wiemer has performed an outstanding feat in bringing to life Theoderic, his kingdom and his wider world. The book was originally published in German in 2018 and has been expertly revised for the English translation by John Noël Dillon.

Wiemer begins by setting the scene, from the challenges posed by our sources and the difficulty of names (who were the Ostrogoths?) to the complexity of early Gothic history, the impact of Attila the Hun and the much-debated ‘decline and fall’ of the Roman Empire in the West. All these elements are essential background to Theoderic, who in 493 led 100,000 men, women and children from the Balkans into Italy where he overthrew Odovacer who in turn had deposed Romulus Augustulus, the last Western Roman emperor. For the next 30 years, Theoderic successfully ruled over both Goths and Romans, pursuing a policy which Wiemer accurately describes as ‘integration through separation’. Theoderic’s subjects were divided by culture, language and religion; the king did not seek to force assimilation. Instead, he sought to balance the varying concerns of Gothic warriors, Roman senators and Catholic bishops who regarded Theoderic and his Goths as ‘Arian’ heretics. Wiemer is careful to warn against exaggerated assessments of Theoderic’s achievements, for all levels of society did not benefit equally and we must recognise such limitations before proclaiming his reign a ‘Golden Age’. Yet it is impossible not to be impressed as Wiemer presents in striking detail the administrative structures which Theoderic preserved, the expansion of Ostrogothic power as he pushed back the Franks to the north and absorbed Visigothic Spain, and the remarkable diplomacy with which Theoderic respected the papacy while promoting the ‘Arian’ Christianity to which he and his followers remained devoted. Across three decades, Theoderic delivered a degree of peace and stability which Italy would not experience again for centuries, only for his kingdom to shatter not long after his death as the armies of the Eastern emperor, Justinian, invaded in 535 and began 20 years of warfare that devastated Italian society.

Read the rest of the review at HistoryToday.com.

David M. Gwynn is Reader in Ancient and Late Antique History at Royal Holloway, University of London and author of The Goths: Lost Civilizations (Reaktion, 2017).