- The Imposition of Unity
Divisions and Defeats
THE series of demoralising defeats that they suffered in the years 507-
31 at the hands of the newly emergent Franks and their Burgundian
allies led directly to the disappearance of the BaIt dynasty which had
ruled the Visigoths with little interruption since the time of Alaric I
(395-410), if not longer. The first disaster was that ofVouille in 507,
which saw the death of Alaric II and the loss during the ensuing year
of most of the Visigothic territory in Gaul. I The losses might have
been greater, but for the intervention from Italy in 508 of the
Ostrogothic king Theoderic (493-526), whose army forced the Franks
and Burgundians to lift their siege of ArIes. As a result, the whole
Mediterranean coastal region of southern Gaul remained in Gothic
hands, mainly Ostrogothic. Although ArIes and other towns of the
lower Rhone valley had been in Visigothic hands in 507, they now
passed into Ostrogothic control, the price of the rescue. While the
kind of pan-Gothic sympathy that is hinted at by the Ostrogothic
historianJordanes (c. 551) may have had a part to play, Theoderic's
interests were also involved in preventing the rapidly expanding Frank-
ish kingdom from gaining access to the Mediterranean, or coming
too close to Italy.2 Hence the intervention in 508, which was to initi-
ate a period of considerable Ostrogothic involvement in the affairs of
the Visigoths and in Spain.
With Alaric II dead and his capital, Toulouse, fallen to the Franks,
the problem of succession asserted itself. Although the automatic
right of inheritance by members of the BaIt dynasty was by no means
guaranteed, as the successions of Sigeric and Wallia in 416 show, so
long had been their tenure of power that they were likely to be the
first recourse of the Visigothic nobility in electing a king. For most
of the fifth century such election had been a customary formality,
with the succession passing from father to son, or brother to brother,
in the ruling family. However, this was possible because all of the
kings had succeeded in their full maturity, and had proved them-
selves competent, especially militarily. In 508 the legitimate heir of
Alaric II was a child, Amalaric, his only son by his wife Thiudigoto,
daughter of the Ostrogothic king Theoderic. As their marriage prob-
ably occurred only in c. 500, Amalaric was clearly a long way from
32