THE IMPOSITION OF UNITY 33adulthood, so the Visigothic nobility elected instead Gesalic, an ille-
gitimate son of Alaric II, of full age. The new king established his
capital at Narbonne.
Now as the succession of Gesalic inevitably threatened the inheri-
tance of Theoderic's infant grandson Amalaric, it is little of a surprise
to find Theoderic the Ostrogoth taking the earliest possible opportun-
ity of disposing of him. The Franks and the Burgundians continued
their efforts to expand their kingdoms into Provence and to take
advantage of the prolonged weakness of the Visigoths. In 511, the
Burgundian king Gundobad and his army attacked and sacked
Narbonne. Driven from his capital, Gesalic fled south of the Pyrenees
to Barcelona, where he was deposed at the instigation of Theoderic,
whose generals appear to have gained effective control of the Visigothic
forces by this time. Gesalic did not give up easily. After being ex-
pelled from his kingdom in 511, he attempted unsuccessfully to enlist
the aid of the Vandal king Thrasamund (496-523), himself an ally of
Theoderic. Instead, Gesalic established himself in Aquitaine, and in
513 attempted an invasion of Spain. He was defeated near Barcelona
by Theoderic's general Ebba, and being captured in flight over the
river Durance, was immediately executed.^3
After Gesalic's deposition in 511, power had passed in name to the
child Amalaric, possibly contrary to the wishes of the Visigoths, but in
practice the kingdom passed under the regency of the Ostrogothic
monarch, whose authority was enforced by his commanders. Little is
known of this period, which lasted for some fifteen years, until
Theoderic's death in 526. Visigothic reaction to this Ostrogothic
hegemony is unclear, as is how the government of the latter in the
peninsula actually worked. The practical difference between
Ostrogoths and Visigoths, except in terms of their separate past his-
tories, is equally obscure. They had collaborated closely in the past,
as in the years 376-8, when a band of fugitive Ostrogoths and their
king Videric had joined the Visigoths in their entry into the Roman
empire, and then in the subsequent great victory over the Romans at
the battle of Adrianople (378). Interestingly, the Visigoths seem to
have taken the legitimate line of the Ostrogothic royal dynasty, the
Amals, with them in the years of wandering that followed: Theoderic
discovered an Amal called Eutharic, probably a descendant of the
child king Videric, living quietly amongst the Visigoths in c. 508, and
married him to his daughter Amalasuntha.^4 Isidore of Seville, in his
History of the Goths, suggests that Theoderic came to Spain in person