Ostrogothic Provinces 85
a two-pronged assault.63 For the first time since the defeat of Odovacer, Italy
had been attacked. And while vindicating lost provinces had been an avowed
motivation in prior acts of expansion, the security of Italy was far more impor-
tant, indeed paramount, to the Ostrogothic regime. Hence, when the raiders
had been checked and the army given its marching orders for Gaul, its Goths
were idealized as the “defenders of Italy” and were dispatched across the Alps,
not to restore another province, but to ensure “public utility” and the “security
of everyone” back home.64
Despite such defensive avowals, the invasion, led by the Gothic duces Ibba
and Mammo, quickly developed into a war of conquest that, by its comple-
tion, was hailed as the greatest of Theoderic’s imperial restorations. In 508, the
Franks and Burgundians were defeated in Mediterranean Provence and the
region was annexed, recreating the buffer yielded by Odovacer decades earlier.
If this did not establish a state of war between Theoderic and the current king
of the Visigoths, Gesalec, events the following year surely did, when Ibba cap-
tured the Visigothic capital of Narbonne and sent its royal treasure to Ravenna.
Soon Theoderic also began supporting his young grandson, Amalaric, as the
rightful heir to the Visigothic throne, dividing the Visigoths in their loyalty.
Consolidation in Gaul and expansion into Spain followed. To be sure, Gesalec
remained a nuisance until his death in 514; likewise, there continued to be
regional skirmishes for decades, which allowed the Ostrogothic kingdom to
expand its possessions further, pushing the Burgundian frontier to the Drome
or Isere and capturing newly Frankish cities like Rodez.65 Yet for all intents and
purposes, the campaign proper was over by 511, and in this very year Theoderic
announced his triumphs through his choice for the consulship: a Gallo-Roman
aristocrat appropriately named Felix (the prosperous one), the first Gallo-
Roman to hold this office in over fifty years. “What could be thought more
desirable”, Theoderic asked Emperor Anastasius, “than that Rome is gathering
back to her bosom her very own nurslings and numbers the Gallic senate in the
company of her venerable name?”66
63 For Byzantines: Marcellinus Comes, Chronicon, a. 508, with Variae 1.16 and 2.38. The
Burgundian raid is hypothetical. See Schwarcz, “Restitutio Galliarum”, pp. 789–90, with
Delaplace, “Guerre”, p. 82, and Arnold, “Vouillé”, 125–6.
64 Variae 1.24.1: “pro communi utilitate exercitum ad Gallias constituimus destinare”, and
4.36.3: “pro defensione cunctorum... Italiae defensoribus”.
65 For reconstructions: Schwarcz, “Restitutio Galliarum”, pp. 791–4; Delaplace, “Guerre”,
pp. 83–7; Diaz/Valverde, “Goths”, pp. 360–1; and Arnold, Theoderic, p. 270–2.
66 Variae 2.1.2: “Quid enim vobis credi possit optatius quam ut alumnos proprios ad ubera
sua Roma recolligat et in venerandi nominis coetu senatum numeret Gallicanum?” See
also Variae 2.2–3, with Arnold, Theoderic, pp. 29–4.