Episode 2 – The new Italian kingdom from Odoacer to Theodoric Episode 3 – The new Italian kingdom from Odoacer to Theodoric At the end of the last episode, we left the barbarian Odoacer as the de facto king of Italy, although he never officially took that title. We saw that he had been a very helpful chap, sending the imperial insignia to Constantinople and abolishing the title of Augustus.
Thus, making the year in which he deposed Romulus or Gustalus, 476, the year that is considered the end of the Western Roman Empire. The cut with the pass was quite clear, although it wasn't really perceived at the time. Indeed, there were also some elements of continuity. He still paid lip service to the Eastern Empire, being granted the title of Petrition after some hesitation. With far away from the eyes and ears of the court of Constantinople, he was also referred to as Rex King.
He even issued coinage in his image, but not gold as to not offend the formal authority of Constantinople. We also said in the previous episode that he descended from one of the many Germanic peoples who had made their way down to the limits of the Roman Empire and in part become absorbed into it. Indeed by the time the Empire fell, most of the generals, and indeed many of the soldiers of the Empire were so called barbarians.
Odoassah was the son of one of Attila the Huns' officers and was born around 434, which makes him around 43 years old at the time of our narrative. Which is admirable I suppose. I'm around that age and the only thing that can get me out of the house is my Thursday evening football. I definitely wouldn't be going off to conquer a country, but anyway. So what exactly had Odoassah become king of?
Well, the lack of organised central power for so many years had allowed the ecclesiastical authorities to slowly take on some administrative duties under the bishops. Odoassah did not interfere too much in this situation and it also seems that he used some non-religious Roman officials to help him with the administration. He had the support of the Roman senate and nominated consuls, although these elected officials and the senate itself had very little real power.
The population of the city of Rome was estimated at around 200,000 of whom only perhaps a few hundred were pure Romans. Quite a difference from the great city that had possibly reached a million in its glory days, the bustling political and economic centre of a great empire. All it could boast now were a few paper factories and one that may dies. In the peninsula, those who lived on taxes were more than those who had to pay them, who had to sell up and become tied to the land of others.
This is the start of the process in the middle ages, laying the foundation for the future feudal society. Roman high society was too interested in talking of Cicero and Aristotle and laughing at the bad Latin grammar of the barbarian generals and the people were too worried about where their next meal was coming from to worry about being an empire, a kingdom, a protectorate or whatever. We don't know an incredible amount about Odoassah's reign.
There is a little surviving administrative documentation and some information comes from ecclesiastical sources. We know from those, for example, that he showed great esteem for Bishop Epiphanyus. In response to the Bishop's petition, Odoassah granted the inhabitants of Liguria in the top left of the country, the northwest, if you want to be precise, a five-year immunity from taxes after a natural calamity. He was also quite successful with what we could call foreign policy.
First of all, he was able to win a sort of diplomatic victory with regard to Sicily. He was able to induce the Vandal King and Seric to seed Sicily that the Vandal had conquered in the chaos that led to the fall of the empire. Odoassah obtained the territory in Dributario Ure, in a certain sense he rented Sicily from Gensaric. You could say it was the start of a northern European renting property in Italy.
This shifted Odoass' attention on the island moving away from Norricum, modern day southern Austria, where another barbaric people came to settle, the Lombards, who in time will come to great prominence in our story. As well as trying to keep Constantinople happy, Odoassah also continued to nominally recognize the authority of the deposed emperor Julius Neppos, although he was also very careful not to invite him back to Italy.
In 480 Neppos was murdered where he had sought refuge in Dalmatia, a part of modern day Croatia. Odoassah invaded to punish the conspirators who were duly killed. Then since he'd gone to all the bother of getting over there, he decided he would annex the area to his kingdom, or protectorate, or whatever you want to call it. You wouldn't want to go all the way out for nothing after all would you. So things were looking pretty good for Odoassah.
And he then made what turned out to be perhaps his only and last big mistake. Although in time things may have gone south anyway. Indeed not all sources mention Odoassah's action in what we're about to talk about, putting it all down to the Eastern Roman Emperor Xeno. Things over in the Eastern Empire were getting interesting. There was a power struggle going on between the Emperor Xeno and the Master of Soldiers, a man named Ilius.
For more on this you can head over to the history of Byzantium podcast. Anyway, Ilius asked our Odoassah for help and he duly obliged, invading the western most provinces of the Empire. This is the part that isn't actually mentioned in all sources, but what follows is. Xeno responded by inciting the Rugi, a tribe who had settled in present-day Austria to attack Italy. Odoassah went over quickly and in a preemptive strike he crossed the Danube and defeated the Rugi in their own territory.
At this point Xeno came up with another idea that could help him kill two birds with one stone. Incidentally in Italian that expression is, pretend that it duipiccione, called una fava, that is, getting two pigeons with a father bean. I don't know how practical it is, a father bean rather than a stone, but then I couldn't kill a poor bird with a stone anyway, not only because I wouldn't want to but also my aim isn't that good, but let's leave it at that.
Anyway, before we go to Xeno's idea, we need to go back and take a quick look at the Goths again. The origin of the Goths can be possibly traced to Guterland in southern Sweden. They then gradually migrated through Europe over the centuries and may their way down, like other German peoples to the confines of the Roman Empire, the Lemus, reaching the shores of the Black Sea.
In time they expanded further from this area and divided into at least two distinct groups, the Visigoths or Western Goths and the Austragoths or the Eastern Goths. We have already spoken about the former when in 410 the Visigoth King Alleric sacked Rome. The division can be made approximately along the Dignester River, which runs through modern day Moldova and the Ukraine.
Now this is a bit of a simplification, indeed within the two groups there were further divisions and the labels we are using now didn't even come around until later. However, for the love of simplicity, and we do love simplicity at the history of Italy, let's now turn our attention to the Austragoths. They had been united under their king Theodoric, after he had defeated the rival Austragoth leader Theodoric Strabo, as if having won Theodoric wasn't confusing enough.
And now the first Theodoric who came to be known as Theodoric the Great was being a pest to the Eastern Roman Empire, which brings us back to our narrative. We said that after failing to solve his issues with Odo Asa by using the Rugi, the Emperor Xenno had another idea. Why not convince the Austragoth king to stop being a pain in the Neal regions and go and take Italy with the Emperor's blessing? After all, it's not like the Emperor was going to get it back for himself any time soon.
So that's what Theodoric did. He took his army and invaded Italy in 488. Now I say army but in truth the fighting men were only a part of the tens of thousands of people that made their way into Italy. There were also women, children and the elderly in a long caravan of marching men and carts and animals. In short, rather than an invasion, it was a mass migration. As is often the case in these situations, it's hard to tell how many people we were actually talking about.
Some sources speak of 150,000 or 200,000 and I have even read the number 500,000, but only in one source. Well, others simply state that there were many but not enough to become a majority in the peninsula. On the 28th of August, Odoassah met the Goths on the Ison Surriver and was defeated and then again in Verona. Theodoric then headed for Milan where part of Odoassah's army had been left behind. Here we come to find a bit of game of throne style treachery.
The general there was a certain Tufa who promptly asked Theodoric to join his army. Theodoric accepted and sent Tufa to Ravenna where when he arrived he switched sides again causing the death of many Goths. This is also because Odoassah meanwhile had levied another army. In these times of migrating Germanic tribes that simply meant calling up the warrior citizens and some captured slaves and hey presto there's your army. This was all bad news for Theodoric but he also had an ace up his sleeve.
Indeed soon after that fresh Vizigothry enforcement arrived under King Alleric II which allowed Theodoric to defeat Odoassah once again along the banks of the Adda on the 11th of August. Odoassah escaped back to Ravenna and Theodoric followed. However finding it impenetrable he simply dug a trench round it, stuck some troops in it and headed off to Rome where he was welcomed as a liberator and from there he proceeded to conquer the south of the peninsula.
I must mention that this is according to a slightly older source. More recent sources don't have Theodoric visiting Rome until at least the year 500 so about 10 years after the events we're talking about. Meanwhile after a two year siege in which the inhabitants were reduced to eating dog meat and grass Ravenna fell in 493. The signing of the peace treaty was overseen by the Bishop Giovanni.
Some sources mention that it was only the offer of this treaty that actually got Odoassah to surrender the city. Now, at this point sources seem to differ on exactly what happened. Some sources say that the agreement was for the two to rule together, while others report that this was suggested by Odoassah to Theodoric and this was the reason for the former's death.
There are also some sources which talk of a banquet given by Theodoric in Odoassah's honour, at the end of which it seems that Theodoric himself may have killed an out ex-ruler of Italy. Yet other sources speak of this happening around 10 days after the banquet. However things may have really gone, it's quite clear that Theodoric was never really crazy about the idea of joint rule and whenever it may have happened, Odoassah died and soon after him, his family and many of his officers.
He had reigned for 17 years from the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 to his definitive defeat and death in 493. Next time we'll see how Theodoric and his successors got along and what state the country was in. Until then, thank you very much for listening. If you want to get in touch and say hello or ask a question, please do so.
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