

A power struggle with the young Visigoth king Alaric II marked much of Clovis’ reign, but in 507 Clovis defeated and killed his rival near Poitiers, in west-central Gaul. Clovis famously converted to Catholicism, and his kingdom blended Roman and Germanic cultural traditions. After defeating the last Roman governor of Gaul at the Battle of Soissons in 486, Clovis established a united kingdom of various Frankish peoples stretching from the west bank of the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. The son of Childeric, the pagan king of a Germanic tribe known as the Salian Franks, Clovis assumed the throne in 481, when he was only 15 years old. (Credit: Florilegius/SSPL/Getty Images)Ĭlovis I was the first ruler of the Merovingian dynasty, which would rule in Gaul and Germany from 500 to 750 A.D., and is considered the founder of France. Odoacer managed to hold out for a while in Ravenna, but after signing an agreement to govern the city jointly in 493, Theodoric murdered Odoacer, his family and his followers.Ĭlovis I, King of the Franks. Eventually, Zeno’s alliance with Ostrogoth (eastern Goth) leader Theodoric spelled the end for Odoacer’s reign, as Ostrogoth forces invaded Italy in 489 and soon captured nearly the entire peninsula. He was a tolerant ruler, allowing the practice of Roman Catholicism despite his own Arian Christian faith. Though he officially recognized the sovereignty of the Byzantine emperor, Zeno, Orestes refused to restore Julius Nepos as emperor in the West (as Zeno wanted), instead declaring himself king. Odoacer’s forces captured and executed Orestes and sent Romulus Augustulus-the last Roman emperor in the West-into exile. In 476 A.D., after serving as a commander in the Roman Army in Italy, Odoacer led a rebellion against Orestes, a Roman general who had overthrown Western Emperor Julius Nepos and had his teenage son, Romulus Augustulus, declared as emperor. Most scholars agree that Odoacer, the first barbarian king of Italy, was the son of Edico the Hun, king of the Germanic Sciri tribe and advisor to the feared Hun leader Attila. (Credit: ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images) He died in 478 of natural causes, still undefeated on the field of battle. A victorious Genseric later returned to North Africa, where he successfully crushed two Roman attacks (in 461 and 468) and raided the territories of the Eastern Empire from Alexandria, Egypt to Anatolia.

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Thanks to the pope’s diplomacy, the Vandals agreed not to burn the city or massacre its inhabitants in exchange for free entry. Realizing the inadequacy of their defenses, the Romans again sent Pope Leo I to plead for mercy.

After Emperor Valentinian III was assassinated, voiding a treaty that had promised his daughter, Eudocia, to Genseric’s son in marriage, the Vandals marched on Rome in 455. Soon after the Vandal king Genseric (also Geiseric or Gaiseric) rose to power in 428 A.D., he led some 80,000 of his people to North Africa, where they established a kingdom that would effectively control the Mediterranean Sea for the next century. Why the Wampanoag Signed a Peace Treaty with the Mayflower Pilgrims In 453, he was found dead the morning after his wedding (he had multiple wives), apparently the victim of a fatal nosebleed, accidental alcohol poisoning or a murderous conspiracy, possibly involving his new bride, Ildico. The Romans sent Pope Leo I as a peace emissary, and though the details of their meeting are unknown, Attila subsequently withdrew his troops and returned to Hungary. Though a combined force of Romans and Visigoths blocked the invasion, Attila was undaunted, and in 452 he invaded Italy.
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A complicated series of events involving Western Emperor Valentinian III and his sister, Honoria, inspired Attila to invade Gaul (present-day France) in 450. After having Bleda killed, he assumed total control of an empire that stretched across Central Europe.

A onetime ally of Rome against other barbarian groups, including the Burgundians and Goths, Attila accepted hefty subsidies in gold in exchange for not attacking Roman territory-then did it anyway. Born into a royal family of Huns, a nomadic people based in what is now Hungary, Attila rose to power alongside his brother, Bleda, in 434 A.D.
