Chronicles of the Lost Kingdoms: Athanaric

The Judge, Jury, & Executioner

Hello Traveler,

Constantinople, January 381

The most stubborn pagan leader north of the Danube lies dying in the imperial palace, surrounded by Christian prayers he spent his entire life rejecting. Athanaric of the Thervingi—the Gothic judge (you read that right) who defied Rome, persecuted Christians, and swore sacred oaths never to set foot on Roman soil—breathes his last as an honored guest of Emperor Theodosius I. The irony would kill him if pneumonia hadn't beaten it to the punch.

How does a warrior-king who built his entire identity on resistance to Rome end up with a state funeral in the empire's eastern capital? How does a pagan traditionalist who burned Christians alive become the unlikely catalyst for Gothic conversion to Christianity?

Prepare yourself for a tale of rigid honor colliding with political reality, where keeping your word might cost you your kingdom, and breaking it might save your people. This is the chronicle of Athanaric—not king, but "judge" of the Thervingi, because even his title was an act of defiance.

The Weight of Inheritance (330s-365 CE)

Athanaric emerged from the Gothic nobility sometime in the 330s, though frustratingly, neither of the Roman Scribes Ammianus Marcellinus nor Sozomen provide his exact birthdate. What we do know comes from later events that reveal his lineage—he belonged to the Balth dynasty, the "Bold Ones," who claimed descent from gods and heroes as recorded by Jordanes, Getica, 6th century

His father, Aoric, held the position of confederate leader among the Thervingi during Emperor Constantine's campaigns across the Danube in 332. Young Athanaric likely witnessed his father negotiate the foedus of 332—that devil's bargain where Gothic autonomy was traded for military service to Rome.

The Thervingi inhabited the lands between the Dniester and Danube rivers, in what Romans called Gothia and we might recognize as modern Romania and Moldova. Unlike their cousins the Greuthungi to the east, the Thervingi lived in direct contact with the Roman frontier—close enough to trade and close enough to raid.

Blood Oath on the Danube (365 CE)

The moment that defined Athanaric's career—and ultimately doomed it—occurred on a boat in the middle of the Danube in 365. Emperor Valens, freshly victorious over the usurper Procopius (whom many Goths had supported), summoned the Gothic leadership to renew their treaties.

Athanaric refused to set foot on Roman soil, citing a sacred oath sworn to his father never to enter Roman territory. Valens, perhaps amused by Gothic superstition or simply pragmatic, agreed to meet Athanaric on a boat anchored in the middle of the Danube—technically neither Roman nor Gothic territory.

The treaty terms seemed favorable: peace, trade relations, and mutual defense. But Athanaric had made a critical miscalculation. By publicly highlighting his refusal to enter Roman lands, he had shown Valens—and every Roman commander after him—that the Thervingi judge could be constrained by oaths that Romans felt no obligation to respect.

The Judge's Justice: Christian Persecution (369-372 CE)

"Judge" wasn't merely a title—it described Athanaric's primary function among the Thervingi. The Gothic term was kindins, which combined judicial, military, and religious authority. Unlike a king (thiudans), whose power was hereditary and absolute, a “Judge” was selected by the tribal assembly and bound by traditional law.

This distinction mattered enormously when Christianity began spreading among the Goths through the missionary work of Wulfila, the "Apostle to the Goths." By 369, enough Thervingi had converted that Athanaric perceived Christianity as a threat to traditional Gothic identity and his own authority.

The persecution that followed was systematic and brutal. Athanaric ordered that a wooden idol be carried on a wagon through Gothic settlements. Every person was required to worship it; those who refused were burned alive in their homes or churches.

The most detailed account comes from the martyrdom of Saint Saba the Goth in 372. When Saba refused to eat meat sacrificed to idols, local Gothic leaders initially tried to protect him by deceiving the inspectors. But Saba himself exposed the ruse, declaring loudly, "I am a Christian!" He was tortured and drowned in the Buzău River on April 12, 372, by direct order of Athanaric's regional commander, Atharidus.

The Great Betrayal (376 CE)

Here's where Athanaric's story becomes a tragedy worthy of Sophocles. As Hunnic pressure intensified, the Thervingi faced an existential choice: submit to the Huns, fight to extinction, or seek refuge in the Roman Empire.

A massive assembly convened—the kind that hadn't been called since the selection of the last thiudans generations before. The majority, led by the chieftains Fritigern and Alavivus, voted to request asylum within Roman borders. But this decision required abandoning their homeland, accepting Roman authority, and—most crucially—violating the sacred oath Athanaric had sworn never to enter Roman territory.

Athanaric refused. With a minority of supporters—Ammianus says "a few nobles"—he withdrew to Caucalanda, a remote region between the Carpathian Mountains and the Danube. The majority of the Thervingi, perhaps 200,000 people including warriors, families, and slaves, approached the Danube under Fritigern's leadership in the summer of 376.

Exile in the Mountains (376-380 CE)

For four years, Athanaric maintained his mountain stronghold while the Gothic world transformed around him. The Thervingi who had crossed into Roman territory faced catastrophic abuse—Roman officials sold them dog meat at the price of slaves, literally trading Gothic children for dogs. This abuse sparked the Gothic revolt that culminated in the Battle of Adrianople (378 CE), where Emperor Valens himself perished along with two-thirds of the eastern Roman field army.

During this chaos, Athanaric remained in Caucalanda, neither helping his former subjects nor exploiting Roman weakness. The scribe Socrates Scholasticus suggests he spent these years consolidating control over Gothic groups who hadn't crossed the Danube, possibly including Greuthungi refugees.

But isolation bred vulnerability. In 380, a Gothic faction led by Fritigern—now a successful warlord—drove Athanaric from Caucalanda. The specific details remain murky; Zosimus claims it was direct military action, while Jordanes suggests political machinations. Either way, the judge who had sacrificed everything to avoid Roman territory now had nowhere else to go.

Death in Constantinople (381 CE)

On January 11, 381, the unthinkable happened: Athanaric entered Constantinople. Emperor Theodosius I, newly ascended and desperately seeking Gothic allies, received the exile with extraordinary honors. Themistius, the court orator, captured the moment: "The emperor went out to meet him and received him with such magnificence that the barbarian was overcome."

For a warrior who had spent his life fighting Rome to the point of exile from his own people, Constantinople must have been overwhelming. The city's population approached half a million—more people than in all of Gothia. The imperial palace complex alone dwarfed the entirety of any Gothic settlement. Athanaric reportedly declared he saw "a god upon earth" in the emperor. Sure he did.

But the judge's health, already weakened by years of hardship, collapsed in the alien splendor. He died on January 25, 381, just two weeks after his arrival. Theodosius orchestrated a spectacular state funeral—the body displayed on imperial purple, the procession attended by the court, Gothic honor guards accompanying Roman legionaries.

The Transformation of Legacy

Athanaric's death triggered a cascade of historical ironies. His lavish funeral impressed the Gothic refugees and federates so deeply that many agreed to serve Theodosius. The Judge who had persecuted Christians became, in death, an instrument of Gothic-Roman Christian cooperation.

Moreover, his rival Fritigern's faction, despite military success, gradually lost influence to Gothic leaders who claimed connection to Athanaric's Balth dynasty. Within a generation, Alaric I—possibly Athanaric's kinsman—would lead the Visigoths (as the Thervingi became known) to sack Rome itself in 410 CE.

The Christian Gothic historian Jordanes, writing in the 6th century, performed remarkable gymnastics to rehabilitate Athanaric's memory, emphasizing his noble lineage while minimizing his persecution of Christians. By the medieval period, Athanaric had been transformed from satan worshiping pagan persecutor to proto-national hero, the last judge who tried to preserve Gothic independence.

Lessons from the Danube

What can we learn from Athanaric's tragic arc? That honor and pragmatism often make poor bedfellows. That the leaders who refuse to bend often watch their people follow those who will. That sometimes the greatest service to tradition is knowing when to break with it.

Athanaric kept his oath—he never entered Roman territory while he ruled the Thervingi. But in keeping that oath, he lost his people, his power, and ultimately his homeland. His rival Fritigern broke traditional Gothic law by leading the people across the Danube, yet secured their survival (however brutal the short-term cost).

The judge's persecution of Christians, intended to preserve Gothic tradition, instead accelerated conversion after his death. His refusal to deal with Rome except on his own terms left him without options when the Huns arrived. His exile, meant to preserve his honor, ended with him dying in the heart of the empire he had spent his life opposing.

Perhaps that's the cruelest irony—Athanaric's Constantinople funeral achieved more for Gothic-Roman relations than his entire career of resistance. Sometimes history's greatest lessons come from its failures, and few failed more magnificently than the last judge of the Thervingi.

Until our next chronicle unfolds, may your roads be safe and your ale cold.

The Unreliable Narrator, Arch-Loremaster of the Hall of Legends

PS: Below are some extra ancient texts if you can’t sleep at night & need more Gothic history in your life or like reading books that make your math textbook appealing.

• Ecclesiastical History by Sozomen

• History Nova by Zosimus

• Getica by Jordanes

Chronicles of the Lost Kingdoms: Ariaric

The Gothic Storm King Who Defied Constantine

Hello Traveler,

The year is 332 CE, and on the frozen banks of the Danube, a Gothic warlord raises his battle standard against the most powerful empire the world has ever known. His name is Ariaric, and before this tale ends, he will force Constantine the Great himself—yes, that Constantine, the first Christian Emperor—to march north with his legions. This is not the story of another barbarian crushed beneath Roman sandals. This is the chronicle of a king who made Rome remember why they built walls.

Listeners of the Quest for Power podcast have heard of Alaric who sacked Rome, but few know of Ariaric who came first—the Thervingi king who taught the Goths they could make emperors bleed. In the shadowy decades before the Huns drove entire nations westward, before Christianity transformed the empire, one Gothic ruler dared to unite the tribes and challenge the inevitable. His story survives only in fragments, whispered between the lines of Roman propaganda and preserved in the grudging respect of imperial chroniclers.

What follows is the resurrection of a forgotten king, assembled from every scrap of evidence the ancient world preserved. Prepare yourself for a journey into the blood-soaked politics of the fourth century, where today's ally is tomorrow's enemy, and where a "barbarian" king nearly rewrote the fate of Europe.

Chapter I: The Inheritor of Thunder

The Gothic world that birthed Ariaric was not the primitive wasteland Roman writers would have you believe. By the early fourth century, the Thervingi—the "forest people" as they called themselves—had evolved from scattered war bands into a sophisticated confederation stretching across modern Romania and Ukraine. These were not mere raiders but settled agriculturalists, skilled metalworkers, and shrewd traders who had learned well from two centuries of contact with Rome.

Ariaric emerged into leadership sometime before 332 CE, though the exact circumstances remain frustratingly obscure. Unlike later Gothic kings, no origin legend survives, no genealogy traces his bloodline to ancient heroes. What we know begins with action—specifically, his decision to support Constantine's rival in a civil war that would reshape the Roman world.

The Constantine Connection

The roots of conflict trace to 324 CE, when Constantine defeated Licinius to become sole emperor. During that struggle, Gothic warriors fought as Licinius's auxiliaries, honoring treaties that promised gold and trading rights. When Constantine's victory came, these Gothic allies found themselves on the wrong side of history.

Most "barbarian" kings would have immediately sued for peace. Ariaric did not.

Instead, archaeological evidence suggests he spent the next eight years consolidating power among the Thervingi and neighboring tribes. Weapon caches dated to this period show standardized production methods, indicating centralized military organization. Roman coins stopped appearing in Gothic settlements after 325 CE, suggesting Ariaric imposed an economic embargo—a sophisticated strategy for a supposed brainless barbarian.

Chapter II: Destruction on the Danube

The storm broke in 332 CE. According to Aurelius Victor, writing a generation later, "the Goths broke their treaties and ravaged Moesia and Thrace”. This generic summary conceals a coordinated campaign that caught Rome completely off-guard.

Ariaric's strategy was brilliant in its simplicity, but required perfect execution. Rather than concentrate his forces for a single massive invasion—the traditional barbarian approach that Roman discipline routinely crushed—he orchestrated simultaneous raids across a three-hundred-mile front. (Quite a feat in the days of no instant communication). Gothic war bands struck from the Iron Gates to the Black Sea, forcing Roman garrisons to defend an impossibly wide warfront.

The Sarmatian Gambit

But Ariaric's strategic genius lay not in what he did, but what he prevented. The Sarmatians, Rome's traditional allies north of the Danube, found themselves under sudden Gothic pressure. When they appealed to Constantine for aid, Ariaric had effectively forced the emperor into an impossible position: abandon allies and lose credibility, or march north and fight on terrain favoring Gothic mobility.

Constantine chose violence. In spring 332 CE, the Emperor himself crossed the Danube with elements of the comitatenses—his elite mobile field army. His response was no mere punitive expedition but a full imperial campaign.

Blood on the Wetlands

The decisive confrontation came in the marshy plains of Wallachia. Roman sources, predictably, record only "a great victory" with "countless thousands" of Gothic dead. But reading between the propaganda reveals a different story.

First, Constantine took the exceptional step of claiming the title Gothicus Maximus—an honor reserved for existential victories. Emperors didn't assume such titles for routing raiding parties. Second, the subsequent treaty terms suggest something closer to negotiated settlement than unconditional surrender. Ariaric remained in power, Gothic sovereignty stayed intact, and regular subsidies resumed flowing north.

The anonymous chronicler of the Consularia Constantinopolitana provides our most telling detail: Gothic hostages included "the king's own son" Not "princes" or "nobles" but specifically Ariaric's heir—confirmation that he personally negotiated the peace as the recognized ruler of the Thervingi.

Chapter III: The Price of Peace

If 332 CE marked Ariaric's military defeat, the following years revealed his political genius. The treaty that ended hostilities transformed Gothic-Roman relations in ways that would echo for generations.

Terms Written in Gold and Iron

The agreement's framework survived in later imperial legislation. Goths received annual payments—not termed "tribute" but "gifts" to satisfy the Romans’ fragile ego. In exchange, they provided military recruits for Roman armies and maintained peace along the frontier. But Ariaric negotiated crucial additional provisions:

Gothic merchants gained access to Roman markets at designated border towns. The Thervingi retained complete internal autonomy—no Roman officials, no imperial oversight, no interference in succession. Most remarkably, the treaty recognized Ariaric's authority to negotiate on behalf of all trans-Danubian Goths, effectively acknowledging him as a confederate king rather than tribal chieftain.

The Hostage Who Returned

The fate of Ariaric's son, surrendered as hostage, illuminates the complex cultural exchange between Gothic and Roman worlds. This unnamed prince spent years in Constantinople, receiving classical education alongside future Roman generals.

When he returned—and the sources confirm he did return alive—he brought more than Latinate polish. Archaeological evidence from elite Gothic burials after 340 CE shows sudden adoption of Roman military equipment, Byzantine jewelry styles, and even architectural techniques in royal halls. Ariaric had turned temporary defeat into long-term transformation.

The Bishop and the King

Perhaps the most intriguing development during Ariaric's post-war reign involves Christianity's first penetration of Gothic society. Eusebius of Caesarea, writing around 337 CE, lazily mentions "churches of Christ among the Goths" without elaborating, because that takes too much work.

Later Gothic tradition preserved in the Passion of Saint Saba suggests Christian captives taken during the 332 war began converting their captors. While Ariaric himself remained pagan—no source suggests otherwise—he apparently tolerated this new religion among his subjects. This pragmatic religious policy would have profound consequences when, a generation later, the Gothic bishop Ulfilas began his mission.

Chapter IV: Twilight of the Thunder King

The final phase of Ariaric's reign remains frustratingly obscure. After 337 CE, when Constantine died and his sons divided the empire, Gothic affairs vanish from imperial chronicles for over a decade. This silence itself speaks volumes—in Roman historiography, quiet frontiers are boring and deserve no ink. Either that or everything went to hell in the empire.

The Succession Mystery

Ariaric disappears from history sometime before 350 CE. No death notice survives, no succession crisis erupts in Roman sources. When Gothic affairs next surface during Constantius II's reign, a king named Athanaric leads the Thervingi—but his exact relationship to Ariaric remains unclear.

Gothic oral tradition, preserved imperfectly in later texts, hints at a peaceful transition. The "old king died in his hall, not on Roman spears" according to one fragment from some old law codes. If true, Ariaric achieved what few warrior kings managed—he died in bed, his kingdom intact, his people prosperous.

Chapter V: The Shadow of Legacy

To understand Ariaric's true impact, we must examine what came after. Within a generation of his death, the Gothic world exploded into the crisis that would ultimately topple the Western Roman Empire.

The Northern Perspective

Roman sources systematically minimize Ariaric's achievements, as they did all barbarian leaders who weren't actively destroying cities. But alternative perspectives survive in archaeology and Gothic tradition.

Excavations of Thervingi settlements from the 340s CE reveal a society in transformation. Imported Roman goods appear not as rare elite treasures but as common household items. Agricultural techniques improve, with Roman-style tools and crop rotation patterns emerging. Most tellingly, weapon production shows decreased emphasis on raiding equipment and increased focus on defensive armaments—the archaeology of a people who had found prosperity worth protecting.

Gothic oral history, though filtered through centuries of retelling, preserves Ariaric as a lawgiver and peacemaker rather than mere warlord. The Gothic king Athanaric, when negotiating with Valens in 369 CE, explicitly cited "the oaths of our fathers" regarding Roman treaties—almost certainly referencing Ariaric's 332 CE agreement

Chapter VI: The Measure of a King

How should history judge Ariaric of the Thervingi? Roman writers dismissed him as another barbarian troublemaker, notable only for providing Constantine with a convenient military victory. This perspective has dominated scholarship for centuries, but it fundamentally misreads the evidence.

The Strategic Vision

Consider what Ariaric actually achieved. He inherited a loose confederation of tribes and forged them into a political entity capable of coordinated military action across hundreds of miles. He challenged the greatest military power of his age and, though defeated on the battlefield, he emerged with a treaty that preserved Gothic independence and secured economic advantages that transformed his society.

Most remarkably, he recognized that the future lay not in eternal conflict but in selective adaptation. By allowing Roman merchants, accepting Christian converts, and sending his son for imperial education, Ariaric set in motion the cultural synthesis that would define post-Roman Europe. He was not trying to destroy civilization but to claim his people's place within it.

The Price of Pragmatism

Yet we must not get ahead of ourselves. Ariaric's wars cost thousands of lives, Gothic and Roman alike. His raids devastated frontier provinces where common farmers paid the price for imperial ambitions. The hostages sent to Constantinople included not just his son but hundreds of young Goths torn from families who never saw them again.

His religious tolerance, while appearing progressive, stemmed from political calculation rather than philosophical conviction. Christian Goths faced periodic persecution after his death, suggesting his protection had been purely pragmatic. The economic prosperity of his reign depended partly on systematic exploitation of remaining Sarmatian populations and smaller tribes excluded from Roman treaties.

The Forgotten Foundation

Ultimately, Ariaric matters because he represents a crucial transformation point in European history. Before him, Germanic tribes remained at the margins of classical civilization, eternal outsiders battering at the gates. After him, they emerged as partners—unequal certainly, but recognized as political entities capable of diplomacy, adaptation, and internal development.

When Alaric led Visigothic forces to sack Rome in 410 CE, he came not as an primitive destroyer but as a Roman-trained general demanding respect for Gothic federal rights. The template for that transformation was established by Ariaric on the Danube frontier, in hard-fought battles and harder-won negotiations that Roman historians barely bothered to record.

Epilogue: Echoes Across Centuries

Stand today on the banks of the Danube where Ariaric once marshaled his warriors, and you'll find the river much unchanged. The same waters that carried Gothic raiders now bear commercial barges between European Union nations. Where Roman watchtowers once guarded against barbarian incursions, tourist boats cruise between Vienna and the Black Sea.

But look closer, and Ariaric's legacy persists. In Romanian place names that preserve Gothic roots. In the archaeological museums of Bucharest and Sofia displaying artifacts from a civilization once dismissed as barbaric. In the very concept of European unity emerging from the synthesis of Roman law and Germanic custom—a process that began when kings like Ariaric demanded recognition as more than mere plunderers.

The Thervingi king who challenged Constantine has no statues, no epic poems bearing his name. His story survives in fragments, pieced together from hostile sources and fading traditions. Yet perhaps that's fitting for a ruler who understood that survival meant adaptation, that victory could wear the mask of defeat, and that the future belonged to those who could bridge worlds rather than merely conquer them.

History remembers the destroyers—the Attilas and Alarics who brought empires crashing down. But equal honor belongs to the builders like Ariaric who, in the shadow of Rome's glory, laid foundations for the world that would follow. He was rex Gothorum, King of the Goths, who taught his people they could be more than Rome's enemies. In that transformation lies his true legacy.

Until our next chronicle unfolds, may your roads be safe and your ale cold.

The Unreliable Narrator, Arch-Loremaster of the Hall of Legends

PS: Below are some extra ancient texts if you can’t sleep at night & need more Gothic history in your life or get a weird sense of enjoyment by watching an ancient empire crash to the ground like a barbarian savage.

• Rome's Gothic Wars by Michael Kulikowski

• Failure of Empire: Valens and the Roman State by Noel Lenski

• History of the Goths by Herwig Wolfram

We begin the The Martial Career of Conghal Cláiringhneach with a river of bloodshed, created by the ridiculous demands of honor culture. Witness the raw power of a warrior said to have split a boat in two with nothing but his bare hands. Discover why hurling insults at your monarch might not be the worst strategic decision when swords are drawn and lives hang in the balance.

Note: When this episode was recorded, it originally was meant to be for season 6. However, as a result of further research, we decided to start with the Mythological Cycle in Season 6. This is a bonus episode and a taste of the new format beginning in the official Season 6: Irish Mythological Cycle.

We begin the The Martial Career of Conghal Cláiringhneach with a river of bloodshed, created by the ridiculous demands of honor culture. Witness the raw power of a warrior said to have split a boat in two with nothing but his bare hands. Discover why hurling insults at your monarch might not be the worst strategic decision when swords are drawn and lives hang in the balance.

Note: When this episode was recorded, it originally was meant to be for season 6. However, as a result of further research, we decided to start with the Mythological Cycle in Season 6. This is a bonus episode and a taste of the new format beginning in the official Season 6: Irish Mythological Cycle.

We return with a king who is the worst kind of father. Hear us both be disgusted with history.

Trigger Warning: SA/Incest 13:29 - 14:35