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