occupation thorismund
The Visigoths were the western branches of the nomadic tribes of Germanic peoples referred to collectively as the Goths . These tribes flourished and spread during the late Roman Empire in Late Antiquity , or the Migration Period . The Visigoths emerged from earlier Gothic groups ( possibly the Thervingi ) who had invaded the Roman Empire beginning in 376 and had defeated the Romans at the Battle of Adrianople in 378 . Relations between the Romans and the Visigoths were variable , alternately warring with one another and making treaties when convenient . The Visigoths invaded Italy under Alaric I and sacked Rome in 410 . After the Visigoths sacked Rome , they began settling down , first in southern Gaul and eventually in Spain and Portugal , where they founded the Visigothic Kingdom and maintained a presence from the 5th to the 8th centuries AD . Italy , officially the Italian Republic , is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe . Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea , Italy shares open land borders with France , Switzerland , Austria , Slovenia , San Marino and Vatican City . Italy covers an area of and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate ; due to its shape , it is often referred to in Italy as " lo Stivale " ( the Boot ). With 61 million inhabitants , it is the fourth most populous EU ___MASK96___ state . The Goths were an East Germanic people , two of whose branches , the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths , played an important role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of Medieval Europe . The Goths dominated a vast area , which at its peak under the Germanic ___MASK10___ Ermanaric and his sub - ___MASK10___ Athanaric possibly extended all the way from the Danube to the Don , and from the Black Sea to the Baltic Sea . The Visigothic Kingdom or Kingdom of the Visigoths was a kingdom that occupied what is now southwestern France and the Iberian Peninsula from the 5th to the 8th centuries . One of the Germanic successor states to the Western Roman Empire , it was originally created by the settlement of the Visigoths under ___MASK10___ Wallia in the province of Aquitaine in southwest France by the Roman government and then extended by conquest over all of the Iberian Peninsula . The Kingdom maintained independence from the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire , the attempts of which to re - establish Roman authority in Iberia were only partially successful and short - lived . Thorismund ( Gothic : Þaurismoþs ) , also Thorismod or Thorismud , as manuscripts of our chief source confusingly attest ) , ( c . 420 -- 453 ) became ___MASK10___ of the Visigoths after his father Theodoric was killed in the Battle of Châlons in 451 CE . He was murdered in 453 and was succeeded by his brother Theodoric II . Thorismund appears to have played a pivotal role in the Battle of Châlons as he led a contingent of the Visigoth forces into capturing an important summit at the very early stages of the conflict . The summit seems to have extended to the whole of the left flank of the Ostrogoth and Hun forces . Thorismund descended from the hills during the late stages of the conflict , when the Huns had prevailed over the Alans , and the Ostrogoths were pushing the disorganized Visigoths after the death of their ___MASK10___ Theodoric . Thorismund led his force of Visigoths to a decisive charge which , according to Gibbon , flanked both the Ostrogoths and subsequently the Huns and snatched the victory from his enemies . Gaul ( Latin : " Gallia ") was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age that was inhabited by Celtic tribes , encompassing present day France , Luxembourg , Belgium , most of Switzerland , Northern Italy , as well as the parts of the Netherlands , Central Italy and Germany on the west ___MASK7___ of the Rhine . It covered an area of 190 , 800 mi² or 494 , 169 km² . According to the testimony of Julius Caesar , Gaul was divided into three parts : Gallia Celtica , Belgica and Aquitania . Archaeologically , the Gauls were bearers of the La Tène culture , which extended across all of Gaul , as well as east to Raetia , Noricum , Pannonia and southwestern Germania during the 5th to 1st centuries BC . During the 2nd and 1st centuries BC , Gaul fell under Roman rule : Gallia Cisalpina was conquered in 203 BC and Gallia Narbonensis in 123 BC . Gaul was invaded after 120 BC by the Cimbri and the Teutons , who were in turn defeated by the Romans by 103 BC . Julius Caesar finally subdued the remaining parts of Gaul in his campaigns of 58 to 51 BC . Alaric I (- " supreme chief / ___MASK89___ " 370 ( or 375 ) 410 AD ) was the first ___MASK10___ of the Visigoths from 395  410 , son ( or paternal grandson ) of chieftain Rothestes . Alaric is best known for his sack of Rome in 410 , which marked a decisive event in the decline of the Roman Empire . The Migration Period was a time of widespread migrations within or into Europe in the middle of the first millennium AD . It has also been termed the ( German ) and , from the Roman and Southern European perspective the ___MASK87___ Invasions . Many of the migrations were movements of Germanic , Slavic , and other peoples into the territory of the then Roman Empire , with or without accompanying invasions or war . Theodoric I ( 390 or 393  20 or 24 June 451 ) was the ___MASK10___ of the Visigoths from 418 to 451 . An illegitimate son of Alaric , Theodoric is famous for his part in defeating Attila at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains in 451 , where he was killed on June 24 . Theodoric II ( Gothic : Þiudareiks II ), " Teodorico " in Spanish and Portuguese , ( 426  early 466 ) was the eighth ___MASK10___ of Visigoths from 453 to 466 . Late Antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages in mainland Europe , the Mediterranean world , and the Middle East . The development of the periodization has generally been accredited to ___MASK66___ Peter Brown , after the publication of his seminal work " The World of Late Antiquity " ( 1971 ). Precise boundaries for the period are a continuing matter of debate , but Brown proposes a period between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD . Generally , it can be thought of as from the end of the Roman Empire ' s Crisis of the Third Century ( c . 235  284 ) to , in the East , the early Islamic period ( 7th  9th centuries ), following the Muslim conquests in the mid  7th century . In the West the end was earlier , with the start of the Early Medieval period typically placed in the 6th century , or earlier on the Western edges of the empire . The Battle of Adrianople ( 9 August 378 ), sometimes known as the Battle of Hadrianopolis , was fought between an Eastern Roman ___MASK43___ led by the Eastern Roman ___MASK49___ Valens and Gothic rebels ( largely Thervings as well as Greutungs , non - Gothic Alans , and various local rebels ) led by Fritigern . The battle took place about north of Adrianople ( modern Edirne in European Turkey , near the border with Greece and Bulgaria ) in the Roman province of Thracia . It ended with an overwhelming victory for the Goths and the death of ___MASK49___ Valens . Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a ___MASK56___ state largely located on the Iberian Peninsula in southwestern Europe , with two large archipelagos , the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea and the Canary Islands off the North African Atlantic coast , two cities Ceuta and Melilla in the North African mainland and several small islands in the Alboran Sea near the Moroccan coast . Its mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with Gibraltar ; to the north and northeast by France , Andorra , and the Bay of Biscay ; and to the west and northwest by Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean . It is the only European country to have a border with an African country ( Morocco ) and its African territory accounts for nearly 5 % of its population , mostly in the Canary Islands but also in Ceuta and Melilla .