Thorismund "The Chaste" of the Ostrogoths

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorismund Thorismund From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Thorismund (Gothic: Þaurismoþs, also Thorismod or Thorismud, as manuscripts of our chief source confusingly attest[1]), (c. 420 – 453) became king 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 king Theodoric. Thorismund led his force of Visigoths in a decisive charge which, according to Gibbon, flanked both the Ostrogoths and subsequently the Huns and snatched the victory from his enemies.

References[edit] Jump up ^ Jordanes, De origine actibusque Getarum (Getica) 81, 174, 190, 201 and elsewhere. External links[edit]

Media related to Turismundo at Wikimedia Commons

Edward Gibbon, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 35 .....>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

From the Foundation for Medieval Genealogy page on Hungary:

http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/HUNGARY.htm#_Toc146273199

HUNIMUND (Ostrogoth Generation 11)

Iordanes names "Hunimundum" as son of "Hermanaricus"[40].

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THORISMUND (-killed in battle [451/55], Ostrogoth Generation 12)

Iordanes names "Thorismundo" as son of "Hunimundus"[41]. Iordanes records that "Thorismundo filius eius" succeeded as King of the Goths after the death of "Hunimundus filius quondam regis…Hermanarici" but was killed fighting the Gepids in the second year of his reign[42].

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BERIMUD (Ostrogoth Generation 13)

Iordanes names "Berimud" as son of "Thorismundo"[43]. Iordanes records that "Beremud…cum filio Vitiricho" left the Ostrogoths to join "Vallia rex Gothorum" [King of the Visigoths in Toulouse][44].

The implication of a later passage in Iordanes, which records that "Valamer…ex consobrino eius genitus Vandalario" succeeded as king after "Thorismundo" was killed[45], is that Berimud's departure was triggered after he was passed over in the succession.

References:

[40] Iordanes Getarum, MGH Auct. ant. V.1, p. 77.

[41] Iordanes Getarum, MGH Auct. ant. V.1, p. 77.

[42] Iordanes Getarum, MGH Auct. ant. V.1, p. 122.

[43] Iordanes Getarum, MGH Auct. ant. V.1, p. 77.

[44] Iordanes Getarum, MGH Auct. ant. V.1, p. 103.

[45] Iordanes Getarum, MGH Auct. ant. V.1, p. 122.

Ben M. Angel notes: The date presented by Medlands appears to neglect the 40-year Interregnum described by Jordanes (Iordanes) in the Getica (Getarum). This is further indicated in the passage regarding his son, Berimund, without explanation. For this reason, Thorismund's date of death should be adjusted backwards by 40 years.

This is further supported by a list of names of the Hun Emperors presented in a research thread created by followers of the video game Total War. From research by user "Borztogai Khan" (includes a lengthy list of sources at the end of his posting):

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=177854&page=3

1. Gazan (c.320-c.343)

2. Djilka (c.343-363)

3. Bulümar (Balamber) "Sheke" (c.360-378)

4. Alyp-bi (Uldin) "Alp-abai" or "Arbat" (378-390)

5. Aybat (Mundzuk or Charaton) (390-434) with subordinates Octar, Roila, and Ruga.

6. Bleda Khan (434-445) with subordinate Attila.

7. Attila (Avitohol) Khan (445-453) with

8. Ellac Khan (453-c.455)

9. Tengiz (Dengizich) Khan (453-469) with subordinate Tuldila c.457-469.

Attila's period came after the Interregnum, when the three brothers first went to war in Gaul, then returned to lead an insurrection against the Huns.

From the Getica/Getarum by Jordanes, as presented by Boudicca's Bard:

http://www.boudicca.de/jordanes4-e.htm

(250) And later, after the death of Vinitharius, Hunimund ruled them, the son of Hermanaric, a mighty king of yore; a man fierce in war and of famous personal beauty, who afterwards fought successfully against the race of the Suavi. And when he died, his son Thorismud succeeded him, in the very bloom of youth. In the second year of his rule he moved an army against the Gepidae and won a great victory over them, but is said to have been killed by falling from his horse.

(251) When he was dead, the Ostrogoths mourned for him so deeply that for forty years no other king succeeded in his place, and during all this time they had ever on their lips the tale of his memory. Now as time went on, Valamir grew to man's estate. He was the son of Thorismud's cousin Vandalarius. For his son Beremud, as we have said before, at last grew to despise the race of the Ostrogoths because of the overlordship of the Huns, and so had followed the tribe of the Visigoths to the western country, and it was from him Veteric was descended. Veteric also had a son Eutharic, who married Amalasuentha, the daughter of Theodoric, thus uniting again the stock of the Amali which had divided long ago. Eutharic begat Athalaric and Mathesuentha. But since Athalaric died in the years of his boyhood, Mathesuentha was taken to Constantinople by her second husband, namely Germanus, a cousin of the Emperor Justinian, and bore a posthumous son, whom she named Germanus.

From "Theodoric the Goth: Barbarian Champion of Civilisation", Chapter 2 (Pg. 18-19):

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20063/20063-h/20063-h.htm#p7

For 80 years the power of the Ostrogoths suffered eclipse under the shadow of Hunnish barbarism. As to this period we have little historical information that is of any value.

We hear of resistance to the Hunnish supremacy vainly attempted and sullenly abandoned. The son and the grandson of Hermanric figure as the shadowy heroes of this vain resistance.

After the death of the latter (King Thorismund) a strange story is told us of the nation mourning his decease for 40 years, during all which time they refused to elect any other king to replace him whom they had lost. There can be little doubt that this legend veils the prosaic fact that the nation, depressed and dispirited under the yoke of the conquering Huns, had not energy or patriotism enough to choose a king; since almost invariably among the Teutons of that age, kingship and national unity flourished or faded together.

At length, towards the middle of the fifth century after Christ, the darkness is partially dispelled, and we find the Ostrogothic nation owning the sovereignty of three brothers sprung from the Amal race, but not direct descendants of Hermanric, whose names are Walamir, Theudemir, and Widemir.

The Gepidae are regarded as being closely related to the Ostrogoths. From the English Wikipedia page on the Gepidae:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gepidae

History

The Gepids were first mentioned around 260 AD, when they participated with the Goths in an invasion in Dacia, where they were settled in Jordanes' time, the mid 6th century. Their early origins are reported in Jordanes' Origins and Deeds of the Goths, where he claims that their name derives from their later and slower migration from Scandinavia:

"You surely remember that in the beginning I said the Goths went forth from the bosom of the island of Scandza with Berig, their king, sailing in only three ships toward the hither shore of Ocean, namely to Gothiscandza. One of these three ships proved to be slower than the others, as is usually the case, and thus is said to have given the tribe their name, for in their language gepanta means slow." (xvii.94-95)[3]

The first settlement of the Gepids were at the mouth of the Vistula River, which runs south to north from the Polish Carpathian mountains.

"These Gepidae were then smitten by envy while they dwelt in the province of Spesis on an island surrounded by the shallow waters of the Vistula. This island they called, in the speech of their fathers, Gepedoios (perhaps Gibið-aujos, meaning 'Gepid waterlands' [1]); but it is now inhabited by the race of the Vividarii, since the Gepidae themselves have moved to better lands."

Their first named king, Fastida, stirred up his quiet people to enlarge their boundaries by war and overwhelmed the Burgundians, almost annihilating them in the 4th century, then fruitlessly demanded of the Goths a portion of their territory, a demand which the Goths successfully repulsed in battle. Like the Goths, the Gepids were converted to Arian Christianity.

Then in 375 they had to submit to the Huns along with their Ostrogoth overlords, becoming the favored Hun vassals. Under their king, Ardaric, Gepid warriors joined Attila the Hun's forces in the Battle of Chalons (the "Catalaunian fields") in Gaul (451). On the eve of the main encounter between allied hordes, the Gepids and Franks met each other, the latter fighting for the Romans and the former for the Huns, and seem to have fought one another to a standstill, with 15,000 dead reported by Jordanes, the main source for the events.

Such loyalties were personal bonds among kings, and after Attila's death in 453, the Gepids and other people allied to defeat Attila's horde of would-be successors, who were dividing up the subjugated peoples like cattle, and led by Ardaric, they broke the Hunnic power in the Battle at the River Nedao in 454:

"...a most remarkable spectacle, where one might see the Goths fighting with pikes, the Gepidae raging with the sword, the Rugii breaking off the spears in their own wounds, the Suevi fighting on foot, the Huns with bows, the Alani drawing up a battle-line of heavy-armed and the Heruli of light-armed warriors." (Jordanes, l.259)

After the victory they finally won a place to settle in the Carpathian Mountains.

"The Gepidae by their own might won for themselves the territory of the Huns and ruled as victors over the extent of all Dacia, demanding of the Roman Empire nothing more than peace and an annual gift as a pledge of their friendly alliance. This the Emperor freely granted at the time, and to this day that race receives its customary gifts from the Roman Emperor." (Jordanes, l.262)

Not long after the battle at the Nedao the old rivalry between the Gepids and the Ostrogoths spurred up again and they were driven out of their homeland in 504 by Theodoric the Great.

They reached the zenith of their power after 537, settling in the rich area around Belgrade. For a short time, the city of Sirmium was the center of the Gepid State and the king Cunimund minted golden coins in it.[4] In 546 the Byzantine Empire allied themselves with the Lombards to expel the Gepids from this region. In 552 the Gepids suffered a disastrous defeat from Alboin in the Battle of Asfeld and were finally conquered by the Lombards in 567.

Alboin had a drinking-cup made from the skull of Cunimund, which occasioned his death later in Italy, at the hands of an assassin sent by Rosamund, Cunimond's daughter.[5]

Many Gepids followed Alboin to Italy (see Paulus Diaconus), but many remained. In 630, Theophylact Simocatta reported that the Byzantine Army entered the territory of the Avars and attacked a Gepid feast, capturing 30,000 Gepids (they met no Avars). Recent excavation by the Tisza River at Szolnok brought up a Gepid nobleman from an Avar period grave who was also wearing Turkic-Avar pieces next to the traditional Germanic clothes in which he was buried.

References:

Jordanes (another repository for the Getica):

http://people.ucalgary.ca/~vandersp/Courses/texts/jordgeti.html

"The Kingdom of the Gepids", in: Lászlo Makkai and András Mócsy, editors, 2001. History of Transylvania, II: István Bóna, "From Dacia to Erdöelve: Transylvania in the period of the Great Migrations (271-896)"

http://mek.niif.hu/03400/03407/html/33.html

Apahida Artefacts

(Link out of date)

Notes

1. ^ Yeat, Theedrich (tr.). "Jordanes in Latin and English". Retrieved 2008-03-03.

http://www.harbornet.com/folks/theedrich/Goths/Goths1.htm

2. ^ Jordanes, Getica, XII.74: Haec Gotia, quam Daciam appellavere maiores, quae nunc ut diximus Gepidia dicitur ("This Gothia, which our ancestors called Dacia, we now call Gepidia.").

http://people.ucalgary.ca/~vandersp/Courses/texts/jordgeti.html#XII

3. ^ "Jordane's Origins and Deeds of the Goths". Northvegr. 2007. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2008-03-03.

http://web.archive.org/web/20070930215852/http://www.northvegr.org/...

4. ^ Short history of Sremska Mitrovica by Dr. Aleksandar Dekanski

http://www.dekanski.com/AD/Mitrovica/CivitasStDemetrii.htm

5. ^ The episode is told in Procopius, in Paulus Diaconus and in Andreas Agnellus

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Procopius

http://www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/Chronologia/Lspost08/PaulusDiacon...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Agnellus

External links

Map of Gepidia

http://www.historyonmaps.com/ColourSamples/cbig/Gepidak.jpg

Map of Gepid Kingdom (500 AD Europe)

http://www.euratlas.net/history/europe/500/index.html

Kingdom of the Gepids - location map

http://indoeuro.bizland.com/project/chron/europe3.gif

The photo is a picture taken from:

http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/photo/1211701013052855490NqBZnu

Depicting: Goth Heavy Cavalryman end of 4th C

Uploaded by: fordsmtack (apparently a horse enthusiast)

In album: Cavalry The Fighting Elite

In Webshots channel: home & garden

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Date uploaded: Nov 4, 2004