Goths (c150 - c550). The Goths were an early 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. Possibly originating in southern Sweden, the Goths are mentioned by Roman authors as living in the Vistula basin in northern Poland in the 1st century AD. During the subsequent centuries the Goths expanded towards the Black Sea, where they replaced the Sarmatians as the dominant power on the Pontic Steppe and launched a series of expeditions against the Roman Empire as far as Cyprus. During this time the Goths became divided into two major factions, the Thervingi and the Greuthungi, who were led by the Balti dynasty and Amali dynasty respectively. In the 300s, Ermanaric, king of Greuthungi, is said to have dominated a vast territory stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea as far as the Ural Mountains. During this time many of the Goths were converted to Arianism by the missionary Ulfilas, who devised a Gothic alphabet to write the Gothic Bible. In 370s, the territories of the Goths were overrun by the Huns. While the Greuthungi became subjects of the Huns, later being known as the Ostrogoths, many of the Thervingi, later known as Visigoths, crossed the Danube into the Roman Empire, where they, after suffering severe mistreatment, ignited a widescale rebellion and inflicted a massive defeat upon the Romans at the Battle of Adrianople in 378 AD. Under their leader Alaric I, the Visigoths embarked on a long migration within the Roman Empire, notably sacking Rome in 410 AD, and eventually settled in Gaul and Hispania, where they founded the Visigothic Kingdom. The Visigoths fought together with the Western Roman Empire against the Huns of Attila and allied Ostrogoths at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains in 451 AD, in which the Huns were defeated. The Ostrogoths broke free from Hunnic control soon afterwards, and eventually migrated to Italy in the late 5th century under their king Theodoric, where they founded the Ostrogothic Kingdom. Shortly after the death of Theodoric, Italy was reconquered by the Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I, only to be conquered again soon afterwards by the Lombards, by whom the Ostrogoths were subsequently assimilated. The Visigothic Kingdom lasted until 711, when it was destroyed by the Umayyad Caliphate. In northern Spain, a remnant of the Visigothic nobility under the leadership of Pelagius of Asturias established the Kingdom of Asturias and began the Reconquista. In the Crimea, a small Gothic community, known as the Crimean Goths, were able to maintain themselves for centuries. The Crimean Goths held close religious and political relations with the Byzantine Empire, and were perpetual enemies of the Khazars, against whom they fought together with Kievan Rus'. As late as the 18th century, certain inhabitants of Crimea might still have spoken Crimean Gothic. In modern times the Goths have played an important part in the nationalisms of Spain and Sweden, where its leaders have claimed descent from the ancient Goths. In all history there is nothing more romantically marvellous than the swift rise of this people to the height of greatness, or than the suddenness and the tragic completeness of their ruin. Amongst the actors in this story are some whose noble characters and deeds are worthy of eternal remembrance; and the events which it records have influenced the destinies of the whole civilized world., Henry Bradley; The Story of the Goths.