Radagaisus

Radagaisus († August 23, 406 ) was a Gothic military leader, probably a Greutunge . In 405/06 he led an essentially Gothic army - realistic estimates assume around 20,000 warriors; that would correspond to a total of about 100,000 people - from the clutches of the Huns to northern Italy. Whether the train was composed of a polyethnic, i.e. H. consisted of several different tribes in addition to Gothic groups , cannot be answered clearly; only Zosimos speaks of it.

Radagaisus left a trail of devastation on his way to Northern Italy. He besieged Florence , but was defeated by a relief army, which also included Uldin's Hunnic troops , under the command of the Western Roman master Stilicho in the battle of Faesulae . After the defeat, Radagaisus was captured and executed shortly afterwards. Stilicho incorporated parts of the opposing army into his army, the rest were enslaved. The prices for slaves are said to have collapsed due to this oversupply.

literature

• Peter J. Heather : The Fall of the Roman Empire. Macmillan, London et al. 2005, ISBN 0-333-98914-7 , pp. 194 ff.
• John Robert Martindale: Radagaisus. In: The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (PLRE). Volume 2, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1980, ISBN 0-521-20159-4 , p. 934.
• Herwig Wolfram :  Radagais. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (RGA). 2nd Edition. Volume 24, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2003, ISBN 3-11-017575-4 , pp. 55–56. ( online at Google Books )
• Herwig Wolfram: The Goths. From the beginning to the middle of the sixth century. Draft of a historical ethnography. 4th edition. Beck, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-406-33733-3 , p. 175 f.