Alans in the context of "Alania"

The early Slavs were an Indo-European peoples and speakers of the Indo-European dialectswho lived during the Migration Period and the Early Middle Ages (approximately from the 5th to the 10th centuries AD) in Central, Eastern and Southeast Europe and established the foundations for the Slavic nations through the Slavic states of the Early and High Middle Ages. The Slavs' original homeland is still a matter of debate due to a lack of historical records; however, scholars generally place it in Eastern Europe, with Polesia being the most commonly accepted location.

It is generally agreed that ancient Roman writers referred to the ancestors of Slavs as Venedi. The proto-Slavic term Slav shares roots with Slavic terms for speech, word, and perhaps was used by early Slavic people themselves to denote other people, who spoke languages similar to theirs. The first written use of the name "Slavs" dates to the 6th century, when the Slavic tribes inhabited a large portion of Central and Eastern Europe. By then, the nomadic Iranian-speaking peoples living in the European Pontic Steppe (the Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans, etc.) had been absorbed by the region's Slavic-speaking population. Over the next two centuries, the Slavs expanded westwards (to the Elbe river and in the Alps), and southwards (into the Balkans, absorbing Illyrian and Thracian peoples in the process), and also moved eastwards (in the direction of the Volga River). Between the sixth and seventh centuries, large parts of Europe came to be controlled or occupied by Slavs, a process less understood and documented than that of the Germanic ethnogenesis in the west. Yet the effects of Slavicization were far more profound.

The Migration Period (c. 300 to 600 AD), also known as the Barbarian Invasions, was a period in European history marked by large-scale migrations that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire and subsequent settlement of its former territories by various tribes, and the establishment of post-Roman kingdoms there.

The term refers to the important role played by the migration, invasion, and settlement of various tribes, notably the Burgundians, Vandals, Goths, Alemanni, Alans, Huns, early Slavs, Pannonian Avars, Bulgars and Magyars within or into the territories of Europe as a whole and of the Western Roman Empire in particular. Historiography traditionally takes the period as beginning in AD 375 (possibly as early as 300) and ending in 568. Various factors contributed to this phenomenon of migration and invasion, and their role and significance are still widely discussed.

Alaric I (/ˈælərɪk/; Gothic: 𐌰𐌻𐌰𐍂𐌴𐌹𐌺𐍃, Alarīks lit.'ruler of all'; Latin: Alaricus; c. 370 – 411 AD) was the first king of the Visigoths, from 395 to 410. He rose to leadership of the Goths who came to occupy Moesia—territory acquired a couple of decades earlier by a combined force of Goths and Alans after the Battle of Adrianople.

Alaric began his career under the Gothic soldier Gainas and later joined the Roman army. Once an ally of Rome under the Roman emperor Theodosius, Alaric helped defeat the Franks and other allies of a would-be Roman usurper. Despite losing many thousands of his men, he received little recognition from Rome and left the Roman army disappointed. After the death of Theodosius and the disintegration of the Roman armies in 395, he is described as king of the Visigoths. As the leader of the only effective field force remaining in the Balkans, he sought Roman legitimacy, never quite achieving a position acceptable to himself or to the Roman authorities.

Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. It is an unitary semi-presidential republic composed by continental Portugal and two autonomous regions, with Lisbon as both its capital and largest city. The continental portion borders Spain to the north and east, with Madeira and the Azores in the Atlantic Ocean. It features the westernmost point in continental Europe.

The western Iberian Peninsula has been continuously inhabited since prehistoric times, with the earliest signs of settlement dating to 5500 BC. Celtic and Iberian peoples arrived in the first millennium BC. The region came under Roman control in the second century BC. A succession of Germanic peoples and the Alans ruled from the fifth to eighth centuries AD. Muslims invaded mainland Portugal in the eighth century, but were gradually expelled by the Christian Reconquista, culminating with the capture of the Algarve between 1238 and 1249. Modern Portugal began taking shape during this period, initially as a county of the Christian Kingdom of León in 868, and formally as a sovereign kingdom with the Manifestis Probatum in 1179.

The Franks (Latin: Franci or gens Francorum; German: Franken; French: Francs) were originally a group of Germanic peoples who lived near the Rhine-river military border of Germania Inferior, which was the most northerly province of the Roman Empire in continental Europe. These Frankish tribes lived for centuries under varying degrees of Roman hegemony and influence, but after the collapse of Roman institutions in western Europe, they took control of a large empire including areas that had been ruled by Rome, and what it meant to be a Frank began to evolve. Once they were deeply established in Gaul, the Franks became a multilingual, Catholic Christian people, who subsequently came to rule over several other post-Roman kingdoms both inside and outside the old empire. In a broader sense, much of the population of western Europe could eventually be described as Franks in some contexts.

The term "Frank" itself first appeared in the 3rd century AD, during the crisis of the 3rd century – a period when Rome lost control of regions near the lower Rhine. In the 4th century, Roman authors also began to use another new collective term for enemy tribes in the lower Rhine, "Saxons". Although the Saxons and Franks were later more clearly distinguished, there are signs that the terms Frank and Saxon were not always mutually exclusive at first. Over centuries, the Romans recruited large numbers of Frankish soldiers, some of whom achieved high imperial rank. Already in the 4th century, Franks were living semi-independently in parts of Germania Inferior. The Roman administration of Britain and northern Gaul once again began to break down, and in about 406 it was the Franks who attempted to defend the Roman border when it was crossed by Alans and Vandals from eastern Europe. Frankish kings subsequently divided up Germania Inferior between them, and at least one, Chlodio, also began to rule more Romanized populations to the south, in what is now northern France. In 451, Frankish groups participated on both sides in the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains, where Attila and his allies were defeated by a Roman-led alliance of various peoples established in Gaul.

The Goths were a Germanic people who played a major role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of medieval Europe. They were first mentioned by Graeco-Roman authors in the 3rd century AD, living north of the Danube in what is now Ukraine, Moldova, and Romania. From here they conducted raids into Roman territory, and large numbers of them joined the Roman military. These early Goths lived in the regions where archaeologists find the Chernyakhov culture, which flourished throughout this region during the 3rd and 4th centuries.

In the late 4th century, the lands of the Goths in present-day Ukraine were overwhelmed by a significant westward movement of Alans and Huns from the east. Large numbers of Goths subsequently began to concentrate near the Roman border at the Lower Danube, seeking refuge within the Roman Empire. Their entry into the Empire resulted in violence, and Goth-led forces inflicted a devastating defeat upon the Romans at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. Roman forces regained a level of control but many Goths and other eastern peoples were quickly settled in and near the empire. One of these groups, initially led by their king Alaric I, sacked the city of Rome in 410, they were the precursors of the Visigoths. The successors of the Visigoths eventually established a Visigothic Kingdom in Spain at Toledo. Meanwhile, Goths under Hunnic rule gained their independence in the 5th century, most importantly the Ostrogoths. Under their king Theodoric the Great, these Goths established the Ostrogothic Kingdom in Italy at Ravenna.

The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th centuries AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was part of Scythia at the time. By 370 AD, the Huns had arrived on the Volga, causing the westwards movement of Goths and Alans. By 430, they had established a vast, but short-lived, empire on the Danubian frontier of the Roman empire in Europe. Either under Hunnic hegemony, or fleeing from it, several central and eastern European peoples established kingdoms in the region, including not only Goths and Alans, but also Vandals, Gepids, Heruli, Suebians and Rugians.

The Huns, especially under their King Attila, made frequent and devastating raids into the Eastern Roman Empire. In 451, they invaded the Western Roman province of Gaul, where they fought a combined army of Romans and Visigoths at the Battle of the Catalaunian Fields, and in 452, they invaded Italy. After the death of Attila in 453, the Huns ceased to be a major threat to Rome and lost much of their empire following the Battle of Nedao (c. 454). Descendants of the Huns, or successors with similar names, are recorded by neighboring populations to the south, east, and west as having occupied parts of Eastern Europe and Central Asia from about the 4th to 6th centuries. Variants of the Hun name are recorded in the Caucasus until the early 8th century.

The Battle of Adrianople also known as Battle of Hadrianopolis was fought between the Eastern Roman army led by the Roman emperor Valens and Gothic rebels (largely Thervings as well as Greutungs, non-Gothic Alans, and various local rebels) led by Fritigern. The battle took place on 9 August 378 in the vicinity of Adrianople, in the Roman province of Thracia (modern Edirne in European Turkey). It ended with an overwhelming victory for the Goths and the death of Emperor Valens.

As part of the Gothic War of 376–382, the battle is often considered the start of the events which led to the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century.