Alaric I in the context of "Sparta"

The Visigoths (/ˈvɪzɪɡɒθs/; Latin: Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, Wisi) were a Gothic people who emerged in the Balkans during late antiquity. Likely descended from the Thervingi who entered the Roman Empire in 376 and defeated the Romans at the Battle of Adrianople (378), they were first united under Alaric I (395–410), whose forces alternately fought and allied with Rome before famously sacking the city in 410.

In 418, the Visigoths were settled as foederati in southern Gaul, establishing a kingdom with its capital at Toulouse. From there they expanded into Hispania, displacing the Suebi and Vandals. Defeat by the Franks under Clovis I at the Battle of Vouillé (507) ended Visigothic rule in Gaul, but the kingdom consolidated in Spain and Portugal, where it endured for two centuries.

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 sack of Rome on 24 August 410 AD was undertaken by the Visigoths led by their king, Alaric. At that time, Rome was no longer the administrative capital of the Western Roman Empire, having been replaced first by Mediolanum (now Milan) in 286 and then by Ravenna in 402. Nevertheless, the city of Rome retained a paramount position as "the eternal city" and a spiritual center of the Empire. This was the first time in almost 800 years that Rome had fallen to a foreign enemy, and the sack was a major shock to contemporaries, friends and foes of the Empire alike.

The sacking of 410 is seen as a major landmark in the fall of the Western Roman Empire. St. Jerome, living in Bethlehem, wrote: "the city which had taken the whole world was itself taken".

The Greuthungi (also spelled Greutungi) were a Gothic people who lived on the Pontic steppe between the Dniester and Don rivers in what is now Ukraine, in the 3rd and the 4th centuries. They had close contacts with the Tervingi, another Gothic people, who lived west of the Dniester River. To the east of the Greuthungi, living near the Don river, were the Alans. As such, the Greuthungi are strongly identified with the archeological sites known collectively as the Chernyakhov culture.

When the Huns arrived in the European Steppe region in the late 4th century, first the Alans were forced to join them, and then a part of the Greuthungi. Alans and Goths became an important part of Attila's forces, together with other eastern European peoples. Many Greuthungi, together with some Alans and Huns, crossed the Lower Danube to join a large group of Tervingi who had entered the Roman Empire in 376. These peoples defeated an imperial army in the Battle of Adrianople in 378, and came to a settlement agreement within the Roman empire by 382 AD. The original tribal names of the Goths fell out of use within the empire. Many of the 382 settlers appear to have become an important component of the Visigoths who formed under Alaric I.