Eraric, Heraric or Ariaric, the Rugian (died 541), was briefly King of the Ostrogoths.
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👉 Eraric in the context of Totila
Totila, original name Baduila (died 1 July 552), was the penultimate King of the Ostrogoths, reigning from 541 to 552. A skilled military and political leader, Totila reversed the tide of the Gothic War, recovering by 543 almost all the territories in Italy that the Eastern Roman Empire had captured from his Kingdom in 540.
A grandnephew of Theudis, sword-bearer of Theodoric the Great and king of the Visigoths, Totila was elected king by Ostrogothic nobles in the autumn of 541 after the deaths of Kings’ Ildibad & Eraric. Both had been killed by the Gothic nobility for attempting to surrender to the Romans. Totila proved himself both as a military and political leader, winning the support of the lower classes by liberating slaves and distributing land to the peasants. After a successful defence at Verona, Totila pursued and defeated a numerically superior army at the Battle of Faventia in 542. Totila followed these victories by defeating the Romans outside Florence and capturing Naples. By 543, fighting on land and sea, he had reconquered the bulk of the lost territory. Rome held out, and Totila appealed unsuccessfully to the Senate in a letter reminding them of the loyalty of the Romans to his predecessor Theodoric the Great. In the spring of 544, the Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I sent his general Belisarius to Italy to counterattack, but Totila captured Rome in 546 from Belisarius and depopulated the city after a yearlong siege. When Totila left to fight the Byzantines in Lucania, south of Naples, Belisarius retook Rome and rebuilt its fortifications.
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Eraric in the context of Rugians
The Rugii, Rogi or Rugians (Ancient Greek: Ρογοί, romanized: Rogoi), were one of the smaller Germanic peoples of Late Antiquity who are best known for their short-lived 5th-century kingdom upon the Roman frontier, near present-day Krems an der Donau in Austria. This kingdom, like those of the neighbouring Heruli and Sciri, first appears in records after the death of Attila in 453. The Rugii, Heruli, Sciri and others are believed to have moved into this region from distant homelands, and become part of Attila's Hunnic empire which also moved and came to be based in this region. The Rugii were subsequently part of the alliance which defeated Attila's sons and the Ostrogoths at the Battle of Nedao in 454, giving their kingdom independence. In 469 they were part of a similar alliance who lost to the Ostrogoths at the Battle of Bolia, weakening their kingdom significantly.
Many Rugii, once again along with Sciri, Heruli and other Danubians, joined Odoacer in Italy and became part of his kingdom there. Fearing new plots against him, he nevertheless invaded the Rugian kingdom in 487, and the Rugian lands were then settled by the Lombards from the north. Most Rugii still in the Danubian region eventually joined the Ostrogoth Theoderic the Great who killed Odoacer and replaced him with a Gothic-led regime in Italy. The Rugii were based in Pavia and played an important role in the Italian kingdom until it was destroyed by Justinian. The third last king was the Rugian Eraric who died in 541. After him these Rugii disappear from history.