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In our last episode, we talked about how the Visigoths came to be: forged in the fire of the Gothic War of 376-382 and the immigration crisis that went along with it. Now, we’ll take a look at what happened to their kin who stayed on the northern side of the Danube—the Greuthungi who were not allowed to cross. What happened to them was 75 years under Hunnic dominion.

This time changed them. Some were brutally exploited. Still others were enriched beyond their wildest imaginings, riding at the head of a Wild Hunt that devoured all in its path—utnil, when next they met their kin who crossed the Danube, it was on opposite sides of a battlefield.

Join us as we map the rise of the Ostrogoths.

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In our last few episodes, we’ve told you what we know about pre-Roman Gothic archaeology, culture, and history. We’ve told you about conditions both inside and outside the Roman Empire that kicked off the Migration Era.

And now we’re going to tell you the story of one of those Gothic Wars in detail: the war of 376-382 AD. A war that may have occurred during Alaric’s childhood—and that may have been a radicalizing event for him and for thousands of people who followed him.

It’s the war—and the accompanying immigration crisis—that sets off a chain of events in which a people called the Visigoths rise—and the most famous of them, a man called Alaric, leads them all the way to the gates of Rome. This is where it all begins.

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In our last episode, we took a look at the outside forces driving the engine of the Migration Era: Hunnic migrations and invasions, constant displacement and conflict at the Roman borders. But

Goths lived inside Rome too—in the heart of the Italian peninsula, and also in the outer provinces, in territories that were conquered by force.

This story isn’t just about Goths that lived outside Rome. It’s also about the Goths that lived inside the Empire—as everything from slaves to soldiers to free citizens. How they were treated within that empire fueled and fed the wheel of the Migration era. Hatred of immigrants played a major role in Migration-Era conflicts--in ways scarily similar to events today.

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It was the beginning of the Migration Era where the Goths’ history with the Roman Empire begins. The Migration era was a cycle of wars and conflicts lasting hundreds of years. Alaric’s sack of Rome was only a small part of it. 

What started it? Nobody knows. But it would have been an extremely chaotic time to be alive, when ordinary people had to leave all that they’d built and flee in the face of invaders—who were also refugees fleeing violence that had wiped out their own homes. There would have been no safety anywhere.

The Migration Era was a vortex of death, where displaced victims, starving refugees, desperate people often wound up enacting the next round of violence on the populations they crashed into. And in this episode, we try to plumb the depths of that vortex.

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In our last episode, we delved into the archaeology of the pre-Roman Goths. But what about Gothic culture? What do we know about pre-Roman Gothic culture, before the Goths were Romanized?

To get a real sense of what is authentically Gothic is really difficult. We don’t have much information about the Goths’ daily lives or culture. We know almost nothing about their pre-Christian religious practices and beliefs. What we do have is a lot of military history from a Roman lens, and accounts from chroniclers like Tacitus—which have a lot of issues.

In this episode, we try to peel back the layers and discover what we can about pre-Roman Gothic culture.

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The Roman Empire stood for a thousand years. Many causes have been given for its downfall—but if just one group of people could be said to be culpable, it would be the Goths.

They stormed its borders en masse, scored outsized victories that no one had won before, killed two emperors and raised up their own, sacked the city of Rome after a thousand inviolable years; and built their own kingdoms within the Empire’s decaying corpse. Their name has inspired the names of architecture, literature and fashion into the modern day. Whenever you set the date of the fall of Rome, there’s no question the Goths were instrumental in felling it. So who were these people? Who were the Goths?

In this episode, we’re going to find out.

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In Enemy of My Dreams, Jenny based her heroine Julia partially on Julia the Elder—rebellious daughter of Augustus who got herself exiled to Pandateria for being, as the ancients say, “too slutty.”

Julia the Elder refused, REFUSED to rein it in. And for that, we adore her. But accounts of her life are told by men, sometimes her political enemies. She may have been a victim of slander, or engaged in deeper plotting that her dad wanted to keep secret. And while Julia the Elder was exiled for roughly five years, her daughter, Julia the Younger, was exiled for 20.

Join us as we explore the lives of these indomitable women with historical fiction author and classics scholar Tana Rebellis, author of the Exile Duology and expert in Julio-Claudian exile.

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In 450 AD, the Imperial Princess Honoria--daughter of Galla Placidia--was desperate to escape her arranged marriage. So she made an indecent proposal--to Attila the Hun.

On this single action, cities were torched. Saints were raised. Thousands died. And Venice was founded. Find out how it all went down.

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He was a fierce barbarian warlord—a man who had stood between his people and the Roman Empire since the sack of Rome. She was a Roman Imperial princess with a core of iron strength.

Born enemies, the love of Ataulf and Galla Placidia is marked by tragedy—but in its time, it burned hot enough to reshape an Empire. This is their story.

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This week’s Book Club author interview is none other than up-and-coming romantasy and historical romance author Jenny Williamson, discussing her upcoming debut Enemy of My Dreams: her huge historical crush on Alaric of the Goths, the inspiration for her entirely-made-up hot-mess heroine, and how she adds “verisimilitude” to her fight scenes.

Join Genn and guest co-host Liv Albert, of Let’s Talk about Myths, Baby!, as they crack open a beverage, and conduct a wild and slightly tipsy author interview.

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