Theodoric takes Ravenna
Sent to Italy by the emperor Zeno, Theodoric and his Ostrogoths besieged Odoacer in Ravenna for two and a half years; after the city surrendered, Theodoric killed Odoacer and became master of Italy.
- Date
- 490 – 5 March 493start: year known; end: exact date · duration: ≈ 3 years
- Place
- Ravennatoday: Ravenna, Italy · Western and Central Europe
- Participants
- Theodoric the Great, Ostrogoths, Odoacer, Zeno, Byzantine Empire
- Threads
- Europe in the Roman age (1st–5th c.)
- Also known as
- Siege of Ravenna; Rabenschlacht; Осада Равенны; Воронья битва; Ostrogothic conquest of Italy
In 488 Zeno commissioned Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths in the Balkans, to overthrow Odoacer and rule Italy in the emperor’s name. The Goths crossed the Julian Alps in 489, defeated Odoacer on the Isonzo and at Verona and in 490 on the Adda, and Odoacer shut himself up in impregnable Ravenna. After a long blockade, Bishop John of Ravenna negotiated an agreement in February 493 that the two kings would rule jointly.
Theodoric entered Ravenna on 5 March 493 and ten days later, on 15 March, killed Odoacer with his own hand at a banquet. Ruling from Ravenna until 526 as king of the Goths and the emperor’s representative for the Romans, Theodoric kept the Roman administration and the Senate in place, and his reign was remembered as a time of peace and prosperity for Italy.
Connections
Causes and preconditions
- Deposition of Romulus Augustulus4 September 476 · Western and Central EuropeZeno sent Theodoric to overthrow Odoacer
Related events
- Baptism of Clovisbetween 496 and 508 · Western and Central EuropeTheodoric married Clovis’s sister Audofleda
- Gothic War (535–554)535–554 · Western and Central EuropeThe war destroyed the Ostrogothic kingdom founded by Theodoric in 493
Same participants
- Battle of the Catalaunian Plains20 June 451 · Western and Central Europevia Ostrogoths
- Corpus Juris Civilis7 April 529 – 16 November 534 · Balkans and Anatoliavia Byzantine Empire
Meanwhile in the world
Other regions, within 25 years of this event
Eastern Europe
- Early Slavic cultures: Prague-Korchak, Penkovka and Kolochinc. 450 – c. 700
- Kyi, Shchek and Khoryv: the legendary founding of Kyivbetween 500 and 700
The same period
Sources
- Wikipedia (English): Siege of Ravenna (490–493)
- Wikipedia (English): Theodoric the Great
- Wikipedia (Russian): Воронья битва
- Wikipedia (Russian): Теодорих Великий
- Moorhead J. Theodoric in Italy. — Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.
- Удальцова З. В. Италия и Византия в VI веке. — М.: Изд-во АН СССР, 1959.
- Wikidata: Q354560