Totila

Totila, also admits Baduila under the name, was from 542-52 king of the Ostgoten. It died 552 in the battle of Busta Gallorum.

origin

Totila was a nephew of the Ostgotenkönigs Hildebad. After the devastating defeats of the Ostgoten against the eastRoman field gentleman Belisar and the capture of the Witiges 540, the Ostgoten with trouble had succeeded in receiving north the river Po a remainder state alive. Totila was the Comes (very freely shown with count) of Treviso and center 542 to the king was probably selected.

the fight against east Rome and the successful first years

the goal Totilas was it, the policy of the eastRoman emperor Justinian I. to defeat, which come down to an appropriation of Italy and thus on a Restauratio imperii. Actually Totila was very successful at the beginning, whereby he profited from the fact that Justinians best troops were bound in the Orient, where they had to lead since 540 war against the Sassaniden. Thus Totila took twice Rome (end of 546 and at the beginning of 550). However its possibilities thereby were exhausted, which can be also read off from it that the conquest of the eternal city succeeded to him, not however, to keep these also long-term. Totila arrive nevertheless also in the field some remarkable successes, particularly since under its guidance a eastgothical fleet was brought into being.

After the second income of Rome Totila started besides a propaganda campaign, in which he placed the picture of a in-pregnant way of life from Ostgoten and Italikern to times Theoderichs of the large one to the years of suffering and the war and the hard tax policy opposite Justinians. Actually it was however not least tactics Totilas, which let this second Gotenkrieg in such a way specified run many more bloodily than the first in the years 535-40. For Italy this blood pouring meant actually the end of the antique ones. Won nevertheless Totila unite inlet, particularly since he accepted slaves, which is to be seen in addition, in the context of its politics, which met with it the senators and supporters Konstantinopels.

With regard to foreign policy it less success had granted. Neither it succeeded to induce it Franconias to a marriage alliance still (probably from the beginning illusory) the acknowledgment of the Ostgotenreiches by east Rome to receive. When the eastRoman troops set under Narses to a large-scale land offensive, it was foreseeable that Totila had to let it arrive on a decisive encounter.

Totilas end

of Narses 'troops - with scarcely 30,000 elite soldiers an army quite large for late ancient times of conditions - crossed the Balkans and engaged from the north to Italy, whereby they went around the gothical lines of defense. Over Verona and Rome the army on Totila marched itself too, that in Umbrien with Busta Gallorum in close proximity to Taginae to 30. June or 1. July of the yearly 552 with approximately 20,000 men to the fight placed. In this battle the Ostgotenheer under the arrows bled mounted eastRoman elbow contactors. Totila fell either during the battle or briefly thereafter on the escape. Thus the dream of a statement of the Ostgoten was in Italy to end. The Ostgoten under Teja could collect itself again, yet the loss of a majority of the eastgothical Reiterei meant also the completion of the effective resistance.

Totila lived on later than hero figure - already Prokopios of Caesarea did not malfunction the respect to him, likewise the German writer Felix Dahn in its 1876 history novel “a fight for Rome”, appeared.

literature

J. Martindale: The Prosopography OF the Later novel Empire IIIb. Cambridge 1992, S. 1328-1332.