How an Empire Ends: Origin of the Goths

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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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