Famous Men of the Middle Ages · Ch. IV · Unit 2: The barbarian kingdoms
7. Theodoric the Ostrogoth
Goal: Your child can tell how Theodoric grew up as a hostage, led his whole people over the Alps, and became king of Italy.
You'll need
- The book, open to this chapter
- A map of Europe and the Mediterranean (a free online map or a globe)
- Paper and colored pencils
- Your timeline strip (see the tips at the top)
What's in the book
Chapter IV (475-526 A.D.): Theodoric is sent as a boy to Constantinople as a hostage and educated there. As king of the Ostrogoths he is sent by Emperor Zeno to take Italy from Odoacer, who had replaced the last Western emperor. He leads 250,000 people over the Alps, wins battles at Aquileia, Verona (where his mother rallies his men) and the Adda, starves Ravenna into surrender, then murders Odoacer and rules Italy for thirty-three years.
The lesson, step by step
Set the scene
Find the Black Sea and Constantinople (Istanbul today). Then trace a line west to the Alps and down into Italy: Aquileia, Verona, Ravenna.
SayThis time a whole people moved: men, women and children, with their wagons and horses.
Read the chapter
Read Chapter IV aloud. It begins:
The Ostrogoths, or East Goths, who had settled in Southern Russia, at length pushed southward and westward to the mouth of the Danube.
Heads-up: near the end Theodoric murders Odoacer at a banquet, a few days after promising to share Italy with him.
A word from history
The book explains the word hostage: a person given to another king as a pledge that a treaty would be kept.
Ask: Theodoric lived as a hostage for ten years. How was he treated? What did he learn?
Tell it back
Prompts:
- Who was Odoacer, and how had he become ruler of Italy?
- What did the Ostrogoths do when they saw Italy from the top of the Alps?
- How did Theodoric's mother save the battle of Verona?
- How did Theodoric finally take Ravenna?
Talk it over
Read Theodoric's words on the Alps:
There is the country which shall be our home. Let us march on. It certainly shall be ours.
Ask: The book praises Theodoric's long rule, but also tells how he killed Odoacer. Can someone be a good ruler and also do something very wrong?
Remember it
Add to the timeline: "Theodoric, king of Italy" with the dates the book gives, 475-526.
If your child read the Rome book, say: Odoacer is the man who ended the Western Empire in 476.
Afterwards
Ask your child to explain to someone what a hostage was, using Theodoric as the example.
Tip
Theodoric's long march is a good place to ask what it would be like to move house with everything you own in a wagon, over mountains.
Answers to the book's problems
Odoacer had been a general under the last Western emperor, Romulus Augustulus; the unpaid soldiers drove out the emperor and chose Odoacer. The Ostrogoths shouted and danced for joy. She stopped the men who were running away and shamed them into going back to fight. He surrounded Ravenna and kept food out until the city had to surrender. Good answers notice both sides; the book itself tells both.
Worked out for this site from the scan. If a number in your copy differs, trust the book.