Page:Bury J B The Cambridge Medieval History Vol 2 1913.djvu/142

114 Visigoths from the east. The decisive battle took place at Vouglé, in the neighbourhood of Poitiers (A.D. 507). The Visigoths made a heroic resistance, in which the Arvernians, led by Apollinaris the son of the poet Sidonius, especially distinguished themselves. But the Franks broke down all resistance, and Clovis slew Alaric with his own hand.

After the battle the Salians effected a junction with the Burgundians, and the combined forces advanced on Toulouse and burned that city. Then the conquerors divided their troops into three armies. Clovis subjugated the western part of the country, capturing Eauze, Bazas, Bordeaux, and Angoulême; his son Theodoric (Thierry) operated in the central region, and took the cities of Albi, Rodez, and Auvergne; Gundobad advanced towards the east, into Septimania, where a bastard son of Alaric II named Gisalic had just had himself proclaimed king, ousting the legitimate son, Amalaric. Soon there remained to the Visigoths, to the north of the Pyrenees, nothing but Provence, with its capital Arles, formerly the residence of the Praetorian Praefect and known as the "little Rome of Gaul" (Gallula Roma), The Franks and Burgundians had laid siege to this city when the army of the Ostrogoths came upon the scene. Theodoric had been unable to intervene earlier, for at the beginning of 508 a Byzantine fleet, perhaps at the instigation of Clovis, had landed a force on the shores of Apulia, and the king of the Ostrogoths had had to turn his attention thither. At length, in the summer, he sent an army across the Alps, and its arrival forced the Franks and Burgundians to raise the siege of Arles. His troops occupied the whole of Provence, but instead of restoring this territory to the Visigoths, the Ostrogoths kept it for themselves. Theodoric sent officials to the cities of Provence with orders to treat in a conciliatory fashion this people which had been "restored to the bosom of the Roman Empire." The Ostrogoths did not however content themselves with this success. Their general Ibbas retook Septimania from the Franks and Burgundians, capturing Narbonne, Carcassonne, and Nîmes. He left this territory, however, under the rule of Amalaric and rid him of his rival Gisalic. Communication was thus established along the coast of the Mediterranean between the kingdoms of the Ostrogoths and Visigoths.

Nevertheless Clovis gained considerable advantage from the war. If Septimania had eluded his grasp, he had extended his kingdom from the Loire to the Pyrenees. Gundobad alone obtained no profit from the struggle.

Clovis treated with clemency the Gallo-Roman populations whom he had just brought under his dominion. He ordered all clergy, widows, and serfs of the Church, who had been made prisoners by his troops during the campaign, to be set at liberty. There was no new distribution of lands. The Arians, indeed, were required to embrace the orthodox faith, but even their conversion was effected rather by persuasion