He succeeded his father Euric as King of the Visigoths in Toulouse on 28 December 484;[2] he was the great-grandson of the more famous Alaric I, who sacked Rome in 410.

Herwig Wolfram opens his chapter on the eighth Visigothic king, "Alaric's reign gets no full treatment in the sources, and the little they do contain is overshadowed by his death in the Battle of Vouillé and the downfall of the Toulosan kingdom.

[4] The earliest-documented event in Alaric's reign concerned providing refuge to Syagrius, the former ruler of the Domain of Soissons (in what is now northwestern France) who had been defeated by Clovis I, King of the Franks.

[5] However, Wolfram points out that at the time "Clovis got no farther than the Seine; only after several more years did the Franks succeed in occupying the rest of the Gallo-Roman buffer state north of the Loire."

[10] The most serious consequence of this battle was not the loss of their possessions in Gaul to the Franks; with Ostrogothic help, much of the Gallic territory was recovered, Wolfram notes, perhaps as far as Toulouse.

Gesalec proved incompetent, and in 511 King Theodoric assumed the throne of the kingdom ostensibly on behalf of Amalaric—Heather uses the word "hijacked" to describe his action.

[13] In religion Alaric was an Arian, like all the early Visigothic nobles, but he greatly mitigated the persecution policy of his father Euric toward the Catholics and authorized them to hold in 506 the council of Agde.