Theoderic's family, the Amal dynasty, accumulated royal power in Roman Pannonia after the death of Attila, and collapse of his Hunnic empire.

Following the death of Theodoric, there was a period of instability, eventually tempting the Byzantine Emperor Justinian to declare war on the Ostrogoths in 535, in an effort to restore the former western provinces of the Roman Empire.

[3] By the third century, the Goths were already composed of sub-groups with their own names, because the Tervingi, who bordered on the Roman Empire and the Carpathian Mountains, were mentioned separately on at least one occasion.

These words are traditionally edited by modern scholars to include well-known peoples: "Peuci, Grutungi, Austrogoti, Tervingi, Visi, Gipedes, Celtae etiam et Eruli" (emphasis added).

A poem by Claudian describes Ostrogoths who are mixed with Greuthungi and settled in Phrygia together as a disgruntled barbarian military force, who had once fought against Rome, but were now supposed to fight for it.

Claudian only uses the term Ostrogoth once in the long poem, but in other references to this same group he more often calls them Greuthungi or "Getic" (an older word used poetically for Goths in this period).

[d] It is generally believed by historians that this Phrygian settlement of Greuthingi, referred to as including Ostrogoths, were part of the Greuthungi-led force led by Odotheus in 386, and not the Greuthungi who had entered the empire earlier, in 376 under Alatheus and Saphrax.

[14][15] Starting with the 6th century writer Jordanes, whose Getica is a history of the Ostrogothic Amal dynasty, there is a tradition of simply equating the Greuthungi with the Ostrogothi.

Wolfram follows the position of Franz Altheim that the terms Tervingi and Greuthungi were older geographical identifiers used by outsiders to describe these Visigoths and Ostrogoths before they crossed the Danube, and that this terminology dropped out of use around 400, when many Goths had moved into the Roman empire.

[21] As described above, there are two examples of Roman texts which mix Wolfram's proposed geographical and boastful terminologies as if these were separate peoples, and these are the only two early mentions of Ostrogoths before the Amals.

[25] This terminology survived in the Byzantine East as late as the reign of Athalaric, who was called του Ουαλεμεριακου (tou Oualemeriakou) by John Malalas.

[31] Like several other tribal peoples, they became one of the many Hunnic vassals fighting in Europe, as in the Battle of Chalons in 451, where the Huns were defeated by the Roman general Aetius, accompanied by a contingent of Alans, and Visigoths.

[32] Jordanes' account of this battle certainly cannot be trusted as he wrongly attributes a good portion of the victory to the Goths, when it was the Alans who formed the "backbone of Roman defences.

"[33] More generally, Jordanes, depicts the Amals as an ancient royal family in his Getica, making them traditionally preeminent among the Goths in Ukraine, both before and during the empire of Attila.

Under Valimir they were among the peoples who were living in the Middle Danube region by this time, and whose freedom from domination by Attila's sons was confirmed by the Battle of Nedao in 454, which was led by the Gepids.

The land they acquired between Vindobona (Vienna) and Sirmium (Sremska Mitrovica) was not well-managed, a fact which rendered the Ostrogoths dependent upon Constantinople for subsidies.

[45] They formed a military force which was loyal to Aspar, the East Roman magister militum ("master of soldiers") of Alanic-Gothic descent, who was killed in 471.

Zeno proposed a new federate kingdom for them in Dacia, north of the Danube, but instead the Goths attempted to take Durrës; however, Roman forces quickly repulsed them.

Historian Herwig Wolfram suggests that Theodoric's efforts in trying to appease Latin and barbarian cultures in kind brought about the collapse of Ostrogothic predominance and also resulted in the "end of Italy as the heartland of late antiquity.

[68] From 508 to 511 under Theodoric's command, the Ostrogoths marched on Gaul as the Vandal king of Carthage and Clovis made concerted efforts to weaken his hold on the Visigoths.

[71] Meanwhile, the Frankish king Clovis fought protracted wars against various enemies while consolidating his rule, forming the embryonic stages of what would eventually become Medieval Europe.

Atop this infighting, the Ostrogoths faced the doctrinal challenges incurred from their Arian Christianity, which both the aristocracy of Byzantium and the papacy strongly opposed—so much that it brought them together.

[75] The weakness of the Ostrogothic position in Italy now showed itself, particularly when Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I enacted a law excluding pagans—among them Arian Christians and Jews—from public employment.

Belisarius proved more capable at siege warfare than his rival Witiges had been at Rome and the Ostrogoth ruler, who was also dealing with Frankish enemies, was forced to surrender, but not without terms.

Belisarius refused to grant any concessions save unconditional surrender in view of the fact that Justinian wanted to make Witiges a vassal king in Trans-Padane Italy.

He made as if to accept the offer, rode to Ravenna to be crowned, and promptly arrested the leaders of the Goths and reclaimed their entire kingdom—no halfway settlements—for the Empire.

[85] Totila eventually recaptured all of northern Italy and even drove the Byzantines out of Rome, thereby affording him the opportunity to take political control of the city, partly by executing the Roman senatorial order.

Not for special facts, but for a general estimate, no writer is more instructive than Salvian of Marseilles in the 5th century, whose work, De Gubernatione Dei, is full of passages contrasting the vices of the Romans with the virtues of the "barbarians", especially of the Goths.

Arne Søby Christensen, in his detailed analysis lists three possibilities:[95] It has been pointed out by Walter Goffart that Jordanes (V.38) also digresses specially to criticize stories going around Constantinople, that the Goths had once been slaves in Britain or another northern island, and had been freed for the price of a nag.

[96][97] Fundamental to the question of the Scandza list, which mentions the Ostrogothae, there has been much scholarly discussion about why Jordanes claimed that Scandinavia was a "womb of the nations",[98] and the point of origin to not only the Goths but also many other northern barbarian peoples.