A people originating in the Baltic area. Migrations in search of farmland took them to the Danube delta and the western Black Sea by the 3rd century ad. They raided Greece and threatened the eastern Mediterranean but were temporarily repulsed by Claudius II “Gothicus”. Aurelian conceded Dacia and the Danube to them. Competition over land with the migrating Huns drove them south in 376 and they defeated the Roman emperor Valens at Adrianople. A treaty of alliance followed but on the death of Theodosius they ravaged the empire and Rome itself under the leadership of Alaric I. They occupied parts of Gaul and Spain (Languedoc and Catalonia), assisting Rome against other barbarians, notably against the Huns at the Catalaunian Fields in 451. Frankish and Muslim invaders defeated and absorbed the Visigoths in the following two centuries.