King of the Ostrogoths. Probably an illegitimate son of Theodomir of the royal Amal line of the Ostrogoths. When the Ostrogoths sought to become a client kingdom of Rome the resultant treaty sent Theodoric to Constantinople as a royal hostage at the age of eight. At eighteen, he was sent home as an encouragement for his father to suppress an uprising led by Theodoric Strabo which threatened Roman power. Theodoric was given his own command and gained a victory over Strabo and was elevated to the joint kingship in 471 as a reward. By 475 his father was dead, leaving the throne to Theodoric. He continued to campaign against Strabo to protect his throne, however. When Strabo died in 481, Theodoric received the titles of patricius and magister militum and in 484 was appointed a Roman consul by the emperor who then sent him to lead a campaign against the usurper Odoacer in Italy in order to regain it for the empire. Theodoric crossed into Italy in 488, winning the battles at the Isonzo and Milan in 489, and at the Adda in 490; he besieged and took Ravenna in 493. At last, Odoacer consented to a treaty by which he was to share his authority with Theodoric. Invited to a banquet, Odoacer, his son, and chief officers were summarily murdered and Theodoric made himself master of Italy claiming to be its viceregent. He respected Roman institutions, preserved Roman laws, and appointed Romans to civil offices; he improved the harbors, and repaired the roads and public buildings while settling Goths throughout Italy. Despite intermittent warfare with the Franks between 506 and 523, his reign was considered something of a golden age. In 507, he became king of all the Goths, uniting Spain and Italy under one rule. Apparently conspiracy against him in favor of a return to direct imperial rule began to grow as he entered old age, and the union of Goths and Romans he created began to fail. He died in 526, naming his grandson Athalaric as his heir and his daughter Amalasuintha as regent. Barely a decade passed before Italy fell to Byzantine forces under Justinian.