Alaric II was the King of the Visigoths from 484 until 507. He succeeded his father Euric as king of the Visigoths in Toulouse on 28 December 484; he was the great-grandson of the more famous Alaric I, who sacked Rome in 410. He established his capital at Aire-sur-l'Adour in Aquitaine. His dominions included not only the majority of Hispania but also Gallia Aquitania and the greater part of an as-yet undivided Gallia Narbonensis.
A ring depicting Alaric II. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Imaginary portrait of Alaric II by Carlos Esquivel y Rivas. Oil on canvas (1856)
The Visigothic Kingdom, Visigothic Spain or Kingdom of the Goths occupied what is now southwestern France and the Iberian Peninsula from the 5th to the 8th centuries. One of the Germanic successor states to the Western Roman Empire, it was originally created by the settlement of the Visigoths under King Wallia in the province of Gallia Aquitania in southwest Gaul by the Roman government and then extended by conquest over all of Hispania. The Kingdom maintained independence from the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire, whose attempts to re-establish Roman authority in Hispania were only partially successful and short-lived.
Visigothic Kingdom
Theodoric I by Fabrizio Castello (1560–1617)
Clovis I fights the Visigoths
Visigothic pseudo-imperial gold tremissis in the name of Emperor Justinian I, 6th century: the Christian cross on the breast defines the Visigothic attribution. (British Museum)