Redpill me on the Ostrogoths

From the late iron age to the 3rd century the region stretching from Northern Germany across Denmark to Sweden saw a rise in population, tribes in these areas sought to expand trade and settle in new areas with the Goths moving down the Vistula river (Poland) then to the Dniester (Ukraine). Here they found Romanised tribes near the black sea and good land in the Danube basin which they subdued using their proto-migration era military tradition. They began a transformation into more organized polities, the more agrarian Visigoths in modern day Romania and the more steppe oriented Ostrogoths north of the Dniester, however in the 4th century they themselves were subdued by neighboring steppe peoples.

The Ostrogoths fell under the Huns while the Visigoths sought to migrate south of the Danube to escape and the rest is history.

Depite their subjugation they proved more resilient than their masters and after the Hunnic empire evaporated the Ostrogoths strewn across Europe regrouped and under Theoderic went on to take Italy, however they lived in a time of rapid change, Justinian's reconquest of Italy reduced them and they were absorbed by the Lombards during their conquest, arguably living on as part of the fabric of Italy and parts of the Balkans.

The Ostrogoths are still with us if not in name, they were definitely an example to other Germanic tribes and part of the blueprints for the future kingdoms of Europe, a system that would eventually put an end to the chaos. Their tale is one of the survival of a people during an apocalypse, though dispossessed of land and freedom at times they retained their ideals through thick and thin and made it through.

After the fall of Rome, ostrobros discovered that kite shields and mail armor are pretty badass.