]]The Ostrogoths () were a branch of the Goths, an East Germanic tribe that played a major role in the political events of the late Roman Empire. The other branch was the Visigoths.The Ostrogoths established a relatively short-lived successor state of Rome in Italy and the Pannonia, even briefly incorporating most of Hispania and southern Gaul. They reached their zenith under their Romanised king Theodoric the Great, who patronised such late Roman figures as Boethius and Cassiodorus, in the firs