Vitiges
Witichis (also Vitigis, † probably 542) was 536-540 King of the Ostrogoths.
Life
Witichis who is not descended from the royal house of the Amali, but had military experience, led the Ostrogoths in the defensive war against the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian's troops. Witichis was proclaimed after the fall of Theodahad to the king, even though he did not belong to the royal house of the Amali; However, he then married Matasuentha out of the house of the Amali. Originally a royal bodyguard, he had emerged as a successful military commander since 530. His defensive measures against the imperial troops under Belisarius were initially successful, but he failed bloody in trying to take the front of the Eastern Roman troops Rome.
As the situation for the Goths was more hopeless, to Witichis Prokopios of Caesarea According sent a secret embassy to Persia, to persuade the Sassanids to attack the Roman eastern provinces. The Great King Chosroes I. attacked then 540 actually Ostrom on, but this relief for Witichis came too late. After he had holed up in Ravenna, the imperial army Master Belisarius could peacefully engage in the city in the spring of 540. The king fell into the hands of the Byzantines. According to the eyewitnesses Prokopios he had previously agreed to the suggestion of Gothic nobleman, Belisarius to wear the imperial dignity of the West. Witichis was brought to Constantinople Opel and treated very honorably. Justinian I. appointed him patricius and endowed him with a generous pension. Thus ended the first phase of Gotenkriegs.
Reception
Witichis is a principal of Felix Dahn's novel, A Struggle for Rome. Sometimes Witichis is considered as a model of Wittich in the saga of Dietrich von Bern speculative.