Rugii (East Germanic tribe )
Nation | Defunct
1 CE to 600 CE
The Rugii, also Rugians, Rygir, Ulmerugi, or Holmrygir, are an East Germanic tribe who migrates from southwest Norway to Pomerania around 100 CE, and from there to the Danube River valley.
They are allies of Attila until his death in 453, and settle n what is now Austria after the defeat of the Huns at Nedao in 453.The Rugians help Odoacer establish the Kingdom of Italy, and convert to Arianism by 482.
In 487 they suffer a crushing defeat in Vienna at the hands of Odoacer and his Herulian and Scirian followers.
They then join with the Ostrogothic army of Theodoric in its campaign to take over Italy in 488–493.
Within the Ostrogothic Kingdom, they keep their own administrators and avoided intermarriage with the Goths.
They disappear after Totila's defeat in the Gothic war.
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Feletheus is the son of Flaccitheus, king of the Rugii and founder of the Kingdom of the Rugii; his brother is Ferderuchus.
Feletheus is married to the Goth Gisa, who is probably the cousin of the Amal Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great.
After the death of his father, probably in 475, Feletheus had succeeded his father as king of the Rugii.
Their territory at the time was based in Lower Austria.
In 476, Feletheus had supported Odoacer and his Scirian and Herulian in overthrow of the Roman Emperor Romulus Augustus.
Feletheus is a close confidant of Severinus of Noricum.
After the Eastern Roman Emperor Zeno attempts to create conflict between the Rugii and Odoacer, Feletheus executes his brother Ferderuchus, who supported Odoacer.
Odoacer subsequently invades the Kingdom of the Rugii in 487, dealing them a crushing defeat in their own territory and taking Feletheus and his wife into captivity, later executing them in Ravenna.
When word comes that Feletheus' son, Fredericus, had returned to his people, Odoacer sends his brother Onoulphus with an army back to Noricum against him.
Onoulphus finds it necessary to evacuate the remaining Romans from the ravaged territory and resettles them in Italy.
The Lombards, migrating south from the upper Elbe, settle the abandoned Rugian territory in 493.