RUGII. — A Germanic population that apparently came from Scandinavia (Jordanes, Getica, 25) to settle on the coasts of western Prussia. It is mentioned by Tacitus (Germania, 43) and by Ptolemy (III, 58), who, however, do not precisely mark their settlements.
After these fleeting mentions, they are not spoken of again for a long time.
There can be no doubt, however, that, as happened with other Germanic populations, they constantly sought to move southward, and indeed in the early years of the 5th century they reached the middle Danube, where they had to endure the overbearing proximity of the Huns, whose fortunes they followed; they are in fact present among Attila's plundering bands. After his death and the consequent collapse of the Hunnic Empire, they were received as federates of Rome, settled partly in Thrace (around Bizye and Arcadiopolis) and partly in Noricum. Those of Noricum had better fortune owing to the disappearance of any Roman authority in the country, and two of their sovereigns, Flaccitheus and his son Feletheus, attained a certain standing, governing fairly peacefully and procuring a certain prosperity for the country. Important information about this period of theirs is found in the Vita s. Severini written in 511 by Eugippius. Severinus (v.) was the apostle of Noricum and knew how to make himself heard by the sovereigns of the R., before whom he defended Catholic doctrines (the R. were, like almost all barbarians, Arians) and the interests of the Roman population of Noricum. When the Saint died in 482, the brother of King Feletheus plundered and destroyed the monasteries. When relations between the Empire of Constantinople and Odoacer became tense, the R., at the suggestion of the emperor Zeno, attacked Odoacer, but were gravely defeated: their king Feletheus, taken prisoner to Italy, was killed. The surviving R. then relied on the neighboring Ostrogoths, and in Theodoric's following they descended into Italy against Odoacer. They perhaps lived in Italy together with the Ostrogoths, and together with them disappeared after the Byzantine reconquest of Italy.
Bibliography2 works
Roberto Paribeni