North of the Danube, various German tribes were already extending their territory by the first century CE.

By the latter half of the second century CE, they were making devastating incursions into Roman territories.

Nevertheless, Roman arms and diplomacy had maintained relative stability until the late fourth century, when other Germanic tribes, including the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, and Vandals, were able to establish settlements in Roman territory south of the Danube.

The Roman province of Noricum gradually becomes indefensible, and much of the Christian, Romanized population evacuates the region in 488.

The Ostrogoths invade Italy in 493, seize control of what remains of the western half of the Roman Empire, and bring the Roman era in the eastern Alps to an end.