Under Alaric in 410 CE, the Visigoths invade Italy and sack Rome. After uniting the tribes, Gothic King Alaric attacks the nerve center of civilized Imperial Rome. Not long before, with the Visigoths relocating in Germania, Alaric made an uncertain peace pact with Rome. It fizzled badly.
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Alaric I is the first king of the Visigoths, ruling from 395 - 410 CE. His name means ruler of all. He takes leadership of the Goths occupying Moesia, south of the Danube River. Under the Roman emperor Theodosius (r. 379 - 395 CE) Alaric becomes a Roman ally.
He suffers serious disappointment when he allies with the Romans to defeat the Franks at the Battle of Frigidus River in 394. The Franks are another Germanic group of the lower and middle Rhine. Despite thousands of losses, his men in the role of human shields for the Romans, Alaric barely receives a mention in the Roman annals of victory.
The lack of gratitude upsets him and he departs the Roman army. In 395 the emperor dies and the armies dissolve. In this year Alaric is mentioned as King of the Visigoths.
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He was born into a time of tumult. The Huns advanced and forced his family and tribes across the Danube. There waited the Roman Eagle to snatch them into its claws.
Alaric grew up in the Balkans, where the Goths settled through an agreement with Roman Emperor Theodosius. Growing up near the Roman border, Alaric understood early the wartime situation and became familiar with traditional and Roman methods of life. He also witnessed slaves and captives of Rome, from many tribes.
Surrounded by Gothic veterans of the Battle of Adrianople in 378, a decisive victory against the Romans, he heard much about warfare. He received training from the Gothic warrior Gainas and later joined the Roman Army.
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At this time the Goths have achieved an unstable contract with Rome, allowing them to settle the Balkan lands and remain independent as long as they supply soldiers for Roman military campaigns. After the death of Emperor Theodosius, and the subsequent uprising of the Goths, Alaric takes his people on a roundabout route to raiding and pillaging, acts earning them the name "wolves of the north".
He and his people occupy Roman roads just outside Rome in the first years of the 5th century, looting with swift guerrilla tactics. By now Alaric has acquired great wealth.
Then comes a fateful battle in 402 at Pollentia, with a decisive victory for the Romans. Not only do they capture his wife and family, they steal all his loot.
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Alaric is sorely pissed. Despite the Romans' offers to return the hostages, he refuses to settle for the easy compromise of pretend peace. Or just doesn't want the family back. Then comes another defeat for Alaric at Verona, and the Goths withdraw from Italy. Alaric returns to the northwest Balkans.
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He doesn't sit and lick his wounds for long. In 405 a swath of Goths and other barbarians from outside the empire cross the Danube River and march into northern Italy. Under their leader, Gothic king Radagaisus, they plunder the countryside and lay siege to cities and towns. Radagaisus intends to sacrifice the Senators of the Christian Roman Empire to the gods and burn Rome to the ground.
Alaric plays it cool. He's in a good position in the Balkans, as a threat or potential ally to either side. In 406 - 407 another swarm of barbarians arrives, including Vandals and Sueves (Suebi). Alaric goes to what is now Austria. From the Romans he demands 4,000 pounds of gold to withhold another invasion.
Declared an enemy of the Emperor, Alaric takes an army of 30,000 men to Rome to prove the point. In 408 he besieges Rome, allowing nothing and no one in or out. With the country falling apart from the inside, attacked by vengeful barbarians and attempts of puppet emperors to overthrow the regime, the Romans begin to realize they aren't the most powerful force on the planet any more.
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After Imperial threats, senatorial pleas and much bargaining, on behalf of the starving citizens the emperor agrees to pay a ransom. The ransom consists of
3,000 hides dyed scarlet
3,000 pounds of pepper
4,000 silken tunics
5,000 pounds of gold
30,000 pounds of silver
40,000 freed Gothic slaves
Alaric departs, pleased. The emperor Honorius, young son of the defunct Theodosius, then goes back on his promises. His primary point of opposition is the appointment of Alaric as head of the Roman Army.
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In 409 Alaric sets up a puppet Emperor, a common trend those days, who causes one disaster after another. After a major strategic blunder, Alaric deposes him and heads for Rome. On 24 August 410, Alaric and his forces begin the sack of Rome, an assault lasting three days.
Alaric needs food for his people, which he takes in abundance. Riches followed, then clerics and the sister of Honorius, Galla Placidia. He sets about pillaging and plundering nearby Roman towns. In the 6th century the writer Procopius says:
"... they destroyed all the cities which they captured, especially those south of the Ionian Gulf, so completely that nothing has been left to my time to know them by, unless, indeed, it might be one tower or gate or some such thing which chanced to remain. And they killed all the people, as many as came in their way, both old and young alike, sparing neither women nor children. Wherefore even up to the present time Italy is sparsely populated."
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After sacking the area for three days, Alaric intends to take his troops on a sea journey to Sicily, possibly to get more food. A raging storm destroys the whole fleet. Not long afterward, in 411, Alaric is on a return journey to Rome. He takes ill with an unknown disease, described as fever, and dies.
According to legend his body is buried under the riverbed of the Busento in southern Italy. It was traditional practice among the Visigoths to divert the flow of a watercourse, bury the body then remove the blockade and let the river resume its route.
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