Quite a few of the Goths appear to have resented the settlement imposed on them in 382, even though it was very favourable by Roman standards. We do not know how many men Alaric led, or whether they consisted primarily of warriors who had not settled down in their new lands or also included whole communities. Certainly, they were strong enough to be seen as a dangerous force. From the beginning Alaric sought a senior military appointment from the Romans. Such a commission would have brought with it the right to food supplies for his men from the state. It is possible that all he and his followers hoped for was an improvement in their status and livelihoods well within the Roman system."
The Goths began plundering the provinces in Thrace and Macedonia. Once again, the absence of many regiments in Italy prevented Arcadius and Rufinus from dealing with them. Yet, as usual, they were more concerned with the threat posed by Roman rivals. Stilicho proclaimed that Theodosius had entrusted him with the guardianship of both his sons and led his army eastwards, ostensibly to deal with the rebellious Alaric. However, Arcadius rejected his assistance and instructed him to send the regiments from the eastern army back to Constantinople. There seems to have been friction between the western and eastern troops and it may well be that Stilicho could not control all of his men. In any case, he obeyed the order. He withdrew with all the regiments from the western army and did not engage Alaric.'2
The eastern regiments were led by an officer named Gainas, who was himself of Gothic extraction. When they arrived outside Constantinople they murdered Rufinus as he rode out to meet them. The latter's influence over the emperor was taken over by his chamberlain, the eunuch Eutropius, who for the moment was more concerned with consolidating his own power at court. For two years Alaric was left to plunder the provinces. In 397 Stilicho returned with an army bolstered by large contingents of barbarian allies. Eutropius and Arcadius proved no more enthusiastic about accepting his aid and thus acknowledging his right to intervene in the east. Alaric was blockaded and forced to retreat into Epirus, but then Stilicho himself withdrew without achieving any permanent victory. Acting on the advice of his favourite, Arcadius had declared Stilicho a public enemy. Around the same time the eastern government began talking to Alaric and eventually agreed to make him Master of Soldiers in Illyricum. The former army officer turned rebel had now become a Roman general. Clearly, Eugenius and Arcadius found this preferable to accepting the dominance of Stilicho."
Late in 397 Gildo, the man left in command of the North African provinces since Theodosius' reign, decided to defect with his province to the Eastern Empire. There was an immediate crisis since Italy and Rome relied so heavily on grain and other food from the region. Stilicho sent Gildo's brother and bitter enemy Mascezel in command of a small expeditionary force, which sailed to Africa from Italy. He was quickly successful. Stilicho was generous with his praise, but shed no tears when Mascezel fell into a river and drowned soon after his return. There were rumours that he had been thrown in by Stilicho's bodyguards.14
In the east Eutropius seems to have taken personal command in a successful campaign against the Huns, and this success prompted him to arrange to become consul in 399. It was customary at this time for the eastern and western emperors each to name one of the pair of consuls who took up office on i January and gave their names to the year. The post itself was one of prestige rather than real power, but it was ancient - there had been consuls now for nine hundred years - and aristocratic opinion was outraged by the idea of this hallowed office being held by a eunuch. As his unpopularity grew, so other senior men began to see Eutropius as vulnerable. In the same year some Gothic troops operating against bandits in Asia Minor chose instead to rebel, as their commander had a personal score against Eutropius. Gainas led a force against them, but then allied with the rebel troops and urged the emperor to grant their demand to dismiss his favourite. Arcadius' wife Eudoxia joined the chorus of condemnation of the chamberlain and eventually the emperor gave in. Eutropius at first sought sanctuary in a church, but gave himself up when he received the promise that his life would be spared. He went into exile in Cyprus, only to be executed a little later on the false pretext of plotting against the emperor.
For the moment the empress and her favourites dominated the court, but Gainas marched on Constantinople and the implicit threat of this force granted him a short-lived supremacy. He was named as consul for 400. However, his Gothic soldiers were unpopular when they were stationed in Constantinople and eventually he decided to send them to Thrace. However, as the columns formed up to leave, the rearmost parties were attacked by mobs. Large numbers were killed, including many of the soldiers' wives and children. One large group sought sanctuary in a church, but died when the building was set on fire with them still inside. Shortly afterwards Gainas was defeated by an army led by a general called Fravitta, who was also a Goth. Fleeing across the Danube, Gainas eventually died at the hands of a Hunnic king. Fravitta was executed by the Roman authorities just months after his victory on allegations of disloyalty. Generals who were too successful or too popular were seen as dangerous by the powers at court. Eudoxia and her allies had regained control of the court and thus the Eastern Empire."
In 401 Alaric left his haunts of the last few years and headed for Italy. The situation in the east had changed and the new regime was unlikely to be well disposed towards him when it had risen to power by criticising the prominence of `barbarian' and specifically Gothic generals such as Gainas. Free for the moment from internal disputes, there was a real chance that the imperial government might decide to withdraw his commission and use force against him. For the moment, Alaric judged that he could hope for better terms from Stilicho. We do not know how many men followed him. Those Goths who remained on the land they had been granted in 382 and contentedly farmed inevitably do not get mentioned in our sources. It is probably wrong to think at this stage of a whole people once again on the move, a delayed resumption of the migration that had brought the Goths across the Danube in 376. In the main his followers are likely to have been the young and restless. Perhaps they had failed as farmers or were the children born inside the empire for whom there was not enough land to share. There was also a long tradition in tribal societies of youths seeking glory and wealth as warriors or soldiers, something on which the Roman army had long relied to supply it with recruits. There cannot have been many who had fought at Adrianople more than twenty years before. Some of the warriors were doubtless accompanied by their wives and families, just as camp followers often trailed behind Roman army units. The behaviour of Alaric and his men in subsequent years was not that of a migrating people, but rather of an army.
Alaric's hope was to win negotiated concessions from the Western Empire, most likely including senior military rank and the use of state resources to feed and supply his followers. He was rebuffed. Therefore, while Stilicho was north of the Alps dealing with barbarian raids into Raetia (very roughly equivalent to modern Austria), Alaric invaded Italy in 402, brushing aside one small Roman force to besiege Milan. The city was a frequent imperial residence, but during these disturbed years the court spent more time and eventually settled in Ravenna, which was surrounded by marshland and very hard to attack. It was also more isolated. Stilicho returned to Italy and fought two (perhaps three) battles against the Gothic army. He captured Alaric's wife and children along with other distinguished prisoners, but also suffered losses himself and failed to win a decisive victory. There was a truce, before fighting broke out again and another battle was fought outside Verona, which again left no clear winner. Eventually Alaric withdrew, most probably through lack of food, and moved back into the Balkans for the next few years. There, on the border between the Eastern and Western Empires where neither side could exert much control, he waited, plundering or extorting the supplies he needed from Illyricum. Around 405 Stilicho was willing to negotiate and granted the Gothic leader the rank of Master of Soldiers. The court in Constantinople refused to acknowledge this, especially since it again im
plied the right of Stilicho to dictate to both east and west. 16
Stilicho soon faced more immediate problems. Near the end of the year a large force of Goths led by King Radagaisus launched a deep raid and once again reached northern Italy. These warriors were from the tribes beyond the Danube and had no connection with Alaric's men, save that they were all broadly Goths and spoke versions of the same language. Zosimus claims that there were 400,000 of them, but such a figure is clearly absurd for any tribal army, let alone a raiding band. He also tells us that Stilicho concentrated thirty units along with allied contingents in the force that met and utterly defeated the raiders. The Notitia Dignitatum lists 181 regiments for the field armies of the Western Empire, forty-six of them in Italy and forty-eight in Gaul. Stilicho seems to have summoned substantial forces from the northern frontiers to form this army. Precise numbers and distribution may well have been different in 405, but this still suggests that it was next to impossible to concentrate more than a small minority of the supposed mobile field army in one place, even assuming that all of Stilicho's units on this occasion were comitatenses. Once again, the lack of knowledge about the sizes of units makes it impossible to calculate the size of the army. Nevertheless, it proved sufficient to win a clear victory - the price of slaves is supposed to have fallen sharply when the market was flooded with captive Goths .17
During this campaign the first of a series of usurpers was proclaimed emperor by the army in Britain. He was murdered by the soldiers within a matter of weeks and his successor suffered the same fate after just a few months. The third in the line was Constantine, allegedly chosen because of his famous and imperial name, and he proved far more capable as a politician. Distant Britain often seems to have felt neglected by the imperial government and so inclined to make its own emperor, but rarely did these men prove content with just the rule of the island. Like others before him, Constantine crossed the Channel, probably in 407, and soon controlled most of Gaul as well as large parts of Spain. Stilicho sent a Gothic officer named Sarus, a bitter personal enemy of Alaric, to fight against the usurper. He enjoyed some success, but was then in turn forced to retreat.'8
On New Year's Eve, traditionally in 406, but a good case has been made for 405, raiding bands of two separate Vandal groups, the Silings and Asdings, as well as Suevi and Alans crossed the Rhine near Mainz. Once again, these seem to have been predominantly groups of warriors and not entire tribes migrating in search of new homes. There is no direct evidence for the often repeated story that the river had frozen, although this is certainly possible. Similarly, the claim that this movement was prompted ultimately by pressure from the Huns is unsubstantiated and generally unlikely. It is far more probable that the apparent weakness of the Roman frontier just seemed to offer an opportunity. If the earlier date is correct, then the withdrawal of troops from the Rhine to face Radagaisus could well have created this impression. In this case the usurpations in Britain and Constantine's occupation of Gaul may have been fostered by the failure of Honorius' representatives to stop the invaders. If the attack was only launched at the end of 406, then the warbands themselves may have been taking advantage of the confusion that inevitably followed the outbreak of civil war within the empire. No leader is named for this attack, but the co-operation between several distinct groups suggests the presence of one, or perhaps a few chieftains of considerable charisma. Very quickly the warrior bands overran and plundered the communities near the Rhine, before pushing on into the interior of the provinces. Constantine won some minor victories over them, greatly bolstering his support in Gaul, and seems to have kept them bottled up in the northern regions of Gaul. Yet he did not break them, and for the next few years these bands ranged individually or together through this region, plundering or extorting at will.'I
In 407 Alaric decided to take advantage of the situation and led his army back towards Italy in the hope of wringing an even better deal from the beleaguered Stilicho. In the next year he demanded 4,000 lb of gold as the price for not launching a new invasion. Stilicho, acting in a way now very familiar for Roman leaders, decided that Constantine was the greater threat and that Alaric could be hired to fight against him. He agreed to pay the gold, and went to the Senate, since such a vast amount was very difficult to secure at short notice and the wealthy senators were one of the most logical sources. In addition, temples and artworks in Rome were stripped to provide the necessary sum, but the senators were bitterly resentful of this bribing of an enemy. One described it as `not a treaty, but a pact of slavery."'
The priorities of the leading Romans shifted abruptly when news arrived that Arcadius had died on i May 408 at the age of just thirtyone. He was succeeded by his seven-year-old son Theodosius II - the infant had been named as Augustus when he was barely a year old. Stilicho and Honorius both announced their intention to go in person and supervise the accession of the new emperor, in the process no doubt making clear the primacy of the western court. Rivals ambitious to supplant Stilicho had long been encouraging Honorius - who was himself still only twenty-three - to mistrust him. They claimed that the general planned to make his own son emperor, perhaps instead of Theodosius. He certainly was determined to maintain a close link with the imperial family. When Honorius' wife and Stilicho's daughter died, Stilicho promptly replaced her as imperial consort with her sister. The young emperor resented his marginal role in running the empire, just as Valentinian II had before him.
Just who engineered the final confrontation is unclear. The payment to Alaric made Stilicho deeply unpopular and his enemies quickly scented an opportunity to attack him. There was a mutiny of the troops concentrated at Ticinum ready to be sent into Gaul. Several officers and senior civil servants - probably all men appointed by and loyal to Stilicho - were murdered. Honorius was there, but survived the bloodletting. Stilicho was some distance away, attended only by some barbarian troops who were staunch in their loyalty. By the time he reached Ravenna the emperor had ordered his arrest. He refused to fight, in spite of the fact that the soldiers with him were willing. Instead he sought sanctuary in a church, but gave himself up on the promise that his life would be spared. He was promptly executed, once again ordering his men not to protect him. His end was dignified, especially since it was rare for a senior Roman commander to accept death rather than take the chance of fighting a civil war. Perhaps he realised that he had been utterly outmanoeuvred and that his own position was now too weak for him to have any prospect of winning a struggle with Honorius. However, it is hard not to want to believe that he put the good of the empire before his own fate. It may even be true.2'
16
The Sister and the Eternal City
`In one city the whole world perished.' - Bishop Jerome reacting to the sack ofRome in 410.'
At first he ardently desired to eradicate the Roman name and to make all the Roman territory an empire of the Goths in fact as well as in name, and that ... Gothia should be what Romania had been.' - Orosius, fifth century AD.'
he man who profited most from the fall of Stilicho was Olympius, a senior bureaucrat rather than a soldier, who headed one of the main government departments as Magister Officiorum. As usual, there was a bloody purge of men associated with the dead leader and the wives and families of the barbarian soldiers who had remained loyal to him were massacred. Most of the men who survived promptly deserted to Alaric. Stilicho's son was hunted down and killed, although the torture of suspects failed to provide any evidence to back the claim that his father had been plotting to make him emperor. Since the deal with Alaric had done so much to discredit Stilicho, Olympius and Honorius refused to honour the agreement and rejected new attempts at negotiation. Yet they also failed to prepare for war and could not prevent Alaric being reinforced by another group led by his brother-in-law Athaulf. Grand claims were made for the victory won over Athaulf by a party of 300 Huns sent by Olympius, but this did not hinder the union of the two Gothic armies.3
Alaric invaded Italy once again and was able to a
dvance almost unopposed as far as Rome, which he blockaded in the winter of 408409. The Gothic army seized Portus, the great harbour town that supplied the city, and so cut off the bulk of its food supplies. Stilicho's widow Serena was now executed under trumped up charges of collusion with the enemy. It is even claimed that the nervous Senate wanted to revive public sacrifice and other pagan rituals in an effort to avert harm from the city. Zosimus claimed that the bishop of Rome - already more and more often known as the pope - grudgingly agreed as long as the rites took place in secret, but since this would have invalidated them nothing was actually done. The story is probably invented, but does give an idea of the fear pervading Rome at this time. Honorius and his ministers in Ravenna did nothing to help. Large numbers of slaves - most of them probably recently captured Goths, many in the war against Radagaisus - deserted to join Alaric's men. The Senate decided to negotiate, paying the Goths to end the blockade and sending a delegation to Ravenna to open talks between the emperor and Alaric. The latter was still hoping for official status within the imperial system and withdrew his army north to Ariminum (modern Rimini) where the discussions would take place.4
How Rome Fell: Death of a Superpower Page 36