It was the appearance of the Huns in the 370s that placed new and overwhelming pressures on the empire as peoples referred to in Roman sources as Goths were forced across its borders. By 382 some groups had been given some degree of independent status (see p. 611 above). As suggested earlier (p. 554) there is increasing reluctance among scholars to see the Goths as in any way a people defined by ethnicity. The term is perhaps most accurately used of those peoples who were bound into allegiance to a particular ‘Gothic’ leader.
In the 380s one of these leaders, Alaric, emerged as a highly effective commander who secured widespread support among the peoples who had migrated south of the Danube. His Goths are conventionally termed the Visigoths (in contrast to the Ostrogoths, those Goths who remained north of the Danube and outside the empire) but if they were to survive as a distinct group it was essential that they forged their own identity. After the declaration of Nicene orthodoxy by Theodosius in 381, this was partly through their dogged adherence to Arianism, but they also had their own language (and a Gothic script developed by the Christian missionary Ulfilas for the translated scriptures). To further preserve their identity they were forbidden to intermarry with Romans.
Alaric’s aim was to achieve, through diplomacy or force, a permanent settlement for his followers within the empire. When diplomacy failed he used the only weapon he had, the plundering of neighbouring land. By 395 he was moving his men into the Balkans through Thrace and Greece, using them as pressure points on the east. In 397 he seems to have been recognized by the eastern empire as a military commander in Illyricum but this recognition was not sustained and by 402 he was on the move again. This time he went west towards Italy.
Here his adversary was Stilicho, Theodosius’ former magister militum, ‘Master of Soldiers’. Stilicho was half German but had himself married Theodosius’ niece and later married his daughter to the young emperor Honorius, an indication of how complex the relationship between Roman and German had now become. Stilicho claimed that, on his deathbed, Theodosius had asked him to act as guardian of both his sons, in other words become the regent of the empire. His attempts to intrigue to this end in the east and, in particular, to transfer Illyricum, a plentiful source of recruits, to his half of the empire, were unsuccessful. His plotting increased resentment against him in Constantinople and led to increasing division between east and west.
The extent of Stilicho’s power in the west was shown in 402 when Honorius moved his court from Milan to Ravenna, a city surrounded by marshes and so almost impregnable. Honorius was in effect abdicating the traditional role of emperor as commander of his troops and from now on the western empire was normally fronted by a strong military figure, often German in origin, while the emperors lived in pampered seclusion. No wonder soldiers were said to yearn for the days of Valentinian when the emperor fought alongside his own men and shared their discomforts.
When confronted by Alaric Stilicho repulsed him but the Visigoth forces remained intact and probably settled back in Illyricum. By 405, however, Stilicho appears to have realized that the Visigoths could be sensibly used as soldiers within his own armies, possibly even as a means of entering the east. Before an agreement could be made, Alaric was threatening Italy once more, and in 407 Stilicho persuaded the senate to pay him over 4,000 pounds of gold and recognize him as an allied force. This agreement infuriated the east, who recognized the threat Stilicho’s ambitions now posed, especially after the eastern throne became vacant on the death of Arcadius in 408. Honorius himself had no wish to compromise with the ‘barbarian’ Goths and in 408 Stilicho’s enemies persuaded the emperor to assassinate him. The agreement with Alaric was disowned. A wave of anti-barbarian hysteria led to a massacre of many of the Germans who now made up a large part of the Roman armies.
With his link to Stilicho gone, Alaric’s bluff had now been called. He desperately needed a settlement if he was to retain credibility with his followers. While Hono-rius refused to bargain, Alaric was forced to negotiate with the senate in Rome in the hope that the senators would put pressure on Honorius. It was when the negotiations proved fruitless that, in 410, Alaric led his men into Rome and carried out the sack of the city, the first for 800 years. It was a move that had a devastating effect on the Roman world, far beyond its importance as an act of destruction, which was comparatively limited. Rome no longer enjoyed the aura of an eternal and inviolable city. Yet the sack achieved nothing for Alaric and he now appears to have considered moving his men to Africa. On the way south he died and his brother-in-law Athaulf, who succeeded him, decided to move the Visigoths northwards to Gaul.
World History
