ALARIC (407)

Chief of the Visigoths from 395 and leader of the army that in August 410 sacked Rome, an event that symbolized the fall of the Western Roman Empire.


A nobleman by birth, Alaric in 376 migrated southward with the Visigoths from presentday Romania into the Roman Empire. In 382 they settled in Moesia between the Danube and the Balkan Mountains. Alaric served for a time as commander of Gothic troops in the Roman Army, but shortly after the death of the emperor Theodosius I in 395 he left the army and was elected chief of the Visigoths. Charging that his tribe had not been given subsidies promised by the Romans, Alaric marched westward toward Constantinople until he was diverted by Roman forces. He then moved southward into Greece, where he sacked Piraeus (the port of Athens) and ravaged Corinth, Megara, Argos, and Sparta. The eastern emperor Flavius Arcadius finally placated the Visigoths in 397, probably by appointing Alaric magister militum or master of the soldiers in Illyricum.


Alaric invaded Italy in 401, but he was defeated by the Roman general Flavius Stilicho at Pollentia (modern Pollenzo) on April 6, 402, and was forced to withdraw from the peninsula. Another invasion of Italy ended with his defeat, again at the hands of Stilicho, at Verona in 403. Although Alaric risked no further encounters with Stilicho, he compelled the Senate at Rome to pay a large subsidy to the Visigoths in 407. After Stilicho was murdered in August 408, an anti-barbarian party took power in Rome and incited the Roman troops to masacre the wives and children of tribesmen who were serving in the Roman Army. These tribal soldiers thereupon defected to Alaric, substantially increasing his military strength.


Althoug Alaric was eager for peace, the Western emperor Flavius Honorius refused to recognize his requests for land and supplies. The Visigothic chief thereupon invaded Italy (408) and laid siege to Rome until the Senate granted him another subsidy and assistance in his negotiations with Honorius, who had taken refuge at Ravenna. Honorius remained intransigent, however, and in 409 Alaric again surronded Rome. He lifted his blockade after proclaiming Attalus as Western emperor. Attalus appointed him magister utriusque militiae or master of both services but refused to allow him to send an army into Africa.


The negotiations with Honorius having broken down, Alaric deposed Attalus in the summer of 410 and besieged Rome for the third time. Allies within the capital opened the gates for him on August 24, and for three days his troops occuped the city, which had not been captured by a foreign enemy for nearly 800 years. Although the Visigoths plundered Rome, they treated its inhabitants humanely and burned only a few buildings. When he finally withdrew from the city, Alaric forced Honorius sister Placidia to accompany him as a hostage. He planned to occupy Africa, but the enterprise was abandoned after the ships he was to use for crossing the Mediterranean were wrecked in a storm. Alaric died as the Visigoths were marching northward.


Like the majority of his followers, Alaric was an Arian Christian.