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The sacking of Rome

• Message 1.Β 

  Posted by shivfan (U2435266) on Tuesday, 24th August 2010

  This day in history 410: Rome is sacked by Alaric the Goth, the first hostile occupation of the city since the fourth century BC.
  
  Clearly a siginficant event, and one that shook the foundations of most people who lived in parts of the Roman empire around the world. I believe it was the first time is something like 1800 years that Rome had been sacked. And it's still talked about, 1600 years later....
  
  But I was a bit annoyed to hear some commentators on Radio Four talking about this event, and calling it 'the Ancient World's 9/11'.
  
  That is certainly giving 9/11 more historical significance than it deserves. 1600 years from now, it's hardly likely that historians will be talking much about 9/11, but one thing's for sure - they'll still be talking about Alaric's sacking of Rome.

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  Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Tuesday, 24th August 2010

  I heard that too, and was similarly irritated by them crassly equating the sack of Rome with the twin towers attack.
  
  The Goths attack in 410 did not finish Rome, I think it was the Vandal's sacking in 453(?) which basically killed off the Western Roman Empire, emperors after that date were like puppets.

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  Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Tuesday, 24th August 2010

  Wasn't much of a "sack" either by the standards of the day.
  
  Augustine of Hippo got his knickers in a right twist about it at the time (Romans were, quite understandably, convinced it had happened because they'd abandoned the city's traditional gods and switched over to the Jewish lad and Augustine had to hop in pretty quick to nip such logical deduction in the bud), which of course has led to an official church version of events down through the centuries portraying the god-fearing christian Alaric and his god-fearing christian Visigoths as bloodthirsty rapacious and (amazingly) anti-christian thickos. Terry Jones did a very good (and humorous) job of correcting this perception in his book Barbarians, I thought.

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  Posted by giraffe47 (U4048491) on Tuesday, 24th August 2010

  Doesn't matter what you do, as long as you hire a good Press Agent. . . .

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  Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Tuesday, 24th August 2010

  Augustine of Hippo got his knickers in a right twist about it at the time (Romans were, quite understandably, convinced it had happened because they'd abandoned the city's traditional gods and switched over to the Jewish lad and Augustine had to hop in pretty quick to nip such logical deduction in the bud), which of course has led to an official church version of events down through the centuries portraying the god-fearing christian Alaric and his god-fearing christian Visigoths as bloodthirsty rapacious and (amazingly) anti-christian thickos.Β 
  No, three Christian writers expressed genuine shock and sorrow that Rome had fallen. Maybe they did portray Alaric as bloodthirsty and rapacious - you aren't going to say that the Visigoths did not kill and rape are you? One Christian version that has come down to us is that if Orosius, his agenda was to try to argue that, even though Rome had suffered this disaster under Christian rule, it was not as great a disaster as Rome had suffered under pagan rule eg the great fire under Nero. He therefore emphasised that Alaric and his men had shown respect to Christian churches and, though they looted, did not cause widespread destruction as barbarians usually did. This is the version of events you read in history books.

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  Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Tuesday, 24th August 2010

  Yes, his political logic was "Think what could have happened if you'd been sacked by a pagan?". Later church propaganda however centred on the fact that they were christian heretics (worse in catholic eyes than pagans) and this was what really did it in for poor Alaric and the VGs, who really weresn't as big pillagers, plunderers or rapers as some of those they were pitted against, and definitely not in Rome. The ultimate nail in the coffin for Visigoth reputation however was when their descendants were blamed for letting the Moors carve out their first caliphate in Spain.
  
  But you're right, of course. Gussie's ultimate point was that all men's cities were bound to be wrecked, pillaged, plundered and raped (etc etc) from time to time so stop whining about it. The City of God is untouchable. Which I assume means that God has so much invested in his own real estate that he's quite happy to egg things on with regard to screwing up mortal competition on that score.

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  Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Tuesday, 24th August 2010

  While the Gothic raids (in reality a coalition of a long string of Germanic, Alanosarmatian and local Dannubo-pannonian tribes) of 3rd and 4th century were indeed vicious and dangerous and caused a lot of (often irreparable) damage, Alarichs raids were really something that should had been a minor annoyance dealt swiftly by the Romans. Alarich was not in charge of 100,000 or 200,000 strong armies but ahead of a relatively smaller army of 20,000 badly armed looters that found free way to roam around epxloiting not any other particular Roman weakness or inability other than the political will of Constantinopolite Emperors and the newly risen christian nomenclature to see the christian goths roam around the still largely pagan country side in the Balkans as well as later in Italy. Emperors feared not so much the bunch of Goths but more the calls for the rearmament of the citizens to self-defend their cities which was vehemently denied to all citizens as shown by the outrageous decision to... pay and ... arm the Gothic looting army prior to its (if they had successfully looted so many places the vast majority of them unarmed) how come they needed more weapons?).
  
  Alarich was pushed to Italy through a complex game of interests among Constantinopolite and Rome elites, the new christian nomenclature and the old pagan guard, the clash of the christian low-class and the pagan middle class, the personal interests of senators and generals (the latter many of whom of... Gothic ancestry thus the last to care about Roman cities being pillaged by barbarians). Effectively, like in all cases of Empire "if the place is going to go independent, better let the barbarian enter and loot it". Goths were the pretext that the new christian based imperial nomenclature could continue and maintain power. Rule by fear, not necessarily of the ruler but of the enemy of the ruler. Good old tactic used since antiquity to today.
  
  As for the Goths of Alarich, these were a bunch of looters in their quasitotality arian christians who simply wished a better place under the sun. They were not so barbarians in the sense that most of them were born and raised inside the Empire and far from the bloodthirsty Huns and Vandals they were not so violent - since their primary interest was to gain money and get a better place inside the Empire. They did not have any huge cultural objection to Rome apart the good old (and usually unjustified) jealousy that all barbaric people have against civilised people. Alarich himself fought to get a better personal position inside the Roman Empire, the position of a military general would be enough for him to settle down like it was for the family of Stilicho, the actual Roman general of the times who of course, being a half-Vandal half something else did not mind at all the presence of a bunch of Goths looting their way from Romania down to Greece and from Greece to Italy being more concentrated in his own political games with the Roman and above all with the Constantinopolite elites, being in permanent frustration in his personal inability to be named Emperor due to his barbaric ancestry and finding refuge only in naming puppet Ceasars to rule in their name.
  
  When after all these plots, machinations and tribulations inlcuding a 2ice Roman encirclement of Alarich's army and 2ice letting him escape with all the loot, Alarich found himself in Italy with his little army, given titles, fed, armed and paid by the Romans he had no idea of go against Rome and destroying it. He was still asking for him and his men an even better future and that was him becoming a Stilicho in place of Stilicho and his men getting lands and positions and that still would do in place of naming himself king of his average sized armies and the random lands his army would had looted (something that could not have any future by the way...).

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