Sack of Rome by the Visigoths
On 24 August 410 CE, Alaric I led his Visigoth army through the Salarian Gate into Rome, looting the city for three days. It was the first time Rome had been sacked by a foreign enemy in eight centuries, since the Gauls in 390 BCE. Alaric had spent years negotiating for land and payment from a weakened imperial court; when the court under Honorius repeatedly reneged, he turned to direct action. The psychological shock reverberated across the Roman world: Jerome wept in Bethlehem, and Augustine began writing The City of God partly in response. The sack accelerated the fragmentation of the western provinces as military commanders carved out autonomous territories, demonstrating that the city of Rome itself could no longer be defended.
- Category: Military
