#12 – The Sack Of Rome

Stilicho and the chief ministers of his party were treacherously slain on Honorius’ orders. * Stilicho had been accused by one of his enemies at court, Olympius, of treason and wanting to put his own son on the throne. * So Stilicho went to Ravenna to meet with the Emperor to protest his innocence. * Honorius, now believing the rumors of Stilicho’s treason, ordered his arrest. * Stilicho sought sanctuary in a church in Ravenna, but he was lured out with promises of safety. * Stepping foot outside, he was arrested and told he was to be immediately executed on Honorius’ orders. * Stilicho refused to allow his followers to resist, and he was executed on August 22, 408. * His son was also executed. * And Alaric didn’t get his gold * Olympius was appointed magister officiorum and replaced Stilicho as the power behind the throne. * His new government was strongly anti-Germanic and obsessed with purging any and all of Stilicho’s former supporters. * Roman soldiers began to indiscriminately slaughter allied barbarian foederati soldiers and their families in Roman cities. * Thousands of them fled Italy and sought refuge with Alaric in Noricum. * Their wives and children of the other Germanic tribes were murdered. * Alaric led them leaisurely across the Julian Alps and, in September 408, stood before the walls of Rome (now with no capable general like Stilicho as a defender) and began a strict blockade. * Sarus and his band of Goths, still in Italy, remained neutral and aloof. * The city of Rome may have held as many as 800,000 people, making it the largest in the world at the time. * No blood was shed this time; Alaric relied on hunger as his most powerful weapon. * He blockaded the city – I don’t know how long it was, but it must have been a while as people starved to death. * Julius Caesar would have been proud. * there was an attempt to reinstate pagan rituals in the still religiously mixed city to ward off the Visigoths. * Pope Innocent I even agreed to it, provided it be done in private. * I guess that speaks volumes about how much confidence the Pope had in his monotheism and his God. * The pagan priests, however, said the sacrifices could only be done publicly in the Roman Forum, and the idea was abandoned. * Serena, the wife of the Stilicho and a cousin of emperor Honorius, was in the city and believed by the Roman populace, with little evidence, to be encouraging Alaric’s invasion. * Galla Placidia, the sister of the emperor Honorius, was also trapped in the city and gave her consent to the Roman Senate to execute Serena. * Serena was then strangled to death. * Hopes of help from the Imperial government faded as the siege continued and Alaric took control of the Tiber river, which cut the supplies going into Rome. * Grain was rationed to one-half and then one-third of its previous amount. * Starvation and disease rapidly spread throughout the city, and rotting bodies were left unburied in the streets. * The Roman Senate then decided to send two envoys to Alaric. * When the envoys boasted to him that the Roman people were trained to fight and ready for war, Alaric laughed at them and said, “The thickest grass is easier to cut than the thinnest. * The envoys asked under what terms could the siege be lifted, and Alaric demanded all the gold and silver, household goods, and barbarian slaves in the city. * One envoy asked what would be left to the citizens of Rome. * Alaric replied, “Their lives.” * Ultimately, the city was forced to give the Goths 5,000 pounds of gold, 30,000 pounds of silver, 4,000 silken tunics, 3,000 hides dyed scarlet, and 3,000 pounds of pepper in exchange for lifting the siege. * The barbarian slaves fled to Alaric as well,