Alaric and his Goths had been repulsed; they had not been
destroyed. Beyond the Alps they were regaining their shattered strength and
biding their time. Their opportunity came soon enough, when Honorius caused
Stilicho to be put to death on a charge of plotting to seize the throne. The
accusation may have been true, but in killing Stilicho the emperor had cut off
his right hand with his left. Now that Stilicho was out of the way, Alaric no
longer feared to descend again on Italy. The Goths advanced rapidly southward
past Ravenna, where Honorius had shut himself up in terror, and made straight
for Rome. In 410 A.D., just eight hundred years after the sack of the city by
the Gauls, Rome found the Germans within her gates.
SACK OF ROME BY THE VISIGOTHS, 410 A.D.
The city for three days and nights was given up to
pillage. Alaric, who was a Christian, ordered his followers to respect the
churches and their property and to refrain from bloodshed. Though the city did
not greatly suffer, the moral effect of the disaster was immense. Rome the
eternal, the unconquerable, she who had taken captive all the world, was now
herself a captive. The pagans saw in this calamity the vengeance of the ancient
deities, who had been dishonored and driven from their shrines. The Christians
believed that God had sent a judgment on the Romans to punish them for their
sins. In either case the spell of Rome was forever broken.
