Another man who would come to have a huge influence on the development of the empire was Alaric, a Gothic general who had been part of the community settled by Theodosius in the Balkans in 382 on the understanding that they would give military service to the Romans when called upon to do so.
Alaric proved to be a less than loyal servant of Rome. Stilicho and Alaric had been active in the force that had defeated Arbogast – Theodosius’s chief rival for power – but Alaric took exception to being forced to use his Goth soldiers against fellow but opposing Goths. This turned his mind to seeking the downfall of Rome, but this ambition would not be realized for some time yet.
On the death of Theodosius in 395, Stilicho travelled east, but was not welcomed with open arms by the officers who served the new eastern emperor. Arcadius had been persuaded not to accept Stilicho as his guardian, the main persuader being a eunuch named Eutropius who was effectively his controller.
Stilicho thought he had made a wise move by entrusting negotiations to Gainas, a fellow Goth, who he placed in charge of his eastern army. However, Gainas promptly changed sides and allied himself with Eutropius, thus creating an effective block between the western and eastern empires.
Stilicho’s next problem was Alaric, who saw an opportunity in 399 to mount a raid into the Greek peninsula. Stilicho dealt with the theat effectively enough, but instead of punishing Alaric for his disloyalty he allowed him to escape back to the north. It may well have been the case that Stilicho saw Alaric as a potential ally in a war between west and east.
Gainas was clearly not a man to be trusted. He firstly engineered a plot to discredit Eutropius, who was executed as a result, and then managed to annoy enough of the people of Constantinple to make them rise in rebellion and force him out of the city. He was caught and killed by Uldin, king of the Huns, who showed his loyalty to Arcadius by sending him the head of Gainas.
In 401 Alaric invaded Italy and drove Emperor Honorius out of his palace at Milan, besieging him for several months at his new headquarters in the city of Asta. Stilicho and Alaric fought a running war well into 402, ending with Alaric’s defeat near Verona. However, once again Stilicho allowed Alaric to escape unscathed and return to the Balkans.
In 406 another tribe invaded the western empire, this being the Alamanni, led by Radagaisus, who crossed the upper Rhine and headed towards Italy. In order to deal with this threat Stilicho called on Uldin of the Huns to augment his army, and the joint forces were able to defeat the Alamanni, many of whom were either forced into the Roman army or sold into slavery.
At the end of 407 an even worse threat was posed by a force of Vandals, Alans and Suevi who swept from central Europe into Gaul. These would prove to be very stubborn migrants, and many of them would never be forced out of the empire. Stilicho’s task was made more difficult by the fact that the commander of the Roman army in Britannia, Constantine (not to be confused with any previous emperors of the same or similar names!), promptly declared himself emperor (as Constantine III) and moved into Gaul, which had the effect of driving the barbarian settlers south and west.
Stilicho’s problems just continued to pile up on each other. Uldin was not willing to help a second time, which left Stilicho too weak to challenge Constantine on his own.
Another difficultly was that Stilicho was finding support draining away on all sides. Emperor Honorius had married Stilicho’s daughter, but had come to detest her. Honorius’s courtiers, who were mostly Romans, had developed a dislike of Germans, who now comprised a large proportion of the army. Stilicho was himself half-German.
Arcadius died in May 408, aged only 31, to be succeeded by his 7-year-old son Theodosius (known to history as Theodosius II). Stilicho was in two minds whether to take an army eastwards or to concentrate his attention on the threat posed by Constantine in the west. Just for good measure, Alaric had popped up once again with an army heading for northern Italy.
Stilicho’s reponse was to buy Alaric off with a huge tribute and head towards Gaul. However, the anti-German sentiment in the western imperial establishment proved to be too difficult to counter and Stilicho fell victim to a mutiny. He was killed at Ravenna in August 408.
Stilicho was succeeded by Olympius, who ordered a purge of Stilicho’s German supporters in the army. Those who survived the massacre joined forces with Alaric.
Alaric realized that the way was now open to Rome, and he sought to do a deal with Honorius that would give his people a permanent home within the empire (in what is now Switzerland and southern Austria) and the rank of Magister Militum for himself. This plan would have given the Roman authorities a good chance of being able to deal with Constantine in Gaul, but Honorius would have none of it.
The Senate in Rome, which had been toothless for decades if not centuries, then proclaimed a new emperor, Priscus Attalus, who would be given the authority to negotiate with Alaric. However, Attalus had no real power and nothing could sensibly be done that was not agreed by Honorius.
The net result was that Alaric saw no alternative to marching on Rome, which he was able to enter on 24th August 410, which proved to be a highly significant date in the story of the fall of the western Roman Empire.
However, the significance of Alaric’s taking of Rome was more as a symbol than a revolutionary conquest of an empire. Honorius was in his new headquarters in Ravenna (on the Adriatic coast of northern Italy) and Theodosius II was in Constantinople. The city of Rome now counted for very little.
As it was, Alaric only stayed in Rome for three days. There was no general massacre of the population – as might have been feared – and his troops did little more than grab what goods and treasure they could find and depart in an orderly manner, with hardly any violence being committed. One of the “treasures” abducted from Rome was Galla Placidia, the daughter of Theodosius I, who was to play an important role in later events.
Alaric had not actually achieved what he wanted, namely a homeland for his people, and he died a disappointed man only one year later.
Alaric was succeeded as leader of the Goths by his brother-in-law Athaulf, who proceeded to make life very difficult for the local inhabitants of Italy by ravaging through the countryside with his troops and seizing everything of value that he could find. However, this had no effect on Honorius, as far as granting the Goths’ demands was concerned, so Athaulf turned his attention to Gaul instead.
When Athaulf reached Gaul in 412 he found that things had changed from when Alaric had been active there a few years before. The usurper Constantine III was no more, having fallen from power and been executed. The new power in the land was a man named Iovinus, who had been proclaimed emperor by the Burgundians and Alani. However, Athaulf thought that getting on the right side of Honorius would be more to his advantage, so he challenged Iovinus and defeated him in battle in 413. Iovinus was captured and executed.
Athaulf now found himself challenged by Honorius’s general Flavius Constantius, who was able to control the supply of grain to the Goths in Gaul. Flavius Constantius had a personal reason for wanting to challenge Athaulf, which was that Athaulf still had charge of a highly desirable prisoner, namely Galla Placidia, whom Flavius Constantius wanted for himself.
When Athaulf married Galla Placidia in 414, Flavius Constantius, with the permission of Honorius, cut off the grain supply, to which Athaulf responded by giving southern Gaul the same treatment that he had given to Italy. He also recognized Priscus Attalus as emperor, thus bringing back into play the man who had previously been seen as the mediator between Honorius and Alaric.
This turned out to be a futile gesture on Athaulf’s part, because Flavius Constantius was able to drive Athaulf out of Gaul and into Spain, where he was assassinated by one of his own men. Priscus Attalus was captured and sent into exile, where he died soon afterwards.
Athaulf was succeeded as leader of the Goths firstly by Singeric, who did not last long, and then by Wallia, who was forced to release Galla Placidia in exchange for a ransom payment that consisted of a huge consignment of wheat. Wallia also had to give military service to Honorius, which involved actions against the Alans and Vandals. However, the benefit of his successful campaigns in Spain was that the Goths were at last given settlement rights in southern Gaul (where they were known as the Visigoths), although Wallia died soon after these rights were granted.
Flavius Constantius also got what he wanted, namely Galla Placidia as his wife. Galla was far from happy with this match, which was forced on her by Honorius, but the union did produce two children, one of whom, born in July 419, would later reign as Emperor Valentinian III.
Another honour befell Flavius Constantius in February 421 when he became co-Augustus alongside Honorius, with the title of Constantius III. This could have proved awkward in terms of relationships between the western and eastern empires, because the eastern emperor Theodosius II refused to acknowledge this arrangement, but the death of Constantius from pleurisy later that same year settled the issue.
Galla Placidia was now a widow for the second time, and rumours circulated that the relationship between her and her half-brother Honorius were more intimate than was appropriate. Whether based on reality or not, the scandal was enough to force Galla Placidia and her children into exile in Constantinople, which is where she was when Honorius died of dropsy at Ravenna on 27th August 423. He was 38 years old.
Honorius was in many ways a failure as emperor. Events happened around him rather than as a result of his own actions, and when he did make a decision it was often the wrong one. His greatest failure was not to provide an heir. This was now the four-year-old son of his half-sister, which virtually guaranteed an unsettled future for the western half of the Roman Empire.
© John Welford
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