Alaric, as a declared 'enemy of the…
September 408 CE
Alaric, as a declared 'enemy of the Emperor', is denied the legitimacy that he needs to collect taxes and hold cities without large garrisons, which he cannot afford to detach.
He again offers to move his men, this time to Pannonia, in exchange for a modest sum of money and the modest title of Comes, but he is refused as a supporter of Stilicho.
At the head of a thirty thousand-man army, he crosses the Julian Alps in September, probably using the route and supplies arranged for him by Stilicho, bypassing the imperial court in Ravenna which is protected by widespread marshland and has a port, and he menaces the city of Rome itself.
There is no equivalent in 407 of the determined response to the catastrophic Battle of Cannae in 216 BCE, when the entire Roman population, even slaves, had been mobilized to resist the enemy.
Alaric demands of the empire the cession of Pannonia and a large quantity of gold to be given to the Visigoths.
Honorius, seated in Ravenna, has only incompetent courtiers surrounding him, themselves animated by a violent hatred of the barbarians.
Although Alaric is eager for peace, the emperor refuses to recognize his requests for land and supplies.
When he receives this news from the government in Ravenna, …