Alaric, tired of the Romans' double-dealing, besieges…

August 410 CE

Alaric, tired of the Romans' double-dealing, besieges Rome for the third time at the beginning of August while Pope Innocent is away negotiating a peace with Honorius.

Had Honorius been less obstinate in rejecting terms offered by Alaric before 410, Rome might have been spared the occupation that follows.

Defense was apparently impossible; there are hints, not well substantiated, of treachery; surprise is a more likely explanation.

Alaric's allies within the capital open the city's Salarian Gate for him on August 24, and for three days, his troops occupy the city, which had not been captured by a foreign enemy for nearly eight hundred years.

Although the Visigoths plunder Rome, joined in this act by insurgent enslaved people, the sack is almost polite: they treat its inhabitants humanely and burn only a few buildings, sparing the city's churches (Alaric is an Arian Christian).

They carry away as a war prize the twenty-year-old princess Aelia Galla Placidia, Honorius' half-sister and the daughter of the late emperor Theodosius I (ruled 379-395), who has for some time been a well-treated hostage in Alaric's house.

The city of Rome is the seat of the richest senatorial noble families and the center of their cultural patronage; to pagans it is the sacred origin of the empire, and to Christians the seat of the heir of Saint Peter, Pope Innocent I, the most authoritative bishop of the West.

Rome had not fallen to an enemy since the Battle of the Allia over eight centuries before.

Refugees spread the news and their stories throughout the Empire, and the meaning of the fall is debated with religious fervor.

Both Christians and pagans write embittered tracts, blaming paganism or Christianity respectively for the loss of Rome's supernatural protection, and blaming Stilicho's earthly failures in either case.

Some Christian responses anticipate the imminence of Judgment Day.

Augustine in his book "City of God" will ultimately reject the pagan and Christian idea that religion should have worldly benefits; he will develop the doctrine that the City of God in heaven, undamaged by mundane disasters, is the true objective of Christians.

More practically, Honorius is briefly persuaded to set aside the laws forbidding pagans to be military officers, so that one Generidus could reestablish Roman control in Dalmatia.

Generidus will do this with unusual effectiveness; his techniques are remarkable for this period, in that they include training his troops, disciplining them, and giving them appropriate supplies even if he has to use his own money.

The penal laws are reinstated no later than August 25, 410, and the overall trend of repression of paganism continues.

Alaric, pursuing his plan to take control of Roman Africa, departs the ravaged city and …