adopted son, Marcus Junius Brutus. Some historians
believe that Ahenobarbus, seeking revenge for Pompey’s
defeat, was one of the conspirators, but the evidence is
conflicting, and he was not one of the assassins. How-
ever, once the murder had been committed, Ahenobar-
bus left Rome and followed Brutus when the latter fled
to what is now Macedonia. Rome then began to hunt
down the assassins and conspirators. In 42 b.c., when
the Roman Domitius Calvinus tried to sail his fleet from
Brundisium (modern Brindisi, southern Italy), Aheno-
barbus, commanding some 50 ships in the Ionian Sea,
met and defeated him. However, on land at Philippi
(in Macedonia, northwest of Mount Pangea, near the
Aegean Sea), 100,000 men under Brutus and Cassius
fought the Roman legions under Octavian (later au-
gustus) and Mark antony, with the Roman army vic-
torious. Brutus committed suicide following the defeat,
and Ahenobarbus became a pirate, plundering the coast
of the Ionian Sea.
In 40 b.c., Mark Antony agreed to pardon Aheno-
barbus, naming him as the governor of Bithynia (now
in modern Turkey), where he took part in Antony’s
Parthian campaign. He was given the title of consul in
32 b.c. That same year, though, Octavius and Antony
severed all ties and became sworn enemies. Ahenobar-
bus sided with Antony, who was having an affair with
Cleopatra. Because of that affair, many of Antony’s of-
ficers felt he should step aside and allow Ahenobarbus to
command them. Instead, Ahenobarbus crossed over to
Octavian, who destroyed Antony’s forces at the battle of
Actium. Ahenobarbus was not involved in that battle,
having died mysteriously days before it happened. The
exact date and manner of his death, as well as his place
of burial, remain a mystery. His great-grandson, Nero
Claudius Drusus Germanicus (a.d. 37–68) became
Nero, emperor of Rome.
References: “Ahenobarbus,” in Dictionary of Greek and
Roman Biography and Mythology, 3 vols., edited by Wil-
liam Smith (London: Taylor and Walton, 1844), I:83–
86; Bruce, George, “Philippi,” in Collins Dictionary of
Wars (Glasgow, Scotland: HarperCollins Publishers,
1995), 194.
Alaric I (ca. 370–410) Visigoth military leader
Alaric was born the son of a nobleman about a.d. 370
on Peuce Island, an island in the delta of the Danube
River now in Romania. Although it is unknown exactly
when he became the leader of the Visigothic tribe, for
some time he served as the chief of Gothic forces serving
in the Roman army. In 394, it was first noted that he
was named as a military leader of the fœderati (Visigoth
regular troops), and in this capacity he fought for the
emperor Theodosius I in crushing the forces of Euge-
nius, a usurper to the Roman throne, at the battle of
the Frigidus (394). However, following the death
of Theodosius in 395, Alaric left the service of Rome
and shortly thereafter was named as head of the Vi-
sigoths. Almost immediately, Alaric turned on his old
employer. Charging that Rome had failed to pay the
Goths for serving the emperor, he decided to exact trib-
ute by capturing Roman property and marched with
the Visigothic army toward Constantinople, then the
capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. When Roman
forces in that city seemed ready to overwhelm him, he
turned south, marching into Greece, sacking the Piraeus
at Athens, and striking the cities of Argos, Megara, and
the former capital of Sparta. In 396, however, Flavius
Stilicho, a Roman general, succeeded in trapping Alar-
ic’s force in Greece, though Alaric himself escaped. In a
surprising turn of fortune, Alaric regained power when
the Eastern Roman emperor Arcadius, probably fearful
of the growing influence of the Western Empire based
in Rome, made him governor of Illyria (part of today’s
Yugoslavia), and named him magister militum (master
of soldiers).
After gathering troops and weapons, Alaric turned
his army west and invaded Italy, where he was again met
and defeated by the Roman general Stilicho at Pollen-
tia (now Pollenza, Italy) on 6 April 402. Alaric subse-
quently attempted a second invasion of Italy but again
met with defeat. It was not until after Flavius Stilicho
was murdered in 408 and many Roman troops defected
to Alaric’s side that the tide turned. By this time tired
of warfare, Alaric offered peace to the Western Roman
emperor Flavius Honorius, but the emperor refused, and
in 408 Alaric marched on Rome. This time he could not
be stopped, and he laid siege to the city until the Roman
Senate agreed to his request for land and tribute. How-
ever, Honorius held his position, and in 409 Alaric again
invaded Italy and surrounded Rome. When Honorius
again refused to meet his demands, Alaric named At-
talus, a Roman noble, as the western emperor, in ex-
change for which Attalus appointed Alaric as magister
utriusque militum (literally, “master of both services”). AlARic i