The History Book

68

THE CITY WHICH

HAD TAKEN THE

WHOLE WORLD

WAS ITSELF TAKEN

THE SACK OF ROME (410 ce)

I

n 410 ce, Rome fell to an army of

nomadic Germanic peoples—

Visigoths—who pillaged the

city over the course of three days.

Although Rome had already ceased

to be the capital of the Western

Roman Empire and the destruction

was relatively restrained, the sack

sent shock waves across the world.

Changes known as the Migration

Period, or the Barbarian Invasions,

were then taking place, with great

movements of peoples across all of

Eurasia, from China to Britain.

Barbarian peoples began to invade

settled empires such as those of

Rome and China from around 300

to 650. They carved out new

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

Nomad invasion

BEFORE

9 ce Germanic tribes secure

their independence with

victory at Teutoburg Forest.

285 The Roman Empire is

divided into East and West.

372 The Huns defeat the

Ostrogoths in Eastern Europe.

378 Visigoths destroy a Roman

army and kill the emperor at

the Battle of Adrianople.

402 The Western Roman

capital moves to Ravenna.

AFTER

451 A Roman–German

coalition defeats the Huns

at the Battle of Chalons.

455 Vandal pirates loot Rome.

476 The last Western Roman

emperor is deposed.

489 Theodoric of the

Ostrogoths conquers Italy,

with Byzantine consent.

Imperial authority

weakens and borders

are breached.

Barbarian invasions begin,

culminating in the Sack of Rome.

Germanic tribes

are displaced by

migrating nomads.

Western Roman

Empire declines

in economic and

military strength.

Steppe nomads are

forced to migrate.

Germanic tribes create new kingdoms in Western Europe.

US_068-069_Sack_of_Rome.indd 68 15/02/2016 16:40

69

In Destruction (c.1935) by Thomas

Cole, invaders overrun a once-great

city often likened to Rome. Citizens’

bodies litter monuments that were built

to celebrate the now fallen civilization.

See also: The assassination of Julius Caesar 58–65 ■ Belisarius retakes Rome 76–77 ■ Clovis unites Gaul 71 ■

The crowning of Charlemagne 82–83 ■ Kublai Khan conquers the Song 102–03

ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS

kingdoms, which in many cases

gave rise to the nations of the

modern era. Climatic changes in

Central Asia drove the nomadic

horse tribes of the steppes to seek

better pastures, which in turn

forced neighboring nomads to

invade the so-called civilized

empires. China was ravaged by the

Xiongnu, Persia by the Hepthalites,

and India by the White Huns.

Barbarians at the gates

In Europe, the arrival of the Huns

in the lands east of the Rhine and

north of the Danube displaced

Germanic tribes who had long lived

in delicate balance with the Roman

Empire. The Visigoths moved into

Roman lands, eventually storming

Rome in 410, while other tribes

including the Vandals, Suevi, Alans,

Franks, Burgundians, and Alemanni

invaded and settled territory from

Gaul to Spain to North Africa.

In the 440s the Huns, under Attila,

ravaged Eastern Europe before

being defeated by a coalition of

Romans and Germans. The Western

Roman Empire shrank to encompass

little more than Italy itself, its puppet

emperors controlled by barbarian

generals. In 476, the last nominal

emperor was deposed by one such

general, Odoacer, marking the end

of the Roman Empire in the west.

The Western Empire had however

been in decline since at least the

3rd century. Its population and

economy had diminished, making

it increasingly financially dependent

on the Eastern Empire; weakening

central authority had given more

autonomy to the provinces. The

military, obliged to recruit from

barbarian tribes, was losing its core

strength. In reality, the Barbarian

Invasions were probably part of a

process: a transition, rather than

a fall. Roman customs, culture,

language, and particularly its

religion in the form of Christianity,

endured across the provinces, and

many of the new ruling elite saw

themselves as continuing in the

tradition of Rome. The city itself

survived sack by Alaric and his

Visigoths, and by the Vandals in

455, and flourished under Theodoric

the Ostrogoth (489–526).

In their turn, the successor

states formed by Germanic tribes

over the following centuries

eventually found themselves under

attack by further waves of invaders

such as the Magyars and Vikings. ■

The barbarian “other”

Barbarian was a Greek word

signifying the unintelligible

babble of those who did not

speak Greek, and therefore

could not be considered

civilized. Romans adopted this

“them-and-us” construction.

However, by the 4th century, the

boundaries between Rome and

its barbarian neighbors were

blurred, both culturally and

geopolitically: the barbarians

had become more like the

Romans, and vice versa. The

Roman army comprised mostly

barbarians—either Germanic

auxiliaries and mercenaries,

or Roman citizens who were

actually Gauls, Britons, or one

of the hundreds of other groups

and ethnicities. Nevertheless,

much Roman culture survived

the invasions. For instance,

although much of Italy, Gaul,

and Spain fell under the sway

of the “Germanic” Goths,

Suevi, and Vandals, their

languages resisted Germanic

influence and remain Romance

languages—that is, languages

that have evolved from the Latin

spoken by Romans in Rome.

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