Rome Sacked/ Falls to the Barbarians

Introduction:  Today we interview King Alaric.  He was responsible for the fall of one of the greatest empires in ancient history; Rome.

Question:  How did you know when to attack Rome?

Answer:  I sacked Rome in 410.  At that time, Rome was already having internal issues.  There was political stability and economic problems.  There were 26 emperors in Rome’s history.  Only one of those emperors died of natural causes.  What does that say about the great city?  Obviously it was not a perfect system of government.  They had high taxes, farm lands were over cultivated and they entirely relied on slave labor.  To top it all off, in 284, Diocletian divides the empire into two halves.  He ruled the eastern half and his colleague, Maximian, ruled the western half.  Rome was no longer the capital of the Roman Empire.  Then Constantine came to power in 312 and he ruled two halves at first, but abandoned the system and ruled a single kingdom again.  He made the new capital of the empire Constantinople, a city in the east.  Barbarians came from the north to escape the Huns.  They moved into Rome and that’s when we knew to attack.  The empire had been weakened greatly and I knew that we, the Visigoths, would triumph.

Question:  How did you go about sacking the city?

Answer:  The Romans knew I was in their city.  They knew I was hostile towards them and they knew that was planning to attack their city.  I suddenly had an epiphany.  My army had men of all ages and some had barely grown out beards yet, they had just become of age.  I demised a plot to overthrow the city from within.  I went to the nobles of the city and said that I admired their loyalty to the emperor, so much so that I would leave the city with my men.  They were ecstatic to not have to worry about the barbarians attacking their city anymore.  I also gave each of them a gift for their admirable attributes; a slave.  I had three hundred of my men given to each member of the senate.  The men were obedient and intelligent.  They did exactly what the members wanted with no question asked.  Then when the planned time came, they rushed to the gate by the name of Salarian and killed the guards.  They opened the gate allowing my army to rush inside.  We burnt down houses and killed anything in our path.

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