Sack of Rome (410)

For other uses, see Sack of Rome.
Sack of Rome (410)
Part of the fall of the Western Roman Empire

The Sack of Rome in 410 by the Barbarians by Joseph-Noël Sylvestre, 1890
Date24 August 410 AD
Location
Rome
Result Visigothic victory
Belligerents
Visigoths Western Roman Empire
Huns[a]
Commanders and leaders
Alaric I
Athaulf		 Honorius
Strength
Possibly 40,000 soldiers[6]
Unknown number of civilian followers		 Unknown
Casualties and losses
Unknown Unknown

The sack of Rome on 24 August 410 AD was undertaken by the Visigoths led by their king, Alaric. At that time, Rome was no longer the administrative capital of the Western Roman Empire, having been replaced in that position first by Mediolanum (now Milan) in 286 and then by Ravenna in 402. Nevertheless, the city of Rome retained a paramount position as "the eternal city" and a spiritual center of the Empire. This was the first time in almost 800 years that Rome had fallen to a foreign enemy, and the sack was a major shock to contemporaries, friends and foes of the Empire alike.

The sacking of 410 is seen as a major landmark in the fall of the Western Roman Empire. St. Jerome, living in Bethlehem, wrote: "the city which had taken the whole world was itself taken".[7]

  1. ^ Maenchen-Helfen, Otto J. (2022). Knight, Max (ed.). The World of the Huns Studies in Their History and Culture. University of California Press. p. 60. ISBN 9780520302617. Retrieved 19 November 2022.
  2. ^ Burns, Thomas S. (1994). Barbarians Within the Gates of Rome A Study of Roman Military Policy and the Barbarians, Ca.375–425 A.D. Indiana University Press. p. 236. ISBN 9780253312884. Retrieved 18 November 2022.
  3. ^ The Cambridge Ancient History Volume 13, (Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 126
  4. ^ Arnold Hugh Martin Jones, The Later Roman Empire, 284–602, (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1964), p. 186.
  5. ^ Arnold Hugh Martin Jones, The Later Roman Empire, 284–602, (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1964), p. 199.
  6. ^ Peter Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians (Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 224.
  7. ^ St Jerome, Letter CXXVII. To Principia, s:Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VI/The Letters of St. Jerome/Letter 127 paragraph 12.


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