Radagaisus (died 23 August 406) was a Gothic king who led an invasion of Roman Italy in late 405 and the first half of 406.[1][2] A committed pagan,[3] Radagaisus evidently planned to sacrifice the Senators of the Christian Roman Empire to the gods, and to burn Rome to the ground.[citation needed] Radagaisus was executed after being defeated by the general Stilicho. 12,000 of his higher-status fighters were drafted into the Roman army and some of the remaining followers were dispersed, while so many of the others were sold into slavery that the slave market briefly collapsed. These Goths later joined Alaric I in his sack of Rome in 410.[4][5][6]
- ^ Peter Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, 2nd ed. 2006:194;
- ^ Herwig Wolfram, History of the Goths (1979) 1988, "Radagaisus and his contribution to the Visigothic ethnogenesis" p168f.
- ^ Orosius called Radagaisus a "Scythian and a pagan" (paganus et Scytha) (VII.37.4).
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
Heather 198was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Cite error: The named reference
Heather 205was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Wolfram 1988:171