Alaric
Gothic king and a Christian, who had fought for Theodosius before turning against the empire. His army took and plundered Rome in August 410; Christian writers stress that he spared those who sheltered in the churches.
Alaric had fought as an ally of Theodosius I against the usurper Eugenius and held Roman rank before he turned on the empire and marched west (Socrates, Church History 7.10). Orosius calls him an enemy but a Christian king (Orosius, History against the Pagans 7.37.17); Sozomen sets him with the Arian party among the Goths (Sozomen, Church History 9.9).
In 410 his army entered Rome. He let his men plunder, but according to Orosius he ordered that those who took refuge in the basilicas of the apostles Peter and Paul were not to be harmed (Orosius, History against the Pagans 7.39); Sozomen says that he made the church of Peter a place of asylum (Sozomen, Church History 9.9). The Goths left on the third day (Orosius, History against the Pagans 7.39). Alaric was dead by the time Orosius wrote, a few years later, and his kinsman Athaulf had succeeded him (Orosius, History against the Pagans 7.40.2, 7.43.2). See the Sack of Rome and Augustine’s City of God.
In the timeline
- August AD 410, firm dateThe Sack of Rome and Augustine’s City of God
Alaric’s Goths take and plunder Rome in August 410. Pagans blame the disaster on the abandonment of the old gods. Augustine answers with the City of God, twenty-two books on the two cities, the earthly and the heavenly, written over a number of years.