Earthquake, lightning and the Sack of Rome (410)

The year 410 can be seen as a crucial step toward the collapse of the Western Empire.
Beside the sack of Rome in August 410 led by the Visigothic King Alaric, the Empire lost
control of Northern Gaul to the Bagaudae, i.e. peasants rebelling against their economic
exploitation, of Britain to the Saxons and of Spain to the Vandals, Alans and Visigoths.
After his first unsuccessful invasion of Italy (401-403), Stilicho permitted Alaric to
withdraw into Pannonia and granted him an imperial title around 405. One of the most
important results of the invasion was that the Emperor Honorius who had been nearly
captured at Milan moved his court to Ravenna on the Adriatic.
The policy of Stilicho was to extend the power of his regency over the Eastern Emperor
Arcadius. Also, in this conflict was the control of the province of Illyricum i.e. Greece
and the central Balkan lands - which before 379 was in the hands of the West, but reverted
to the control of the East when Gratian resigned it to his new colleague Theodosius. Still,
Stilicho reclaimed the province and it was one of his most important political aims. Thus,
the West and the East were in a state of Cold War.
Stilicho planned with the help of Alaric to take back the province of Illyricum. However,
his plans were thwarted by an unexpected barbarian invasion.
Late in 405, a Gothic king named Radagaisus, hitherto completely unknown to history,
crossed the Alps from central Europe, marched through the province of Raetia, and
invaded Italy. Stilicho, who had assembled an army with Hunnic and Alan allies, defeated
and killed him in August 406.
At this juncture two developments in Gaul and Britain had dramatic effects on the future
of the Western Empire. On 31 December 405 (see Drinkwater; Kulikowski for a
discussion about the date) - an event known as the Crossing of the Rhine - hordes of
Vandals, Alans and Sueves crossed the now poorly defended Rhine, and spread
devastation in the Northern provinces of Gaul. At the same time, that invasion provoked a
revolt of the civilian and military population of Britain. In 406, two usurpers, Marcus and
Gratian, were declared emperors and assassinated in short succession before the army
elected a soldier called Constantine. Using the prestige of his name almost 100 years
earlier Constantine I was made emperor by the British garrison at York the usurper known as Constantine III - invaded Gaul to fight the invaders. Constantine III rapidly
acquired control of most of Gaul, and Spain submitted to the usurper. Stilichos belated
response leads to his downfall.
In 408, Stilicho sent a Gothic officer, Sarus, to stop Constantines advance, but he was
defeated. Meanwhile, Alaric, seeing that the joint attack on Illyricum was now unlikely,
asked for compensation for the cancellation of the enterprise. He threatened a raid on Italy
if 4000 pounds of Gold were not given to him. Stilicho convinced the Senate and
Honorius to give him the sum for not losing their alliance.

The failure of Stilicho to deal with Constantine, the bitter hostility - both in senatorial and
in court political circles - towards the massive subvention paid for Alaric, and the rumor
that he was planning to place his son on the Eastern throne following the death of
Arcadius in May 408, caused his assassination by Honorius three months after the death
of the Eastern Emperor.
The execution of Stilicho was a crucial turning point. The Master of Offices Olympius,
who was behind the murder of Stilicho, refused to honor the promises which Alaric had
been given. Anew, Alaric demanded a large sum of money and hostages, but Honorius
refused. As a result, in the winter of 408 Alaric marched straight down the Italian
peninsula to Rome and besieged the city: the first of the three sieges of Rome. He
encircled Rome and blocked the traffic across the river Tiber and thus the citys
connection to its provisions. Food was soon exhausted bringing about first famine then
pestilence. Panic gripped the city, and scapegoats were sought. Stilichos widow Serena
was strangled by order of the senate, a posthumous vengeance on the man they blamed for
Alarics continued existence.
Zosimus, borrowing from the lost history of Olympiodorus of Thebes (Fragment 7 in
Blockley), describes in vivid detail the famine and the pestilence:
Zosimus, New History, 5.39-40:
When however, no-one came and their hopes were disappointed, they decided to reduce
their rations and to eat only half the previous daily allowance, and later, when the scarcity
continued, only a third. And when there was no means of relief, and their food was
exhausted, plague not unexpectedly succeeded famine. Corpses lay everywhere, and since
the bodies could not be buried outside the city with the enemy guarding every exit, the
city became their tomb. The result was that the place was uninhabited for another reason:
even if there had been no shortage of food, the stench from the corpses would have been
enough to destroy the bodies of the living. Laeta, the widow of the emperor Gratian, and
her mother, Tisamena, shared their supplies with many people and many kept hunger at
bay through the kindness of these women.
When their situation was critical and they were in danger of turning to cannibalism, after
trying every abomination known to man, they decided to send an embassy to the enemy.
A first embassy sent by the senate to the besieging camp outside the city returned to
Rome without success. Its failure is followed, in Zosimus' account, by the abortive
attempt
to revive the pagan cults made by the prefect of Rome, Gabinius Barbarus
Pompeianus. This is the first reference that some kind of plasma event was involved
during the siege of Rome.

Zosimus narrates that the pagan senators of Rome attributed the cruel disaster which had
come upon them to the wrath of the gods at the abandonment of the old religion. The only
hope lay in reconciling the angry deities for saving the cities. Encouraging news arrived at
this time that in the Umbrian town of Narnia, to which Alaric had laid siege on his march.
Sacrifices had been performed and miraculous fire and thunder had frightened the Goths
into abandoning the siege. The general opinion was that the same means should be tried at
Rome.
The Pope Innocent I agreed to the performance of the pagan rites. But the priests said that
the rites would not avail unless they were celebrated publicly on the Capitol in the
presence of the Senate, and in the Forum. Nevertheless, no one could be found with the
courage to perform the ceremonies in public.
Zosimus, New History, 5.41.1:
During these considerations, Pompeianus, prefect of the city, came upon some Tuscans
visiting Rome, who said that a city called Narnia had been freed from danger: prayers to
the gods and devotion in the ancestral manner had caused violent thunder and lightning,
which had driven off the barbarian menace.
Sozomen, The Ecclesiastical History, 9.6:
After the siege had lasted some time, and fearful ravages had been made in the city by
famine and pestilence, many of the slaves, and most of the barbarians by race within the
walls, deserted to Alaric. Those among the senators who still adhered to pagan
superstition, proposed to offer sacrifices in the Capitol and the other temples; and
certain Tuscans, who were summoned by the prefect of the city, promised to drive out the
barbarians with thunder and lightning; they boasted of having performed a similar exploit
at Larnia, a city of Tuscany, which Alaric had passed by for Rome, and had not taken. The
event, however, proved that no advantage could be derived from these persons for the city.
All persons of good sense were aware that the calamities which this siege entailed upon
the Romans were indications of Divine wrath sent to chastise them for their luxury, their
debauchery, and their manifold acts of injustice towards each other, as well as towards
After this episode, a second embassy was sent to the King of the Goths in early 409 and
returned with harsher terms which were accepted.
Alongside the plasma event, another natural disaster occurred in Rome. Byzantine
chroniclers record that in 408 an earthquake shook Rome. Marcellinus (Chronicle, p.10)
says that the earth rumbled for seven days in the Forum of Peace at Rome (Theophanes
Chronicle, p. 123 repeats the same sentence).
Michael the Syrian (Chronique, 8.2 p. 11) adds that the earthquake was a sign of Gods
wrath:
The earth groaned for seven days and earth tremors did not cease in the imperial city (it
is not clear if the imperial city means Rome or Constantinople) by night or day for four
months. Everyone said "It is the vengeance of God, who is chastising the city.

In the same manner, for the Auctarii Hauniensis Extrema (MGH AA 9, p. 337-339), the
earthquake portended the third siege of Rome, i.e. the sack of the city by Alaric two years
later. Finally, the Gallic Chronicle of 452 (p. 80), because of a copyist error (see
Alexandre), places this earthquake in Utica, in North Africa: At Utica the land in the
forum of Trajan let out a bellowing noise for seven days.
After the end of the first siege, a proper settlement was not reached with Alaric. Beside,
annual payments, grain and gold, he asked the highest generalship, the magisterium
utriusque militiae, or command of both services, which Stilicho had held before him.
Honorius refused, and Alaric demanded less stringent demands, but it was still refused by
the imperial court at Ravenna. As a consequence towards the end of 409 Alaric launched
the second siege of Rome. He captured Portus, where the corn stocks of the city lay, and
threatened another famine in Rome. This time the senate decided to yield. Alaric
proclaimed a new emperor in Rome more pliable to his will than Honorius, the former city
prefect Pricus Attalus. Alarmed by the election of Attalus, Honorius wanted to flee but an
unexpected reinforcement of 4000 troops eastern troops arrived. Meanwhile, Heraclian,
governor of the food-rich province of Africa and still loyal to Honorius, refused to supply
corn to the rebels in Rome. This leads to a second famine more grievous than the first,
hitting both the Romans and Alarics army.
Zosimus, New History, 6.11(Olympiodorus, Fragment 10 in Blockley):
Heraclianus held all the ports in Africa under such strict guard that neither corn nor oil
nor any other provisions could be conveyed to Rome, and a famine struck the city far
worse than the previous one. The sellers in the marketplace hid what goods they had in
the hope of making a fortune by profiteering. The city was reduced to such distress that
those who hoped to eat human flesh cried out in the circus,'pretium inpone carni humanae'
(put a price on human flesh).
Attalus launched an attack against Heraclian but was defeated. Attalus having proved his
incompetency was deposed by Alaric during the spring of 410. Alaric marched toward
Ravenna to open negotiation with Honorius, but again it failed to produce result. He
turned from Ravenna and marched back on Rome for the third and last time. On 24
August, the starving city opened its gates and the Visigoths sacked it for three days.
Jerome lamented upon the fall of Rome and described acts of cannibalism.
Jerome, Letter 127: To Principia, NPNF 2-6:
Whilst these things were happening in Jebus a dreadful rumour came from the West.
Rome had been besieged and its citizens had been forced to buy their lives with gold.
Then thus despoiled they had been besieged again so as to lose not their substance only
but their lives. My voice sticks in my throat; and, as I dictate, sobs choke my utterance.
The City which had taken the whole world was itself taken; nay more famine was

beforehand with the sword and but few citizens were left to be made captives. In their
frenzy the starving people had recourse to hideous food; and tore each other limb from
limb that they might have flesh to eat. Even the mother did not spare the babe at her
breast.
It is notable that historical sources lack a full description of the sack itself. Christians
writers, namely Orosius and Augustine, were less interested in any destruction or suffering
that might have been wrought by Alarics sack than in how to turn the sack to their own
partisan purposed. Because the Goths were Christian, though Arian, the horror of the sack
was downplayed (Mathisen). The Romans, like the pagan Zosimus, interpreted the sack as
divine punishment because of the abandonment of the traditional Gods to the Christians
God. As a result, Augustine wrote his most famous work, the City of God, which was
designed to provide a comprehensive answer to those linking the sack of Rome with the
Christianization of the Empire (Croke).
Several buildings were destroyed by fire. The Gardens of Sallust, in the north of the city,
was burnt down and never rebuilt, and excavations on the Aventine, have revealed many
traces of fires (Bury; and in particular Lipps et al. p. 87-277). Yet, a passage from Orosius
reveals that the destruction by fire was not due to the Visigoth but to plasma event. In two
occasions, contrasting the sack of Rome in 410 with that of the Gauls in 390 BC, Orosius
presents the latter as an unmitigated disaster because the Romans were pagans, compared
to which the former is so trivial that it is hardly worth mentioning at all, and in fact
brought positive benefits by cleansing Rome of pagan iconography.
Orosius, Seven Books of History Against the Pagans, 2.19.14-15:
Plainly, as the facts show, and as ought to be stated, during the present disaster God
was more enraged than the men involved, for He Himself carried out what the
Goths could not have done and so showed why He had sent them. For since it is beyond
human powers to burn up bronze beams and overturn the mass of great edifices, the
forum with its empty idols, whose wretched superstition lies about what is God and
what is mortal, was cast down by a thunderbolt and all those abominations which the
enemys fire did not reach were overturned by fire sent from heaven.
7. 39.18:
And so that no one should doubt that the enemy was allowed to do this in order to punish
the arrogant, debauched, blasphemy of the town, at this same time the most famous
buildings in the City which the enemy was unable to set alight were destroyed by
lightning.
Jerome gives a vivid account of the wrath of his God:
Jerome, Letter 128: To Gaudentius, NPNF 2-6:

The renowned city, the capital of the Roman Empire, is swallowed up in one tremendous
fire; and there is no part of the earth where Romans are not in exile. Churches once held
sacred are now but heaps of dust and ashes.
A last clue involving natural disasters during the sack comes from epigraphy. An
inscription from Rome dating to 421-423 records the restoration of a building by Faustus
(see Jones et al.), three times urban prefect - the first between 408 and 423, the second in
425 and the third between 425 and 437:
[Given the safety of] Our Lords and eternal Princes Honor[ius and Theodosius (our two
Augusti)] Anicius Acilius Glabio Faustus, an illustrious senator and praefectus ur[bi,
restored] to its original form and use the [] which was destroyed as a result of an event
brought about by fate (fatali casu susersam in formam prisci usus [restituit]).
The particular formula fatali casu susersam in formam prisci usus [restituit] would seem to
suggest that the need for restoration arose from some disastrous natural event which was
sudden and impossible to control such as an earthquake, a fire or lightning. Guidoboni
underlines that the presence of a circumlocution whose meaning is mysterious, gives the
impression that the intention is to hide, or not to mention the real cause of the event, in an
attempt, to forget it or because it was politically unwise to record it. She then suggests that
such an event might be the sack of Rome, where Orosius attests that lightning and fire from
heaven destroyed Romans buildings. This is a clear demonstration that the sack of Rome was
not due to hordes of barbarians, but by natural disasters, and that the historical writings
produced subsequently were designed to cover-up this simple fact.

After the sack, the Goths marched south, taking with them amongst their prisoners Galla
Placidia, Honorius sister. Alaric's goal was first Regium and from there Sicily and Africa.
But when a storm wrecked the ships that they had collected, the Visigoths were forced to
retreat north.
At Consentia Alaric fell ill and died during the winter of 410. According to Jordanes,
those who buried him were put to death to preserve the secret of the location of his
grave. Ataulf was chosen as Alaric's successor, and he began to lead his people into Gaul.
Sources
Alexandre P., Les Sismes en Europe occidentale de 394 1259, p. 87
Blockley R.C., "The Dynasty of Theodosius", in Cameron A., Garnsey P. (eds), The
Cambridge Ancient History Volume 13: The Late Empire, A.D. 337-425, Cambridge
University Press, 2008, p. 111-138
Bury J.B., History of the Later Roman Empire, Vol. 1, p. 175-185

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Logoi, With Translated Fragments, Commentary and Additional Material, Edwin Mellen
Pr, 1993
Croke ."Late Antique Historiography, 250-650 CE, in Marincola J. A Companion to Greek
and Roman Historiography, Vol. 2, Blackwell Publishing, 2007, p. 567-581
Drinkwater J.F., The Usurpers Constantine III (407-411) and Jovinus (411-413), Britannia,
Vol. 29, 1998, p. 269-298

Guidoboni, Catalogue of ancient earthquakes in the Mediterranean area up to the 10th

century, p. 284-285
Halsall G., Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West 376-568, p. 200-217
Jones A.H.M et al., Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, vol. 2 : AD 395-527,
Cambridge University Press, 1980, p. 452-454
Kulikowski M., Barbarians in Gaul, Usurpers in Britain, Britannia, Vol. 31, 2000, p. 325345
Kulikowski M., Romes Gothic Wars: From the Third Century to Alaric, 2006

Lipps J., Machado C., Rummel P., The sack of Rome in 410 AD. The event, its context
and its impact, Wiesbaden, 2014
Mathisen, R. W., Roma a Gothis Alarico duce capta est. Ancient accounts of the sack of
Rome in 410 CE, in Lipps J., Machado C., Rummel P., The sack of Rome in 410 AD.
The event, its context and its impact, Wiesbaden, 2014, p. 87-102
Stathakopoulos, Famine and Pestilence in the Late Roman and Early Byzantine Empire, 2004