Jesus Christ and the first sack of Rome 410

Again we return to this momentous historic event that changed the world and brought the thousand years old Classical era to an end in the West.

What did Jesus Christ do when the unstoppable Visigoths had set their eyes to the once invincible city?

For the conquest of a city, the breaking of walls built to defend people from people and the events when an aggressive bunch of enemies spreads to the streets among defenceless civilian population, is quite a thing. Many words starting with R and other letters come to mind.

Rome had been sacked only once in human memory. On July 18, 387 BC the Gaul  Senone tribe led by chief Brennon led had broken a Roman army of 24.000 men in the Battle of the river Allia near Rome and entered the city. Artist Paul Jamin imagined in his painting how victorious Brennon would smile while entering one of the rich houses and seeing the treasures and captive naked women waiting for their fate there. Voe victis

Le Brenn et sa part de butin

Paul Jamin 1893 (wikimedia)

It was not all that different in 410 AD as we learn from Saint Augustine in De Civitate Dei. The bishop of Hippos had met many refugees from the Rome sacked by Alaric and his people and discusses at length the matter of a chaste Christian women who have been raped by the cruel enemy.

In more recent memory we have the entry of Russian soldiers to Berlin after the collapse of the Third Reich when enemies were hunting German soldiers trying to hide from their wrath in the forests and we have heard stories about what was done to the women and children in Hitler's capital. And other cities in other places and in other times. homo homini lupus.

Christian Goths
Well - as for Jesus Christ, he had already conquered many hearts of the mighty Visigoths who had converted to His faith. There was therefore a certain trembling in their hearts when they entered the capital of Christian Rome on August 24, 410.

Alaric was on the verge of an agreement with Honorius when his forces were attacked by Sarus, a fellow Gothic commander who was allied to Honorius and who had a blood feud with Ataulf. In response, Alaric returned to Rome and laid siege to it a third time. On August 24, 410, slaves opened Rome's Salarian Gate and the Visigoths poured in and looted for three days. Many of the city's great buildings were ransacked, including the mausoleums of Augustus and Hadrian, in which many Roman Emperors of the past were buried; the ashes of the urns in both tombs were scattered. This was the first time the city had been sacked in 800 years, and its citizens were devastated. Many Romans were taken captive, including the Emperor's sister, Galla Placidia, who subsequently married Ataulf. Tens of thousands of Romans subsequently fled the economically ruined city into the countryside, with many of them seeking refuge in Africa.


The historian Procopius recorded the following satire: the feeble-minded Emperor Honorius was informed by a eunuch that "Rome was destroyed" and, thinking the reference was to his favorite hen named "Roma", cried out in great consternation: "How could it be? She just ate out of my hand." Upon being informed of his mistake, the hapless emperor was greatly relieved.
wikipedia

Trembling
The Visigoths entered, ransacked ... and left with their spoils of war, people and things, aiming at the riches of Africa. But very soon after the sack of Rome a mighty storm destroyed their ships and God thus drowned many of their soldiers in the sea and the heroic king Alaric himself died in a fever.

Alaric, having penetrated the city, marched southwards into Calabria. He desired to invade Africa, which, thanks to its grain, had become the key to holding Italy. But a storm battered his ships into pieces and many of his soldiers drowned. Alaric died soon after in Cosenza, probably of fever, at the age of about forty (assuming again, a birth around 370 AD), and his body was, according to legend, buried under the riverbed of the Busento. The stream was temporarily turned aside from its course while the grave was dug wherein the Gothic chief and some of his most precious spoils were interred. When the work was finished, the river was turned back into its usual channel and the captives by whose hands the labor had been accomplished were put to death that none might learn their secret.

Alaric was succeeded in the command of the Gothic army by his brother-in-law, Ataulf, who married Honorius' sister Galla Placidia three years later .
wikipedia

The Gothic mind surely connected the two things - the conquest of a sacred city and the horrible curses that fell on their people thereafter. Rome was not just another city.

Christ and Goths before Wulfila - Procopius of Caesarea

Byzantine sources about the early history of Christ and the Goths (Geta, Gothorum) are rare. These three historians are mentioned as the best witnesses

Procopius of Cæsarea (Historia, IV.-VIII., de Bello Italico adversus Gothos gesto)
Jornandes (de Getarum [Gothorum] origine et rebus gestis)
Isidore Hispalensis (Historia Gothorum)


Procopius of Caesarea

Procopius of Caesarea wrote extensively about Goths - but he concentrated on the events during the reign of Justinian.

Procopius was born in Caesarea in Palestine late in the fifth century and died not earlier than AD 562. He is known as one of the greatest later Greek historians. He became a lawyer, and in AD 527 he was made legal adviser and secretary of Belisarius, commander against the Persians , and went with Belisarius again in AD 533 against the Vandals, and in AD 535 against the Ostrogoths. After AD 541, or AD 540, Procopius returned to Constantinople. He might have attended Belisarius again when Belisarius and then Narses campaigned against Tutila in Italy.


His History Of The Wars in 8 books recounts the Persian Wars of emperors Justinus and Justinian down to AD 550 (2 books); the Vandalic War and after events in Africa AD532-546 (2 books); the Gothic War against the Ostrogoths in Sicily and Italy AD 536-552 (3 books); and a sketch of events to AD 554 (1book). The whole consists mostly of military history, with a lot of information about people and places also, and about special events. Procopius was a diligent, careful, judicious narrator of the facts and developments and shows good powers of description. He is just to the Empire's enemies and boldly criticizes Justinian. Procopius's education included all the greatest of the Greek historians and geographers, as well as the poets and the orators. An interesting aspect of Procopius is his personal as well as his official familiarity with the people, the places, and the events of which he writes. His account of "Justinian's Buildings" (peri ktismaton) was completed in A.D. 558 or 559. He is thought to have written it either by Imperial command or to deflect suspicions of disaffection.
(procopius.net)

Procopius writes about the early history of Goths in his History of Wars that consists of eight books. They are introduced in Book III in the following way:

Now while Honorius was holding the imperial power in the West, barbarians took possession of his land; and I shall tell who they were and in what manner they did so. There were many Gothic nations in earlier times, just as also at the present, but the greatest and most important of all are the Goths, Vandals, Visigoths, and Gepaedes. In ancient times, however, they were named Sauromatae and Melanchlaeni and there were some too who called these nations Getic.

All these, while they are distinguished from one another by their names, as has been said, do not differ in anything else at all. For they all have white bodies and fair hair, and are tall and handsome to look upon, and they use the same laws and practise a common religion. For they are all of the Arian faith, and have one language called Gothic; and, as it seems to me, they all came originally from one tribe, and were distinguished later by the names of those who led each group.


This people used to dwell above the Ister River from of old. Later on the Gepaedes got possession of the country about Singidunum and Sirmium, on both sides of the Ister River, where they have remained settled even down to my time.

Procopius of Caesarea then goes on to describe the Visigoths. The events he describes in more detail  take place over hundred years later than the early history of Goths we are hunting: Flavius Honorius Augustus was Emperor of Western Rome from 395 to 423 A.D.

But the Visigoths, separating from the others, removed from there and at first entered into an alliance with the Emperor Arcadius, but at a later time (for faith with the Romans cannot dwell in barbarians), under the leadership of Alaric, they became hostile to both emperors, and, beginning with Thrace, treated all Europe as an enemy's land.

Now the Emperor Honorius had before this time been sitting in Rome, with never a thought of war in his mind, but glad, I think, if men allowed him to remain quiet in his palace. But when word was brought that the barbarians with a great army were not far off, but somewhere among the Taulantii, he abandoned the palace and fled in disorderly fashion to Ravenna, a strong city lying just about at the end of the Ionian Gulf, while some say that he brought in the barbarians himself, because an uprising had been started against him among his subjects; but this does not seem to me trustworthy, as far, at least, as one can judge of the character of the man.

And the barbarians, finding that they had no hostile force to encounter them, became the most cruel of all men. For they destroyed all the cities which they captured, especially those south of the Ionian Gulf, so completely that nothing has been left to my time to know them by, unless, indeed, it might be one tower or one gate or some such thing which chanced to remain. And they killed all the people, as many as came in their way, both old and young alike, sparing neither women nor children. Wherefore even up to the present time Italy is sparsely populated. They also gathered as plunder all the money out of all Europe, and, most important of all, they left in Rome nothing whatever of public or private wealth when they moved on to Gaul. But I shall now tell how Alaric captured Rome.
Procopius History of the Wars Book III.ii