Sack of Rome by the Visigoths
Alaric’s Visigoths entered Rome through the Salarian Gate and plundered it for three days — the first time in almost 800 years that the city had fallen to a foreign enemy.
- Date
- 24–27 August 410exact date · duration: 3 daysDate in the Julian calendar
- Place
- Rometoday: Rome, Italy · Western and Central Europe
- Participants
- Visigoths, Alaric I, Western Roman Empire, Honorius
- Threads
- Europe in the Roman age (1st–5th c.)
- Also known as
- Sack of Rome (410); Разграбление Рима (410); Захват Рима готами
Alaric had twice besieged Rome, in 408 and 409, to force the court of Honorius — safe behind the marshes of Ravenna — to grant his people land and himself high command; he even raised a puppet emperor, Priscus Attalus. When negotiations failed again, the Goths entered the city on 24 August 410. They looted it for three days but spared the basilicas of St Peter and St Paul and those who had taken refuge there.
The material damage was limited, but the shock was enormous. Jerome wrote from Bethlehem that the city which had taken the whole world was itself taken, and Augustine answered pagan charges against Christianity in The City of God. Alaric died later that year at Consentia in southern Italy; his successor led the Goths into Gaul.
Connections
Causes and preconditions
- Gothic War (376–382)376 – 3 October 382 · Balkans and AnatoliaAlaric’s Visigoths grew out of the Goths settled in 382
Related events
- Aurelian Walls271–275 · Western and Central EuropeAlaric’s Goths entered Rome through the Salarian Gate of these walls
Same participants
- Crossing of the Rhine31 December 406 · Western and Central Europevia Western Roman Empire
- Vandal conquest of Roman AfricaMay 429 – 442 · Africavia Western Roman Empire
- Battle of the Catalaunian Plains20 June 451 · Western and Central Europevia Visigoths
Same place
- Great Fire of Rome19 July 64 – c. 27 July 64 · Western and Central Europe
- Inauguration of the Colosseum80 · Western and Central Europe
- Antonine Plague165–180 · Western and Central Europe
- Constitutio Antoniniana212 · Western and Central Europe
- Crisis of the Third CenturyMarch 235 – 20 November 284 · Western and Central Europe
- Battle of the Milvian Bridge28 October 312 · Western and Central Europe
- Vandal sack of Rome2–16 June 455 · Western and Central Europe
- Gothic War (535–554)535–554 · Western and Central Europe
- Coronation of Charlemagne25 December 800 · Western and Central Europe
- Imperial coronation of Otto I2 February 962 · Western and Central Europe
- Fourth Council of the Lateran11–30 November 1215 · Western and Central Europe
- “Summa Theologica” by Thomas Aquinas1265–1274 · Western and Central Europe
- Sack of Rome (1527)6 May 1527 · Western and Central Europe
Meanwhile in the world
Other regions, within 25 years of this event
Eastern Europe
- Chernyakhov culturebetween 200 and 250 – between 400 and 430
- Kyiv culturec. 200 – between 400 and 430
Africa
- Vandal conquest of Roman AfricaMay 429 – 442
The same period
Sources
- Wikipedia (English): Sack of Rome (410)
- Wikipedia (Russian): Разграбление Рима (410)
- Heather P. The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History. — London: Macmillan, 2005.
- Корсунский А. Р., Гюнтер Р. Упадок и гибель Западной Римской империи и возникновение германских королевств (до середины VI в.). — М.: Изд-во МГУ, 1984.
- Wikidata: Q1463845