One contemporary historian’s epitaph for the dead general described him as ‘the most moderate and just of all the men who possessed great authority in his time’.19 Perhaps he had been overly ambitious for power, but this ambition was focused on the preservation of the western state. Stilicho’s great virtue had been his loyalty – to emperor and to Rome. Apart from being Rome’s greatest general in the late Roman empire, Stilicho was the lynchpin of relations between Roman and barbarian. He had seen that accommodating and Romanizing the Goths was the key to maintaining the future and, above all, the military security of the western Roman empire. Once he had gone, that policy vanished with him. Olympius’s hawks shrieked for war.
The massacre, however, had not accounted for everyone. Some 10,000 Gothic soldiers from the army of Radagaisus had escaped the pogrom. They turned to the only person who would offer them sanctuary – Alaric, in the mountains and hills of Noricum. When they reported the horrific news from Italy, Alaric knew that the tables were turning against him once again. With the death of Stilicho, he knew he had lost not just his once great adversary, but also his greatest ally. With a wholesale change of personnel at the western court complete, he knew he had also lost his greatest hope for peace. When his initial offers for terms were rejected by the new regime, the sheer callousness of Honorius’s rejection must only have added salt to the wound.
Faced with a new deadlock, Alaric was left with only one option. It was the option he least wanted: to use force, to take the dagger of his Gothic army – now swollen to 30,000 soldiers – and place it at the throat of the western Roman empire. At the end of the calamitous year 408, Alaric invaded Italy. This time he was not going to leave without getting what he wanted.
ALARIC’S PEACE
In quick succession the northern Italian towns of Aquileia, Concordia, Altinum, Cremona, Bononia, Ariminum and Picenum all fell to the Goths under Alaric’s furious assault in the autumn of 408. However, there was one city that the Gothic leader omitted: the imperial seat of Ravenna. It was a natural fortress, which was why Honorius had retreated there even though Milan was the imperial capital of the west. For the same reason Alaric decided that, even with his substantial army, he could not take his fight directly to the emperor. Rome, the revered ancient capital of the old Roman empire, would be a much softer target, a much more attractive hostage to take. By November Alaric’s army had surrounded the city. Forces were garrisoned outside each of the thirteen gates, and a blockade of the Tiber cut off the city’s access to its port at Ostia, and thus its grain supplies from North Africa. A neat, hermetically sealed siege of the ancient treasure chest of the western empire would, thought Alaric, be the best way to hurt Honorius.
Within a matter of weeks, the city-state that had ruled the known world, the home of the ancient gods, the God of the Christians and the Senate, became a tomb, a desolate, morbid ghost town. Gothic boats patrolled the river, and sentry guards kept an eye on every inch of the city’s walls. Inside those walls the daily food rations for the city’s inhabitants were cut by two-thirds, and people died in their thousands. Corpses could not be taken out of the city, so they littered the streets, their stench a miasmic mantle hovering over everything. As the winter drew closer, there were those who would turn to cannibalism. Only the wealthy could draw on secret reserves of food. While some, no doubt, desperately hoarded their goods, the wife and mother-in-law of Gratian, the former emperor of the west, were known for their philanthropic handouts.20 Among the well-to-do caught up in Alaric’s grip was someone whose presence in Rome would have added to the impact the siege had on Honorius in Ravenna. Galla Placidia was none other than the emperor’s sister. Despite this, however, the obstinate Honorius did not lift a finger to help Rome. Indeed, the first delegation the Gothic leadership received came not from Ravenna, but from two of the city’s leading senators. Far from being humbled by the siege, they were in a blustering mood.
The two men had a simple message for Alaric: Rome was armed and ready for a fight. ‘The thicker the grass,’ replied Alaric, ‘the more easily it is cut down!’ And with that he let out a big belly-laugh. He was not alone in finding the pathetic, pumped-up posturing of the senators amusing. When he had first reached Rome, Alaric had sent for reinforcements, and his brother-in-law Athaulf had duly arrived with additional forces of Goths and Huns. Perhaps Athaulf now shared in his brother’s joke.
Realizing that their diplomacy had got off to a disastrous start, the Roman envoys changed tack. They adopted a more modest tone and tried to find a way of ending the crippling siege. The Gothic brothers conferred. Yes, there was something that could be done to alleviate matters somewhat: all the city’s gold, silver, movable items and barbarian slaves resident in the city might do the trick. ‘But if you take all these things, what would be left for those inside the city?’ ‘Their lives,’ came Alaric’s cold, terse reply.21
Within days, a spectacular, unprecedented procession of wagons left the city of Rome. They carried 2250 kilograms (2 tons) of gold, 135,000 kilograms (13 tons) of silver, 4000 silk tunics, 3000 scarlet-dyed fleeces and 1350 kilograms (3000 pounds) of pepper. Since the imperial treasury in Rome was entirely empty, the senators had to pull every string, use every form of compulsion to levy the goods. Even precious statues from the ancient temples were melted down.22 In return, Alaric and Athaulf agreed that the siege be lifted for three days only. The ports and markets opened once again, food entered the city and Rome breathed a sigh of relief.
But while Athaulf perhaps rejoiced at receiving the treasure and enjoyed the sight of Goths dishing out to Rome her just deserts, the gold and other riches were not what Alaric wanted. True, he knew they were needed urgently in the short term: he had fresh recruits, as well as his original force of 20,000 men, to keep happy and loyal. He needed to reward them, to assure them of their prestige. But in the long term Alaric wanted Gothic prestige to take an entirely different form – a form much more durable than the transitory gleam of lucre. To that end he again approached the Roman senators. He had a little task for them.
While the siege was temporarily lifted, Alaric urged the senators to use the time wisely. They should go to Ravenna as his ambassadors and bring the emperor Honorius to the negotiating table. Alaric wanted to discuss terms for the one thing he really wanted, the one reason why he was besieging the city: a permanent peace and alliance with Rome. The senators duly set off.
At the emperor’s palace in Ravenna the senators found an imperial court unhappy and under the thumb of Olympius. Honorius had divorced his wife (Stilicho’s daughter) and had thus cut the last tie to the old regime of his dead father-in-law. Yet now that Stilicho was gone for ever, the emperor was perhaps realizing just how valuable he had been. Indeed, Stilicho’s skills as a general and a leader at the service of the empire were just what was needed now. Without them, none of the problems affecting the west had shown any sign of improving; in fact, they had just stagnated and grown worse. As a result, when the senators arrived at the imperial palace, the emperor was no longer willing to reject out of hand Alaric’s request for negotiation.