Diamond
Banned
Part One: An Empire Crumbles
It was the end of the Roman Empire, at least that part of it in the West.
For generations, Germanic barbarians, driven from their ancestral homelands by the Huns, had assaulted Rome’s borders like storm-pounded waves upon a shore. Goths, Burgundians, Vandals, Suevi, and dozens more came one after another, at first seeking refuge from the Huns within Mother Rome’s boundaries, but later, recognizing the rot which pervaded the Empire, carving out fiefdoms of their own.
In the East, Constantine the Great’s heirs had made Byzantium strong, but harassed by the Sasanids of Persia and barbarians on their own northern borders, they spared little thought or effort for the West.
There was talk in AD 382 of granting the Visigoths federate status, but negotiations failed and the eastern emperor Theodosius reluctantly ordered the Visigoths out of Roman lands, believing the threat of their presence was too great to tolerate. A new leader, Alaric, took control of the Visigoths, and under his direction the barbarians ravaged Greece and Dalmatia before invading Italy in 401.
The Roman general Stilicho, himself a German, drove the Visigoths back into Dalmatia, but his defense fell apart when, in 406, a coalition of Vandals, Suevi, and Alans invaded Gaul before crossing into Spain in 409. In their wake came Burgundians, Franks, and Alemanni. In 410, Alaric invaded Italy once again, and this time the Visigoths sacked Rome itself.
Though it was no longer the administrative capital of the Empire, Rome was still a potent symbol of the once-great empire’s history, and the sack was deeply shocking to Romans everywhere. Alaric died soon after, and his successor, less capable, allowed the remnants of Roman power in Italy to harry him across the Alps into southern Gaul, where the Visigoths eventually settled, in about AD 415.
Again, plans were raised to make the Visigoths federates, but even though Alaric’s successors were more reasonable men, they had long memories, and the perceived betrayal of Romans, both East and West, was still fresh in their minds. So the Visigoths remained free and hostile, carving out a kingdom in western Gaul, sparring with the Vandals across the Pyrenees, and snuffing out the occasional Roman expeditionary party.
Although the Huns were indirectly responsible for the West’s troubles, at first they maintained amicable relations with Rome. Throughout the 430s, the Roman general Aetius used Hun mercenaries to impose federate status on the Burgundians and lesser tribes that had settled in eastern and southern Gaul. But then, in 441, the great Hun warlord Attila turned on the Empire, decimating the Balkans and pushing his border westwards to the Rhine.
In 449, Attila invaded Italy. With him rode a coalition of Visigoths, Burgundians, and Franks. The coalition completely smashed Aetius’ armies at the Catalaunian Plain, and the barbarian hordes poured into Italy like a black tide. Roman citizens fled the peninsula in droves, most relocating to Sicily and Carthage. Hundreds of thousands were slaughtered in Italy, and the Huns reigned supreme throughout the Balkans, Italy, and eastern Gaul. Palermo, Sicily became the new capital of the Western Empire, an empire that now existed as little more than a fiction. Attila died in 453, and his son Gethil took command. Though an able leader, Gethil had alienated several of his generals, and they assassinated him in 458. Their in-fighting tore the Hunnic kingdom apart, and by 460 the Huns, as a great power, were no more.
The West was rudderless. Rome was gone, as were the Huns. In their place were dozens of petty kingdoms constantly at war with each other over territory, resources, and respect. Fragments of Roman authority remained in Sicily, Carthage, Sardinia, and Dalmatia, but Rome as a whole was no more.
