WI Honorius Makes Peace w Alaric

How can Alaric be mollified soon enough to prevent his Sack of Rome (OTL in 410)? How much would the city of Rome and the Western Roman Empire be strengthened by avoiding this event?

How much longer could the fall of (Western) Rome be put off? Could it even potentially (even if it's not the most likely outcome) allow for reunification and the renewed empire lasting centuries longer?
 
Presumably the Visigoths get settled in the Empire's Alpine provinces- Noricum, I think? Honorius' court, paradoxically, might be appalled by the settlement, and inclined to switch their support to the usurper Constantine "III", who could potentially march into Italy and depose Honorius. We might, then, see the Visigoths march out of Noricum, and back into Italy, and we're back where we started.

Really, from what I recall, what happened in 410 actually turned out to be a rather good thing for the Empire in the shorter term. To avoid the chaos of the years around the Sack, you need to kill off Stilicho early, I think. I know he has a good reputation these days, but it was his denuding the Rhine frontier of troops to engage in rather pointless disputes with Constantinople over the Illyrian provinces that really set in train the collapse of the Western Empire.
 
To avoid the chaos of the years around the Sack, you need to kill off Stilicho early, I think. I know he has a good reputation these days, but it was his denuding the Rhine frontier of troops to engage in rather pointless disputes with Constantinople over the Illyrian provinces that really set in train the collapse of the Western Empire.

Could this be done w a PoD after Theodossius' death, or is Stilchio's career too established at this point? Alternatively, it it possible for Honorius to just decide not to move his base to Ravenna in 402?
 
Could this be done w a PoD after Theodossius' death, or is Stilchio's career too established at this point? Alternatively, it it possible for Honorius to just decide not to move his base to Ravenna in 402?

Hmm, I think it could, yeah. There's plenty of disease about.

I'm not sure what good changing the capital would do. Rome was not the capital of the WRE at any point after Constantine- Emperors were generally based at either Trier (Augusta Treverorum) or Milan prior to settling down in Ravenna.
 
Top