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Visigoths and settled them back into their little enclave. The Battle of Adrianople had shown the tactical superiority of the Gothic method of combat (armored cavalry fighting with lances) over the traditional Roman legion, so Theodosius began a massive recruiting of barbarians into the Roman army.

      His reign is more notable for religious rather than political events. A firm Christian, Theodosius outlawed paganism and transferred the title of supreme pontiff (high priest) from the emperor to the bishop of Rome. He put a stop to pagan rituals like the Olympic Games and allowed Christian mobs to destroy ancient shrines such as the Serapeum, which was part of the library complex in Alexandria. The sacred flame of the Vestal Virgins in Rome was extinguished after a thousand years of careful tending. Pagans warned that this would anger the gods and bring nothing but trouble. Apparently they were right.

      Despite ominous portents, Roman civilization was still thriving intellectually at this point. Saint Augustine, the theologian who stands second only to Saint Paul in creating the Christianity we know today, came to prominence during this era. Augustine had spent his youth enjoying the pleasures of the flesh; then he grew up, got religion in 386 CE, and ruined it for everyone else. He worked over the problem of free will, developed original sin, damned unbaptized babies, outlawed sex, and turned Christianity from a popular movement into a postgraduate philosophy course. Whenever your eyes glaze over while studying religion, or whenever you find yourself wondering where Jesus said that, that’s Saint Augustine at work.

      Christianity was well established throughout the Roman sphere by this time. All of the Germanic tribes lined up along the border had converted long ago, but unfortunately the empire had declared their version, Arianism, a heresy for disagreeing over the Trinity. Arians believed that the Son didn’t exist until the Father created him, unlike the Catholics of the Roman Empire, who believed that Father and Son coexisted eternally. It doesn’t really matter except that people will fight about anything.

       Politics in Milan

      Meanwhile, the Western Roman Empire was torn by internal disputes. Twice recently, ambitious generals had assassinated the Western emperor and Theodosius had to intervene to remove the usurper. The first time, when Gratian was killed in 383, Theodosius restored the line of the legitimate family (Valentinian II), but the second time, in 394, he kept the Western Empire for himself. For one year—and for the last time—a single emperor ruled a unified empire from Britain to Arabia.

      When Theodosius died in 395, the empire was divided between his two sons. His eleven-year-old son, Honorius, got the Western Empire, while the slightly older Arcadius got the Eastern. Honorius would rule for the next three decades, until 423, during which the important collapsing began, so let’s blame it all on him, even if he was only eleven years old.

      The man who really ran the Western Empire was the general and regent, Stilicho. He is usually described as a Vandal general in Roman service, but he was born and raised a Roman. Although his father was a Vandal chieftain commanding auxiliaries in the Roman army, Stilicho’s mother was pure Roman. In any case, Stilicho’s background was not unusual. Most high army commanders by this time were only a generation or so removed from barbarian mercenary ancestors.

       All Hell Breaks Loose

      In the Eastern Empire, before Theodosius was cold, the Visigoths under Alaric decided to move. Like most savages, the Goths were rather vague on the concept of institutions, but they believed strongly in personal bonds. With Theodosius dead, they considered themselves freed from their agreement to settle down peacefully. They pulled up stakes and began marauding up and down the Balkans against light, ineffective Roman resistance. By 402 the Visigoths had broken through to Italy. With an enemy army on the civilized side of the Alps for the first time in six hundred years, Honorius (now eighteen) removed the court from Milan, which was dangerously exposed on a wide plain, to Ravenna, on the coast behind impassible swamps. Stilicho beat the Visigoths, who pulled back to reconsider their options.

      With so much of the Roman army in Italy chasing Visigoths, the northern frontier was lightly defended, so in 406, a big barbarian horde—mostly the Germanic Vandals and Suebi, along with the Iranian Alans—crossed the frozen Rhine River at Mainz without opposition. They rampaged across Gaul, burning, killing, and raping, until they crossed the Pyrenees into Spain. The poet Orientius, bishop of Auch, described it a few years later:

       Some lay as food for dogs; for many a burning roof

       Both took their soul, and cremated their corpse.

       Through the villages and villas, through the countryside and market-place,

       Through all the regions, on all the roads, in this place and that, there was Death, Misery, Destruction, Burning, and Mourning.

       The whole of Gaul smoked on a single funeral pyre. ²

      Stopping the invasion was not the highest priority at court. Honorius was more worried that Stilicho was becoming too powerful, so he had him assassinated in 408.

      Seeing the chaos unfold on the continent, Constantine, the commander of the Roman army in Britain, declared himself emperor of the Western Empire. He crossed into Gaul to assert his claim, leaving the Britons to fend for themselves under an independence they didn’t want.

      With loyal troops so scarce, Honorius was in no position to fight Constantine. Instead, he was forced to accept him as co-emperor, but before Emperor Constantine III could settle in and enjoy himself, one of his own generals rebelled and raised a third emperor. After this, it gets even more complicated. Other garrisons took sides and pretty soon all of the Romans in northwest Europe were fighting each other. Eventually, however, all of the Roman usurpers and their families were safely dead. Severed heads were hoisted triumphantly on poles all across the land—Constantine’s among them.

      Safe for the moment, Honorius now had to promote Constantius, a loyal general who had saved his skin in the recent conflict, to co-emperor. Meanwhile, two other tribes had slipped into the unguarded Roman provinces behind the Vandals. The Franks, who had earlier settled as federates in the Rhine delta, now spread deeper into the land that would eventually be named after them (France). The Burgundians did likewise, ending up in Burgundy. Local Roman officials were forced to pay tribute to these tribes until someone could come and chase them away. It would take longer than anyone suspected.

      Although the continent still remained under (nominal) Roman control, Emperor Honorius sent a letter to the Britons declaring them officially on their own. There was nothing he could do for them. Over the next few decades, tribe after tribe of barbarians— Picts, Scots, Angles, Saxons, and Jutes—from several directions—Ireland, Scotland, and Denmark—took advantage of the opportunity and plunged Britain into a violent, unchronicled age. With no real defender riding to their rescue, the helpless Britons had to dream one, and the legend of King Arthur was born.

       The Sack of Rome

      Meanwhile Alaric returned with his Visigoths and extorted a massive ransom from the city of Rome in 409. When he presented his demands at the gates of the city, the Romans were shocked. What had he left for them to keep? “Your lives,” he answered.

      This kept Alaric financed for about a year, but then he returned, seized the city, and looted for several days in 410. Although Rome wasn’t the capital anymore and the looting was more robbery than wanton destruction, the fall of Rome shocked the civilized world. Clearly whatever was happening was more than just another dynastic dispute.

      The Roman Empire is like the dinosaurs. Both are more famous for being gone than for having survived all those centuries; however, the city of Rome had remained unpillaged by foreigners for eight hundred years (390 BCE–410 CE). This is extraordinary, even by modern standards. For a sense of perspective, consider some other capital cities that foreign troops have occupied at one time or another in the past four hundred years—only half the number of years Rome remained unconquered:

      Addis Ababa (1936), Athens (1826, 1941), Baghdad

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