The Barbarian Invasions of Rome

In 300 AD, the empire had finally seemed to have recovered from the multitude of catastrophes, both economic as well as militarily which had plagued the third century.

The reorganization and division of the empire into two halves by emperor Diocletian had supplied firm governance and added resilience to a crumbling infrastructure at a critical time.

However civil war was now endemic to imperial rule and the next fifty years were punctuated by a series of military campaigns between Romes generals to attain the Imperial Purple.

 

These internal squabbles were a serious threat to the manpower reserves of the Roman military as well as a costly drain on the imperial treasury at a time when every resource would be needed to repel a succession on Barbarian invaders bent on destroying Rome itself.

In 376 AD, the Huns attacked and decimated the Visigoths north of the Danube frontier. The Visigothic Chieftain Fritigern pleaded with the Romans for permission to settle withing the safety of the empire.

There was a precedent for this however, all able bodied males were to be conscripted into the Roman military and fight alongside the Legions as auxiliary forces. Unfortunately for the Visigoths they were mercilessly exploited by the Governor of Thrace, even to the point of  selling there children as slaves in exchange for dog meat to prevent starvation.

With there very survival at stake Fritigern ordered a general uprising against there overlords and decisivley defeated the Romans also killing the eastern emperor Valen's at the battle of Adrianople in 378 AD.

 

Theodosius now became the eastern emperor and permitted the Visigoths to settle in the Balkans. This was in large part that another civil war had broken out within the empire.

After nine years of unrest Theodosius emerged the victor and unified east and west becoming the last sole ruler of the Roman Empire. Upon his death in 395, the empire was divided between his two sons, Honorius in the west and Arcadius in the east.

In 407 the Vandals had defeated the Rhine Legions and broken through the frontier making there way unopposed across Gaul, marking a trail of pillaged, burned and destroyed villages, towns and cities. Finally ending there rampage in 409 and settling in Spain.

 

In 400 a new Visigoth King, Alaric I was crowned and quickly dissolved the 382 peace treaty signed by Fritigern with Rome. Alaric then led an invasion outside his designated Balkan kingdom into the surrounding east Roman territory. 

The Visigoths pillaged much of Greece including the great cities of Corinth, Argos and Sparta, only Athens avoided being sacked after paying a huge tribute of four thousand pounds in gold and silver which basically bankrupted the city but spared its destruction.

In 408 Alaric demanded gold, silver and permission to settle his people in the rich province of  Pannonia. The western Roman emperor Honorius steadfastly refused but it was a hollow threat, Alaric was well aware the Romans had no Legions in Italy and decided to take Italy by force, Culminating in the sack of Rome itself in 410 AD.

The Roman empire was now fragmented and crumbling. The island province of Britain was also abandoned in 410, while the fearsome Huns themselves were slowly pressing along the empires borders.

The Vandals were forced to migrated across the Mediterranean Sea to North Africa in 429 after the Visigoths left Italy and occupied Spain. 

The military campaigns of Attila and his Huns during the 440's and 450's were another nail in the Imperial coffin even though the later was defeated by a Roman - Visigoth army at the battle of Chalons in 451 AD.

Just four years later in 455, Rome was sacked once again by Vandal raiders from Africa. That same year the Ostrogoth's crossed the Danube river and settled in illyricum along the Adriatic Sea .

In 476 AD under immense pressure the Rhine frontier totally gave way releasing hundreds of thousands of Franks, Burgundian's, Allemani and Lombards into the territory of the former empire.

In September that year the Ostrogothic King Odoacer occupied Italy deposing the western emperor Romulus Augustulus with the approval of the eastern emperor Flavius Zeno, marking the end of the old Roman Empire. 

The Barbarian invasions of Rome

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-tDSJSWnsw