Gothic Invasions:

In 375 one million Goths came to the Danube River on the edge of the Roman Empire after fleeing from the Huns, who were terrorizing northeastern Europe. They asked the Roman emperor Valens for protection in his empire. He responded that they could enter on the conditions that they give their children to Roman schools and they leave their weapons behind. The Goths bribed the Roman soldiers to let them keep their weapons. Their children went to Roman schools, but were later killed. Two hundred thousand warriors entered Italy with their families.

The leaders of the Goths were invited to a party in a Roman marketplace. Some Goths outside of the party started a fight and were killed by order of the emperor Valens. The Gothic leaders heard about the killing and declared war on the Romans.

In 378 Valens led his army on a twelve mile march to attack the Goths. Near the Goths’ camp, the Goths assaulted the surprised and exhausted Romans from the sides. Valens and two thirds of the army were killed during the battle.

In 395 after Theodosius succeeded Valens as emperor of Rome, the army was sent to guard the pass in Thermopylae, an entrance into lower Greece. But when the Goths came to the pass, the army had left the way open. The Goths’ leader Aleric led them in pillaging the countryside of lower Greece.

When the Romans heard that the Goths were in Greece, which was part of their empire, they sent their army to oppose them. They sent Stilicho, a military genius, to lead the Roman army into Greece. When Aleric was about to be crushed, he remembered a treaty with the eastern empire that had been offered but not answered. The emperor of the Eastern Empire gave them land from their treaty that applied when the Goths ended their fighting. The emperor gave them one certain province in the eastern empire near Italy. The Goths taxed the people who were still living in their new land and made more weapons. The Goths were not planning to stop fighting for very long.

In 400 the Goths marched into Italy and approached Rome. Stilicho gathered a small army and forced the Goths to retreat. Soon afterwards, the Goths came again and Stilicho again forced them back out of Italy. But by the third attack in 410, Stilicho had been killed in 409 because he was getting so many honors that the emperor became jealous. The Romans resisted, but the Goths broke through the gates and took away any valuables. But the relics in the churches were left unmarred and put in Saint Peter’s Church.

After the Goths left Rome poor and broken, the Huns came in 451 and sacked Rome even further. They plundered all valuables, killed the important Romans, and took any able-bodied Romans to be slaves. Later the Vandals and the Lombards marched to Rome and carried off anything that had been gathered since the last attack. Rome had lost its power and would never be the same.

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