Talk:Alaric I

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Untitled
From the previous version:


 * "After much bargaining, the famine-stricken citizens agreed to pay a ransom of more than a quarter of a million sterling, (question for reviewers: did sterling have a meaning in late Roman context, or has the 1911 author helpfully converted some Roman amount to 1911 British pounds sterling? This should be checked against other sources) besides precious garments of silk and leather and three thousand pounds of pepper. Thus ended Alaric's first siege of Rome."

I stumbled across the primary source that provided this figure for the 1911 EB author today, & it stated that the Romans paid Alaric 2000 pound of gold -- pounds as in measure of weight, not the currency.

If you can phrase this better in the text, please make the change. -- llywrch 06:08 Nov 21, 2002 (UTC)

The "Alaricus" article, which now redirects to "Alaric", contained the following text before it was redirected:


 * Alarico - the Barbarian who Humiliated Rome


 * Between the Visigodos heads who assediaram the Roman Empire, none was of the dimension of Alarico. The principle gave services to the Emperor of the Ocidente, Honório, in exchange for an annual soldier's pay. But Alarico early became a threat. Its true name would be Ala-Reik and would have lived of 376 the 410. Coming to grips itself with the Emperor of the East, Arcádio, Alarico it reached with its troops the peninsula Greek and intended to destroy Constantinopla.


 * Thanks to the troops of Estilicão (another Barbarian the service of the Empire of the East), Alarico was withheld with its thousand of soldiers. Defeated, it is turned toward west and it advances through the Alps, of the plain of the Dust and the Apeninos, in direction Rome. Its troops had been increased with the Barbarians of Estilicão, after the murder of this, the control of Arcádio.Alarico besieges Rome, leaving it without foods. Beyond the hunger, it starts to spread over the city a plague epidemic, result of the thousands of insepultos corpses. The Romans, desperate, suffocate its pride and ebeg the Alarico that if removes. The Visigodos head demands, for this, all the other and silver of the city as rescue, beyond the release of about 40 a thousand barbarous slaves. To disappointed ambassadors Roman, that had asked to it "that in you leave them, therefore", he answered simply: "the life...".


 * Later, another time Alarico besieges Rome, that falls in day 24 of August of 410. 3 days of booty and bloody slaughter are followed, of which had participated the 40 a thousand freed slaves of the previous small farm.


 * To follow Alarico one leaves for the south of Italy, intending to attack Sicily. It dies, however, to the 34 years, without reaching its objective. It was embedded, together with great addition of gold and silver,in the riverbed Busento, deviated of its course for the slaves, for the burial. After the return of waters its normal course, the slaves had been beheaded, guaranteeing itself, thus, the final rest of Alarico against the breaking of the sepulture for the enemies.


 * http://vladimir.sites.uol.com.br/historia/

You know, just in case anyone wants to salvage anything from it for this article. -- Oliver P. 06:17 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Move from Alaric to Alaric I
I have moved this article from Alaric to Alaric I, and made Alaric into a disambiguation page, because Alaric can refer to more than one person. Granted, Alaric the Goth who sacked Rome was the most notable person of that name. However, Alaric I is an appropriate title for this individual -- even Encyclopedia Britannica uses "Alaric I" as their name for him on Britannica.com. All links to Alaric have been fixed in the corrsponding articles. Kevyn 12:00, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I read the presentation and i find that there is a geographical confussion : Alaric  place of birth- Danube Delta - mouth of the Danube- this is, as I know in Romania not in Bulgaria and in the south part is also a region  - Dobrogea-  wich is also romanian teritory. The huns were coming in that period in Transilvania. Looking at the map I imagine that alaric was born probabily neer Tulcea- Romania.

Honorius
Could someone please try to rewrite the passages referring to Honorius? I myself don't know that much about him, but calling him "timid and feeble" and speaking of his "impenetrable stupidity" really doesn't sound like NPOV to me. Probably leftover from the original 1911 text, this really should be revised to what the current historic view of Honorius is. The same is true for the Honorius article itself. I read some other sources that speak about this emperor a whole lot less negative. Don't have the time nor the knowledge to rewrite this myself, unfortunately. --Ammaletu 14:52, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

At the time, his contemporaries thought Honorius was at least 'feeble-minded', or retarded, and that's the kind ones. Historians since have had no reason to change their minds. Any examination of Honorius' life will reveal the same now as then - he was at least simple and weak-willed, possibly even retarded, and if not he was just plain stupid. Jmullaly (talk) 10:56, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Alaric's age and other errors
There are numerous factual errors or "possible"s presented as facts. I'll touch just two:


 * 1) The article states that Alaric lived 370-412, but within the article it is stated that "He died in Cosenza soon after [August 24, 410], probably of fever, at the early age of thirty-four" -- This means that his age data at the beginning of the article is faulty (which it is); and that at any rate, he could not be thirty-four. This should read: fourty.
 * 2) The chief authorities for Alaric are not as mentioned: Claudian and Zosimos are probably the two of which about 95 per cent of the material is based. Jordanes, especially, is of marginal value.

Ori 192.115.133.141 22:35, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

I've made some attempts to clean up this mess, but it seems like I've only succeeded in messing things up further. Fornadan (t) 15:26, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Confused pronoun antecedent.
This article appears to be drawn from the All Experts website, specifically, the Alaric article on that site. In the process of adapting the All Experts website entry for use in Wikipedia, the contributor copied directly from his or her source, but misidentified the antecedent for "He" in the source's sentence "He crossed the Gulf of Corinth . . ." The prior edition of this article stated that "Arcadius crossed the Gulf of Corinth." In fact, it was Alaric who did so. I verified this from Chapter XXX of Volume 3 of Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which can be found at Gutenberg Project Gibbon. AugustusIII 07:23, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually All Expert uses an older version of this article as source. Originaly this article was copied diorectly from EB1911. The error sneaked in when I made some attempts to make the text actually readable (must have been one of my braindead moments since I know that it was Alaric that escaped and I had other sources aviable when I did the editing) Fornadan (t) 13:42, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

This was placed on the Alaric disambiguation page
I don't know whether it is of any use for this article, but it simply doesn't belong on the disambig page:
 * "'Alaric I'(ăl`ərĭk) lived around 370–410 and was a Visigothic king. It is thought his tribe migrated ahead of the Huns into Roman lands when he was aged 11. He later headed the Visigothic troops serving Emperor Theodosius I. After the emperor's death (395) the troops rebelled and chose Alaric as their leader. The Visigoths were one of the most important groups of Germans tribes of the time. Having settled in the region west of the Black Sea in the 3rd century AD, the Goths soon split into two divisions, the Ostrogoths (East Goths) and the Visigoths (West Goths).


 * By the 4th century, Alaric had devastated Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece. Stopped, but not defeated, by Stilicho. He was the chief general of Theodosius I, whose niece he married.
 * In 401 he invaded Italy, where after some indecisive warfare, he agreed to withdraw. Stilicho persuaded (407) the Romans to buy Alaric's alliance, but shortly afterward Emperor Honorius Honorius, 384–423, Roman emperor of the West (395–423). On the death (395) of Theodosius I, the Roman Empire was divided; Arcadius, the elder son, received the East, and Honorius, the younger son, received the West. This division proved to be a permanent one. The general Stilicho , as guardian of Honorius, at first controlled the government of the West and defended the empire against the Visigoths.


 * Alaric again invaded (408) Italy and laid siege to Rome. Raising the siege after an agreement with the Roman senate, Alaric again turned on Rome (409) and forced the city to accept a puppet emperor, Attalus, whom he himself deposed the next year for disregarding his advice. After the failure of renewed negotiations with Honorius (who all the while held out at Ravenna) Alaric stormed and sacked Rome (410) and then marched south to attack Sicily and Africa. His sacking of Rome did not include the mass destruction of Rome - a city he much admired. He wished for fair treatment and good quality land for his tribe promised earlier by the Romans. A storm later destroyed his fleet, and Alaric, having turned back, died of an illness. His brother Ataulf was elected his successor. It is said that Alaric was buried with his treasures near Cosenza in the bed of the Busento River, which was temporarily diverted from its course. That the secret of his burial place might be kept, the slaves employed in the labor were killed." Sijo Ripa 10:34, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Anti-Goth?
Having watched the BBC Ancient Rome series, I turned to this article for more info. Interestingly the BBC takes up the story in about 408 and does not mention the previous bloody campaigns by the Goths. The viewpoint of the BBC's historical advisors is that the murder of Stilchio was because the Emperor disagreed with the deal that Stilchio had made with Alaric. The programme also emphasises that Alaric was continually betrayed by Honorious and his advisers. It also claims that he not want to take Rome at all, merely to threaten it to get the land he had been promised. Thinking he had a deal about land, he voluntarily lifted the seige. (Having been given much of the city's wealth without fighting for it, he also had less incentive.) The Romans then tried to reinforce Rome and Alaric realised that he had been double-crossed again. After further attempts at negotiation were unsuccessful, Alaric had no option but to make good his threat and to take Rome. JMcC 08:54, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Wombats?
I don't actually know how Alaric died, but I feel certain that wombats were not involved. 129.170.202.226 12:44, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Wombats have never been recorded in this history. 2600:1700:6B1:CC0:4880:7D7A:81BA:8E3A (talk) 18:48, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

References and citations
Someone made a call for a citation after the following statement:


 * During the fourth century it had become common practice with the Roman emperors to employ federates or foederati; Germanic irregular troops under Roman command but organized by tribal structures.

Besides the fact that this is an uncontroversial statement--attested to by Gibbon, Bradley, and every other familiar historian who has written about Alaric--a link is provided to the Wikipedia article, Foederati, within which the necessary citation appears. Therefore the citation call has been deleted. Fredwords 15:23, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Misinformation?
From article: "At the time of his birth the Visigoths dwelt in Bulgaria, having fled beyond the wide estuary marshes of the Danube to its southern shore so as not to be followed by their foe from the steppe, the Huns."

From my studies, the is no evidence that the Hunnic main body was westward enough, even by 376, when Goths were appearing on the northern banks of the Danube. It is more likely that the Huns did come into contact with the Alans, creating a cascade effect westward. 76.6.56.19 00:47, 17 October 2007 (UTC)


 * That sentence is from the 1911 Britannica article, as is most of this article, so it's quite possible that it's based on some reconstructions of history no longer held by modern historians. The whole article needs a thorough updating by someone familiar with the current literature. --Delirium (talk) 02:12, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, as I come to a conclusion on the paper that I have done, I have made some changes to this original information. Some of the storylines seem relatively in tact, but a great deal of dates and assumptions have since had more light shed on them.Brentbushong (talk) 06:15, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Updates and References
For those interested in the subject, I have spent a great deal of time (perhaps more than I needed!) on research into the life of Alaric through a number of sources and readings. I am currently in the process of writing a term paper on this very subject in Santa Barbara under professor Imhoff, and will be making the citation and reference changes as time goes on throughout the process. As it stands, I have made some minor edits, and changed a date or two; citations and all to be included as well, and minor revisions to the links may happen also as I am still learning the system. Please feel free to email me with any corrections or questions. Brentbushong (talk) 19:37, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

"Pagan"?
'The pagan emperors tombs of the Mausoleum of Augustus and Castel Sant'Angelo. . . .'

This sounds awfully strange. Of course Augustus was a "pagan." So was everyone else. There were no Christians. --Michael K. Smith (talk) 04:23, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Burial rites
I noticed that the burial description (diverting a river, burying him in the bed and then killing everyone involved) is almost exactly the same description as for the burial of Attila the Hun - is this a common practice for barbarian tribes? Should there be further mention of this practice? —Preceding unsigned comment added by HerbCSO (talk • contribs) 20:41, 30 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Errr that's not right ... Attila was buried in a mound on the steppe, IIRC in a gold coffin inside a silver coffin inside a bronze coffin (or perhaps vice versa), and his warriors rode round and round the mound wailing, tearing their hair out, slashing their cheeks and shooting arrows. The only similarity I recall is that the slaves who built the mound were killed so as not to reveal the location. Source for this seems to be Cassiodorus via Jordanes. --Jmullaly (talk) 11:05, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

The source for this story is Jordanes who wrote 140 years after the death of Alaric I. The burial story is remarkably similar to the story of the Dacian's burying their gold to hide it from the Romans under Trajan. The only difference's are the River name and that a body (Alaric I) was added by Jordanes. Firstlensman (talk) 17:49, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

In response to Michael Smith
I don't see anything wrong with pointing this fact out. Yes, the Mausoleum of Augustus was last opened during the reign of Nerva at the close of the first century with the Castel Sant'Angelo only decades later by Hadrian. But is this common knowledge? Also there is a real point to be made. First these were pagan emperors entombed; Alaric was an Arian Christian. It's said in the sources of the time that Alaric did not desecrate the churches during the sack of Rome. Therefore it’s important to point this fact out as it may relate to why they were indeed desecrated in the first place. Odin1 (talk) 06:57, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

To add to this, when Constantine converted to Christianity after the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312, almost every subsequent emperor was Christian (notable exception being Julian). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.15.29.84 (talk) 22:53, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

External links modified
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Lots of problems with this article
This article suffers from a number of problems. At the root of most of them is an uncritical reliance on Hodgkin's Britannica 1911 article, which is (with all due respect) completely outdated in its approach. The few references to modern scholars (Heather, Kulikowski, etc.) are for utterly minor points while their larger historiographical insights are ignored.

As another problematic consequence of the over-reliance on the 1911 article, primary sources are not indicated at all. This is a problem because the patchy and biased nature of the sources is not made clear to the reader. This leads to ridiculous statements like:

"In 394 he led a Gothic force of 200,000 that helped the Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius defeat the Frankish usurper Arbogast at the Battle of Frigidus. Despite sacrificing around 100,000 of his men, Alaric received little recognition from the Emperor."

A quick look at Battle of the Frigidus however shows that the accepted estimates for troop sides on each side are about 50,000. Ancient sources routinely inflate troop numbers by orders of magnitude - but Mr. Hodgkin seems to have been unaware of that.

In effect, we have here WP:SYNTH only the synthesis had been done by Hodgkin 100 years ago. Bazuz (talk) 11:06, 17 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I suspect this whole article (and probably many other Wikipedia articles on this period in history) needs a thorough rewrite from modern sources, instead of taking a very old source at face value. The whole period is just not well documented, and a lot of old historical interpretations have been challenged. I'm not proposing this as a source for the article by any means, but episodes 2 through 4 of Patrick Wyman's "Fall of Rome" podcast give a fascinating modern interpretation of the affair with "the Goths" from their crossing of the Danube in A.D. 376 to the sack of Rome in A.D. 410. (Really, the entire podcast is well worth a listen. Wyman's Ph.D. was on the history of the late empire, and he provides interesting views of modern research on the subject.) Wyman points out that the group referred to here as "the Visigoths" or just "the Goths" were really just one particular group of Gothic people, and not even the same consistent group through the whole period. Alaric's Goths in particular appear to have been basically a Roman field army with a Gothic commander (Alaric himself) and mostly Gothic troops, much like many other Roman armies of this era. They were jockeying for position in the difficult, insecure terrain of late imperial politics, and things came to a bad end for both sides. (When your main ambition is to get a field command and a permanent military posting for your followers, a final act which alienates your own government can hardly be called a win.) --Colin Douglas Howell (talk) 16:04, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

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Rewrite centering around Alaric himself and his choices
With valued help from User:Obenritter, I have tried to use modern analyses, especially but not only Burns (Burns, Thomas (1994). Barbarians within the Gates of Rome: A Study of Roman Military Policy and the Barbarians, CA. 375–425 A.D. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-25331-288-4.), to restructure the article around a moderately-coherent account of the choices facing Alaric himself. There are a few extra details, but perhaps most importantly there are subheadings for the successive military/political phases of his career. I hope this is useful. I would of course welcome further comments. Richard Keatinge (talk) 13:33, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Herr Keatinge, these look good to me. It's more detail—at least in terms of subheadings than normally used—but these changes make sense with respect to contextualizing the decisions taken by Alaric. Nice work.--Obenritter (talk) 21:34, 27 September 2020 (UTC)