Talk:Sack of Rome (410)

End of empire
The article says that the 410 sack of Rome is considered to be the end of the western Roman Empire, but the great majority of historians believe the year 476 marked its end with the deposing of Romulus Augustulus.

Uncertain of categorization
I'm not sure this should be categorized as a battle, since no actual fighting took place... Abou 02:35, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Not Accurate
Page needs alot of work. I will do some tonight. Cheers, MedievalScholar 19:56, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Still could use more information, I will post more as I collect more sources. Thanks to those who worked on the article before me! TonyMcGuire (talk) 18:30, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Citations are a mess
I just added a citation for one of the unverified claims made in the article. Don't have time now to add any more but hopefully others will... Quadrifoglio (talk) 17:39, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Which kind of pepper?
Do sources state whether Alaric demanded black pepper or long pepper? It seems that both were imported into Europe. Badagnani (talk) 06:10, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Likely black pepper Sikandar Shah al-Buzuqi (talk) 20:10, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

"Third siege and sack" section needs major work
The section "Third siege and sack" has some major issues.

First of all, the line "This was the first time the city had been sacked in 800 years, and its citizens were devastated." appears to contradict Sack of Rome (387 BC). If for some reason the 387 one is somehow not considered a proper "sack", this needs to be elaborated. Otherwise, this line needs to be removed as it is false.

Reply: Bearing in mind that the Gauls sacked the city in 387 BC, this seems broadly accurate - the gap was 723 years. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.73.85.98 (talk) 15:15, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Secondly, this line struck me: "On August 24, 410, slaves opened Rome's Salarian Gate and the Visigoths poured in and looted for three days." This one line says a lot about Roman society of the time. In many cases in the ancient world, where there was an institutionalized slave class, they mostly (with the occasional revolt) accepted their place, especially if there was a common outside enemy, and so society continued to function. Now we have slaves opening the gates of Rome to allow the enemy to pour in and rape and burn and pillage and loot? That one sentence makes it clear that Roman civilization had decayed to the point where a substantial subsection of the population hated their whole country. This REALLY needs to be elaborated, simply because it is so interesting. To leave it an almost casual comment as it is in the article is damn-near criminal to any readers who happen to be interested in the evolution of human society. Mbarbier (talk) 15:15, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Not violent because of religion? POV
Article-quote: "Because the barbarians had converted to the Christian sect Arianism, it was not a particularly violent looting with relatively little rape, murder and damage to buildings". End quote. This needs clarification. The phrase seems to suggest that the reason to why the looting was not severe, was because the "barbarians" was Christian. That is hardly very NPOV. --85.226.41.82 (talk) 14:48, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Accuracy of date
August 24th Gregorian reckoning, which was not used at the time? Julian reckoning? How is the date known? Was it originally given as anno Domini or as anno Urbis conditae? --209.201.114.50 (talk) 01:22, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

1600 years gone by
Just for curiosity, the (western) roman empire ended 1600 years ago, made just few days ago. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.102.38.146 (talk) 11:36, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
 * No it didn't, the visigoths never conquered the western roman empire. we will have to wait until 2076 for the 1600th anniversary of the extinction of the western roman empire.--99.141.195.122 (talk) 19:47, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Backman citation appears incorrect
In Backman, Clifford R. (2009), The worlds of medieval Europe (2 ed.), Oxford University Press, p. 47 (footnote), ISBN 9780195335279 the quotation of Jerome appears to be wrong. This quote is currently in the lead text and I have changed it based on a direct quotation from Jerome's letter as repeated in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VI/The Letters of St. Jerome/Letter 127 paragraph 12. If anyone would care to verify Backman's form of the quotation I would be happy to see this changed to a different quote from Jerome. Fæ (talk) 17:00, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Wrong link to "second battle of Adrianople" in the 1700s
Deleted the link. --131.111.233.196 (talk) 17:09, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Pejoratives
Its seems terribly unencyclopedic to use the pejorative term "barbarians" to refer to those that sacked Rome. Murderbike (talk) 01:56, 31 May 2012 (UTC)


 * The term "barbarians" has widespread currency in reliable, academic literature (for instance, Peter Heather's The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians). It is not intended to be a pejorative and it is not used as such in this article. Running From Zombies (talk) 12:44, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Unreliable source
The source, "Defending Rome: The Masters of the Soldiers", is written by Julian Reynolds, who is not a historian, but a zoologist. Julian Reynolds is Emeritus Fellow of Trinity College Dublin, Ireland and former Head of its Department of Zoology. He is a freshwater ecologist with particular interests in crustaceans and in small, extreme or ephemeral habitats (fens, bog pools, turloughs). He has extensive experience consulting on environmental pollution and crayfish management in Ireland. --Kansas Bear (talk) 22:20, 14 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Google sometimes gives odd results, to the publisher's own website says "Julian Reynolds is a former defence intelligence analyst, university tutor and high school teacher". My guess is the Google books page was put together automatically and information on the wrong Julian Reynolds was scraped. I don't know enough about the author to comment, but the publisher ([Xlibris) is a self-publishing company. There is enough written on this topic that the article shouldn't be reliant on self-published sources per WP:SELFPUBLISH. Nev1 (talk) 23:30, 14 December 2014 (UTC)


 * I'll attempt to remove and replace that particular source. Running From Zombies (talk) 01:10, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Color of the Eastern Roman Empire/Alans in the 410 map
Could someone please change the color of either the Eastern Roman Empire or the Alans in the "Impero d'Occidente 410.PNG" picture to a different color? Having them both in gray is confusing. Running From Zombies (talk) 19:55, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Map in the Aftermath section
Surely this map isn't right: the Alans didn't control the entire Eastern Empire. Richard75 (talk) 11:19, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

4000 Pounds of Gold
Sorry but this cannot be remotely accurate: "Alaric then invaded and took control of parts of Noricum and upper Pannonia in the spring of 408. He demanded 288,000 solidi (four thousand pounds of gold), and threatened to invade Italy if he did not get it.[37] This was equivalent to the amount of money earned in property revenue by a single senatorial family in one year.[41]"

What do the cites actually say here? 4000 ounces might be more credible. At the time an ounce or two of gold could support a family for a year. Yes, senatorial families were often vastly wealthy, but not to that degree. My guess is that this is an error in translation. Even a quick conversion at 7 solidi per troy ounce yields only half the stated amount. ConradArchguy (talk) 11:17, 6 January 2020 (UTC)


 * The first citation (Wolfram) says, "At the same time Alaric demanded an indemnity of four thousand pounds of gold, threatening to invade Italy if he failed to receive it. In considering this enormous sum of 288,000 solidi, two observations are in place. First, more than ninety thousand people could have lived from it comfortably for a year. This figure confirms the presumed size of the tribe, which is generally estimated at about a hundred thousand people. Second, four thousand pounds of gold amounts to the yearly income of a senator of the wealthy, though not the wealthiest, class."


 * The second citation (Lançon) says, "Alaric asked the Romans for a sum of 4000 gold librae, equal to 288,000 solidi, the equivalent of the annual property revenue of a senatorial family."


 * A Roman libra seems to be about .725 of an imperial pound. Perhaps putting "Roman pound" or just "librae" would improve accuracy. Curiously, most reliable sources I can find, when they give the weight in poundage, flatly state "4000 pounds," with little indication as to whether they're talking about Roman or imperial pounds. Examples include A.D. Lee's War in Late Antiquity (page 121) and Herbert Schutz's The Germanic Realms in Pre-Carolingian Central Europe (page 36). Any part of this article that mentions "pounds" probably suffers from the same confusion, and perhaps other Roman articles do as well.


 * Beyond that, Gerard Friell's The Rome that Did Not Fall gives some context to the sums involved.


 * Although paying the army was the single greatest expense for the empire, there were other significant calls on its revenue. Payments were made to barbarians, and to Persia, to buy peace on the frontiers. In 506, as part of the peace with Persia, Anastasius agreed to pay 39,600 solidi each year in subsidies. Justinian was later to agree to a payment of 792,000 solidi to buy the 'Perpetual Peace' with Persia. The only long-term barbarian subsidies which the Eastern empire had to pay were those to the Huns, and at their most severe under Attila the annual payments were only 2,100 pounds of gold (151,200 solidi).

In contrast, the West sometimes faced huge demands with a much lower income to meet them. In 408, 4,000 pounds of gold (288,00 solidi) was needed to buy off Alaric, and the following year this was increased to 5,000 pounds of gold (360,000 solidi), 30,000 pounds of silver (120,000 solidi) and costly luxury goods such as silk and pepper. However, there are accounts of individual ransoms of up to 30,000 solidi being paid by families, and the burden on the empire should be seen in that light. The wealth was undoubtedly there in the West to meet these sorts of demands, but not enough of it was reaching the imperial treasury.

Ransoms were also paid in the East, both for prominent individuals and for ordinary captives taken in raids. Anastasius paid 9,000 pounds of gold (648,000 solidi) for the ransom of his nephew and chief general, Hypatius, from Vitalian during their civil war. He also paid 1,000 pounds of gold (72,000 solidi) to ransom prisoners taken in Bulgar raids in 517.


 * Forgive any typos. I had to transcribe the quotes by hand. Running From Zombies (talk) 05:04, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Map
The map in the "Aftermath" section is wrong, it describes the entire Byzantine Enpire as belonging to the Alans. Richard75 (talk) 08:42, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Huns in infobox?
I just expanded the article placing the Huns in the infobox as combatants. The Huns did participate in the clashes preceding the second siege (409). A section dedicated to the second siege (in which this fact is mentioned) is part of this article. The infobox however is actually for the 410 sack, and we don't know whether they participated in that battle. So I wonder whether they should be included in the ib or not. Giray Altay (talk) 21:47, 18 November 2022 (UTC)