Original subtitles

[adventurous music playing]

\h\hNARRATOR: Inheriting an empire ravaged by barbarians

and torn apart by \hrival emperors,

one man rises victorious.

His name is Constantine.

\hFighting under the banner of a new god,

\hhe brings unity to a divided Roman Empire.

[intense music and battle cries]

\h\h\hNow as its armies are defeated and emperors slain

\h\hby barbarians, Rome is on the brink of disaster.

\h\hIn this chaos, two mighty leaders

emerge, one from within \hthe empire, the other

from the ranks of its enemies.

\h\hTheir struggle will reveal an empire at war with itself.

[intense music]

On the edges of the empire, \h\hRoman soldiers March off

to defend the frontier villages from attack.

A young boy named Stilicho proudly watches his father

among them.

\h\h\hStilicho was the child of a mixed marriage, as it were.

He had a vandal father \hbut a Roman mother.

And this meant that he grew up in a sort of context that was

half barbarian and half Roman.

This was not atypical of people in this period and, above all,

\h\h\hthe people who were associated with the army.

NARRATOR: Stilicho dreams of becoming

a soldier like his barbarian father,

fighting to protect \hthe great empire.

\h\h\h\h\hBy this time, a sizable percentage of the officer corps

\hwas of what you might call barbarian ancestry.

These are men who \hwere recruited,

worked their way up the ranks.

\h\h\hThe next generation, they become the generals.

NARRATOR: As ever fiercer tribes invade the empire,

Rome’s dependence on barbarian mercenaries grows by the day.

[metal clanking]

[intense music]

Under pressure to protect \hits expansive frontiers,

the empire divides in two.

\h\hThe West is defended by Emperor Valentinian in Rome,

while Emperor Valens defends the East in Constantinople.

But Valens is challenged in 378 AD when a savage enemy attacks

the city of Adrianople.

[intense music and battle cries]

They are the Goths.

And what they want \h\his Roman land.

\h\h\hThey intend to destroy the Roman forces with muscle, steel

and fire, knowing the heavily \harmored Romans will quickly

feel the heat as the \hbattlefield burns.

[swords clashing]

\h\hThe Goths were far more numerous

and they had a lot to fight for.

\h\hThey’d been badly treated by the Romans.

They’d been sold into slavery.

They really had nothing to lose.

\hNARRATOR: During the Battle of Adrianople,

\h\h\hEmperor Valens’s soldiers are no match

for the savage and relentless \h\h\h\h\hbarbarian warriors.

[intense music]

They attack, and everybody \his pushed to the right.

The Romans always edge to the right

anyway because you want to \hkeep that right shoulder

under the shield of the guy next to you.

Now this is accelerated.

Everybody compacts around the emperor

\hbecause he’s on the far right, the point of honor.

And his men won’t move.

So we have this acceleration, \h\h\hthis compactor process.

\hThe Goths come out of this circular deployment

and surround the Romans \h\h\hand cut them down.

NARRATOR: The Emperor \h\h\h\hValens himself

\h\hfalls on the battlefield, forced to fight for his life.

It is a fight he quickly loses, sending his shocked soldiers

into panicked retreat.

\hWhen an ancient army breaks, mass slaughter always ensues.

What made Adrianople even worse was that the Roman army was

\hpartly surrounded and not everybody could run,

\hso that in their haste to get away the Roman soldiers

ended up killing one another, \h\htrampling on one another,

\h\h\hand suffocating to death simply in the vast confusion.

NARRATOR: Two-thirds of the Roman army is lost.

The late Roman historian, \h\hAmmianus Marcellinus,

describes the carnage.

AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS: Arrows whirling death

from every side always found their mark with fatal effect

\hsince they could not be seen beforehand or guarded against.

\h\hThe Battle of Adrianople is a turning point in Roman history.

\h\h\hIt’s a turning point from which the empire cannot return.

The army is largely \h\hgone and there’s

\hno way of getting it back except to use the barbarians

themselves.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: The new Eastern \h\h\hEmperor, Theodosius,

does just that.

\h\h\hHe invites the Goths to a banquet,

\h\h\h\hoffering them land in exchange for military service.

At his side is Stilicho, \h\hnow a Roman general

in his early twenties.

\h\hStilicho was half a barbarian, as it were.

He was half Vandal, half Roman.

And as is typical for so many of these, these kinds of guys,

\hhe worked his way up through the army.

NARRATOR: Emperor Theodosius \h\h\h\h\hrelies on Stilicho

to handle negotiations \hwith the Goths, whom

he plans to use as mercenaries.

\h\h\h\hThe conditions that the Goths achieve from Theodosius

are highly unusual because it puts them in a stronger

\hposition than they might have expected.

The most important thing is that they’re not broken up.

The Goths who have been \h\hfighting Theodosius

are all settled in one place.

And they’re settled in one place without being put under Roman

control.

NARRATOR: Stilicho brokers the deal.

In exchange for this land, \hthe entire Gothic force

agrees to fight as soldiers \h\h\hin Theodosius’s army.

\h\h\h\hThough Stilicho is himself a half barbarian,

Theodosius trusts him like \ha son and has no doubts.

\h\hStilicho was very good at what he did.

He distinguished himself.

He came to the attention \h\h\h\hof the emperor.

And so as he worked \h\hhis way through,

he got higher and higher \h\h\hand was in command

of a large contingent of Theodosius’s army.

\hNARRATOR: But Stilicho’s position does not make him

next in line to rule.

[baby crying]

\hThat honor falls on the Emperor’s biological sons,

Arcadius and Honorius, who is born in Constantinople in 384

AD.

\h\hYet Stilicho enjoys a royal connection as well.

Stilicho was actually \h\hclosely related

to the Emperor Theodosius.

\hHe had clearly been selected from among the many barbarian

or semi barbarian generals \h\h\has a future leader,

\h\hso much so that the Emperor Theodosius had married Stilicho

to his own niece.

And this marriage was a strong point

\h\h\h\h\h\hin cementing Stilicho’s relationship

with the imperial house \hthroughout the course

of his life.

NARRATOR: Though chosen by the Emperor to lead,

Stilicho’s power will \h\halways be limited.

[baby crying]

\hAs a barbarian or a half barbarian,

there was no way he was \h\hgoing to be emperor.

That was it.

NARRATOR: Nonetheless, \h\hEmperor Theodosius

knows he can rely on his most trusted general to help manage

\h\h\h\hthe Eastern empire’s biggest problem, the Goths.

[applause]

[music playing]

\h\hTo solidify Emperor Theodosius’s new treaty,

Gothic boys are sent \hto training camps

to be instructed in Roman military ways.

\hWhat is clear is that they weren’t fully Roman subjects

\hbut that they were obliged to serve the Roman army when

\h\h\hthe Roman emperor called on them to do so.

NARRATOR: As Theodosius’s \h\h\h\h\hright hand man,

Stilicho ensures the young guys are well-trained and loyal.

There is one whose \h\hnatural talent

\h\h\h\hcatches Stilicho’s attention, the boy Alaric.

Alaric had probably been born inside the empire.

\hAnd he’d probably been raised inside the empire

\hwith full awareness of what a Roman military career was like.

\h\h\hNARRATOR: Taking Alaric under his wing,

\h\h\h\hStilicho cannot begin to imagine how their fates will be

intertwined.

[soft music playing]

[music swells]

Over the next decade, \h\hthe Eastern empire

\hgrows stronger under the combined rule of Stilicho

and Emperor Theodosius.

But their authority \h\h\his jeopardized

\hwhen a betrayal in Vienne Gaul rocks the Western Empire in 392

AD.

[adventurous music playing]

\hWhile sleeping in his palace, the Western Emperor Valentinian

\h\h\h\hII is murdered by his barbarian guardian, Arbogast,

who then disguises the \hdeath as a suicide.

The emperor was the symbol \hof Rome’s empire itself.

\hAnd so the death of somebody who--

\h\h\haround whom the state was structured,

symbolically structured, is a tremendous psychological blow.

\hNARRATOR: Worse still, the Western Empire and its army

fall under the control of the ambitious barbarian Arbogast.

\hThe usurper is now a threat to the Eastern empire as well.

[music playing]

Without delay, the Eastern \h\h\hEmperor, Theodosius,

leads his army westward to confront the usurper.

He calls upon his \htrusted general,

\hStilicho, to prepare the troops for battle.

\hStilicho, who was master of the soldiers in Thrace,

\h\h\hwas in command of a large contingent of Theodosius’s army

at the time.

\h\h\h\hNARRATOR: Stilicho recruits the young Alaric,

\hnow a full-grown Gothic chieftain,

and his tribesmen to fight \h\halongside the Romans.

By now, about a quarter \h\h\hof the Roman army

\h\h\h\his made up of barbarian mercenaries.

\h\h\h\h\hThe Romans had become extremely reliant on non-Roman

\h\h\hmanpower with non-Roman leadership in a way that could

\hpotentially become very dangerous for the empire.

NARRATOR: Emperor Theodosius \h\hrecognizes this danger,

but he has devised a plan to destroy the usurper Arbogast

\hand weaken the Goths in one powerful blow.

[music playing]

In 394 AD, Theodosius leads his Eastern army, including

Alaric’s Gothic troops, against the forces of the Western Roman

Empire, now led by the power \hhungry traitor, Arbogast.

[music playing]

\hThe battle takes place in 394 AD at the River Frigidus

in modern-day Slovenia.

[music playing]

[war cries]

\h\hThere, confronted with Arbogast’s army,

Emperor Theodosius orders \h\h\hAlaric and his Goths

\h\h\h\h\hinto battle first, preserving his Roman troops.

[music playing]

\h\hHe almost certainly deliberately put them

\h\hon the front lines for the very first engagement,

knowing that that was the most \hdangerous position for them.

He probably hoped that as many of them would die as possible

and yet still achieve victory.

\hNARRATOR: The Goths fight for their lives.

\h\h\hBut Arbogast’s forces, hungry for blood and booty,

cut them down.

[music playing]

Just as defeat seems imminent, \h\h\h\ha fluke of the weather

changes everything.

\hIt just so happened that the way that the troops were lined

\hup, the winds were blowing very much against the forces

of Arbogast and for the \h\hforces of Theodosius

\hso that the projectiles that were shot and thrown

\h\h\hon the part of Arbogast army failed

to reach or have any effect \h\h\hon Theodosius’s army.

[swords clashing]

\h\h\h\h\hNARRATOR: With this advantage, Emperor Theodosius

defeats Arbogast soundly.

[men screaming]

\hBut in the process, he has made a dangerous new enemy.

As Alaric searches the bodies of the fallen Goths for survivors,

Theodosius’s betrayal cuts deep.

\h\hWhen the Goths were put on the front lines

\h\h\h\hand used as cannon fodder, or missile fodder,

\hfor the troops of Arbogast, Alaric must have been furious.

NARRATOR: Never again will \hAlaric allow his people

to be mere casualties \h\h\hof Roman glory.

While Theodosius celebrates his victory at the Frigidus

\hand becomes the sole Emperor of Rome, Alaric and the Goths

\htake their vengeance, ravaging the Balkans for food and booty.

[music playing]

\hThere, Roman farmers, unarmed and vulnerable,

\hare completely unprepared for the wrath of the Goths.

Their harvest is exactly \h\h\hwhat Alaric needs.

[men yelling]

\h\h\h\hAlaric has nothing now to draw upon to support his people.

\h\h\hHe does not have access to local taxes.

\h\hHe does not have access to granaries.

That means he can’t \h\hfeed his people.

[horses whinny]

\h\h\hNARRATOR: Alaric is now determined to feed his people

with Roman grain.

And the local Roman Garrison \hcan do little to stop him.

[music playing]

Emboldened by their \hsuccess, the Goths

now declare Alaric their king.

\hWith Alaric, they become the first barbarian people

to create a kingdom \hinside the empire.

Alaric is very important \h\hbecause what he does

\his really forge the Goths as a single political unit,

\hand really create from a band of soldiers a people.

NARRATOR: Alaric’s \h\hGothic kingdom

\h\his unchallenged for now, as the Empire faces

other, more critical upheavals.

\h\h\hIn 395 AD, when Emperor Theodosius falls ill and dies,

\h\h\hthe empire is divided once again.

\hHis teenage son, Arcadius, is made Emperor of the East

in Constantinople.

And his 10-year-old \h\h\hson, Honorius,

becomes Emperor of the West in Rome.

[music playing]

Theodosius’s loyal general, Stilicho, is not forgotten.

He becomes the boy emperor \h\h\hHonorius’s protector

and teacher.

\hAfter Theodosius fell ill, it was Stilicho that he turned to

for whatever reason.

He says to Stilicho, according \hto one version or the other,

that he wants him to be the regent of Honorius.

NARRATOR: Inexperienced \h\hin the tools of war,

\hyoung Honorius relies on Stilicho for his expertise

and guidance.

\h\hStilicho had a sort of patronizing relationship,

\h\h\h\h\ha sort of godfather relationship with this child.

I think Stilicho always saw Honorius as his little kid.

NARRATOR: But Honorius is \han indifferent student.

Stilicho keeps a keen eye on him.

\hHe knows that the future of the empire

\h\h\hdepends on his control of the boy.

[birds chirping]

[music playing]

In 397 AD, Stilicho secures \h\h\h\hhis hold on Honorius

\hby marrying the young emperor to his daughter.

\h\h\h\h\hWhat he was really interested in

\his having his grandson be emperor, because he married

his first daughter, Maria, to Honorius,

\h\h\h\h\h\hso clearly he wanted Honorius’s son and his grandson

to be emperor.

So that would be the \honly possible way

\h\h\h\hthat he could have direct familial influence

over the next emperor.

NARRATOR: The wedding guests are scandalized

at the joining of the royal bloodlines with a barbarian.

\h\h\h\h\hBut Stilicho is oblivious to their anger,

seeing himself as Roman to the core.

[applause]

[music playing]

But Stilicho’s power \h\hin Rome does not

\h\hextend to the other young emperor, Arcadius,

in Constantinople.

[music playing]

\h\h\h\hThere, the 19-year-old Arcadius enjoys the amusements

of the imperial bedchamber, \hleaving important matters

of state to his advisors.

[soft music playing]

Well, the fact that Theodosius, had he

been alive to see his \hsons try to operate

\h\hwithout his presence, would have been greatly disappointed.

Of that there can be no doubt.

NARRATOR: Shockingly, Arcadius grants the honor of consulship

to his chief of staff, \hthe eunuch Utropius.

A eunuch as a consul is like \hhaving a porn star elected

\has president of the United States.

\h\hThis is just so far beyond the pale

\hthat people just can’t believe it.

A eunuch as consul is monstrous.

\hNARRATOR: But what makes him truly hated in Constantinople

\h\hare Utropius’s plans to negotiate with the barbarian

Goths.

[soft music playing]

For three long years, \hAlaric and the Goths

\h\hhave raided the Balkans, pressuring Emperor Arcadius

in Constantinople to give him \hthe land that his people so

badly need.

[music playing]

Finally, in 397 AD, \h\hEmperor Arcadius

invites Alaric to Constantinople at the urging of Utropius.

\h\hIndifferent to politics, the emperor leaves the negotiations

to the eunuch.

Utropius executed an agreement \h\hbetween the Eastern court

and Alaric.

\h\h\hAnd Alaric, this Gothic leader, certainly saw in that

\ha tremendous advantage, particularly the advantage

\hof being able to gain supplies and potentially

land from the Eastern court.

NARRATOR: In return, \h\hAlaric promises

\h\hthe Goths will once again fight for the Eastern empire.

But this deal leaves the people outraged.

\h\h\h\h\hThe Goths had regularly confronted the Romans in battle

and actually defeated the Romans in battle.

The Romans, therefore, \h\hhad a huge amount

of not-so-carefully disguised \h\h\hdistaste for the Goths.

NARRATOR: Poisoned with hatred \hfor their one-time enemies,

\h\h\hthe angry people will not be satisfied

until the streets of Constantinople flow

with Gothic blood.

[music playing]

In 397 AD, the Eastern \h\hEmperor Arcadius,

\hat the urging of his closest advisor, the eunuch Utropius,

makes a treaty with \h\hAlaric the Goth.

But anti-barbarian prejudice \h\h\h\hspreads like poison

throughout the city.

[music playing]

\hAfter two years of public outcry,

Utropius is finally arrested.

\hSwept away in the growing race hatred,

\hhis rivals claim his disgrace will quickly

appease the angry mob.

\hThe problem that arose, of course,

\hwas that his power made him unpopular.

And he had a great many \hrivals in full control

of the imperial court.

\h\h\h\hAnd one of the things they exploited

\h\hwas his willingness to negotiate with barbarians

and with the Goths.

\h\hNARRATOR: Utropius is sent into exile and later executed.

\h\h\hBut his sacrifice does not quell the anti-barbarian fervor

\hof the people, who rise up and massacre every last Goth

in the city.

It’s very difficult \h\hin any period

to put your finger on the \hroots of ethnic tension.

\h\hIt’s clear enough that the Romans resented barbarians who

were invading their territory.

But Roman feelings against barbarians

went much deeper than that.

\h\h\h\hThere was a sort of visceral dislike of anything

that smacked of the barbarism.

NARRATOR: Such violence \h\h\hagainst his people

sends an undeniable \hmessage to Alaric,

that a treaty with the \hEast is impossible.

The hatred is too deep.

[music playing]

\hA desperate Alaric takes his people West to Italy,

\hhoping to gain a favorable treaty from General Stilicho

instead.

\h\h\hBut soon, a terrible new force threatens both the Goths

and Rome.

The Huns.

[music playing]

Sweeping into the tribal villages at the margins

\h\h\hof the empire, the Huns attack and destroy everything

before them.

[horses whinny]

\h\hWell, the Huns were moving West.

\h\h\h\hThey were looking for greener pastures, as it were.

And they’re forcing the various Germanic tribes,

the nomadic tribes, \hthe settled tribes

to move out of their way.

The Huns are nasty, \hthey’re ruthless,

and no one wants to be near them.

\h\hBut to all intents and purposes, they’re

\hforcing the others ahead of them like a bow wave in front

of a boat.

And people are trying to get out of the way.

[people screaming]

NARRATOR: Those who do not \hflee the savage horsemen

are cut down with brutal precision,

for the Huns leave no survivors.

[huns cheering]

\h\hThe Hunnic invasion forces other barbarian tribes deeper

into Roman territory.

And while Emperor Honorius moves the seat of the Western Empire

to the better protected \h\h\h\hcity of Ravenna,

the defenseless villages \hof northern Italy fall

prey to the barbarians \h\h\h\h\hdevastation.

[music playing]

\h\hThe dwindling Roman forces are overwhelmed.

\h\h\h\hIn the Italian field hospitals, General Stilicho

watches the numbers \hof fallen soldiers

\hgrow daily, depleting an already sparse army.

I think that’s one of the main problems that Stilicho faces.

He just doesn’t have a proper standing army.

\hAnd it then becomes the major problem of the West

throughout the fifth century.

There isn’t a standing army.

Something happens, you got to \hrun around, pay guys, gather

sort of whatever mercenaries \h\h\h\hand whatnot you can,

and get off to the battlefield \h\h\h\has quickly as you can.

NARRATOR: With each \hsoldier he loses,

Stilicho grows more desperate.

In order to defend Italy, \hhe needed more troops.

And in order to take back \hthe rest of the empire,

he needs more troops.

And he needed them because much of the Western Empire

wasn’t under his control.

NARRATOR: Being half \hbarbarian himself,

Stilicho feels his support \h\hin the army is waning.

Now he has no choice but to \hturn to the one person who

\h\h\h\hcan help him secure more troops, the Gothic King Alaric.

\h\hIn 406 AD, Stilicho travels to Alaric’s camp

in Illyricum, modern-day Serbia, offering a deal.

[music playing]

\hAlaric, eager for a treaty with Rome,

welcomes Stilicho to his camp.

Stilicho brings his \hold friend Alaric

\ha gift to warm the Goth to his request.

Stilicho desperately \h\h\hneeded troops.

There simply weren’t enough \h\h\hRoman troops in Italy

to go around.

\h\h\h\h\hAnd the only reservoir of manpower

was Alaric and his Goths.

\hNARRATOR: Stilicho also offers Alaric the position he’s always

wanted.

\h\h\hIn 404, he wants Alaric to be given a Roman command.

And he’s given a Roman command \h\hso that Stilicho can then

use him as an army to capture Illyricum so that he can then

use that as a launching pad.

NARRATOR: Stilicho desperately needs Illyricum, a recruiting

\hground for soldiers that now belongs to the Eastern empire.

\h\hAlaric agrees to help him take it for the West,

offering Stilicho a Gothic sword as a symbol of their treaty

From Alaric’s point of view, this was a very good thing.

\h\hHe needed some way to keep his followers

\h\hoccupied so that they didn’t simply drift away.

He needed some way to keep them fed so that they didn’t mutiny

or depose him.

NARRATOR: Stilicho \hpromises Alaric

that his Goths will be well paid by the grateful Western Emperor

Honorius.

The two men embrace as allies once more.

[music swells]

But years go by and \h\hHonorius’s court

\his unwilling to make good on Stilicho’s promise to Alaric.

Stilicho finds he has lost influence

over the young emperor.

By now, Honorius is a full adult.

Doesn’t need a guardian anymore.

\h\hStilicho’s position versus Honorius’s court,

\hthe inner circle, that is a very difficult one.

Because as Honorius grew into adulthood,

his court distances \h\h\hhim, Honorius,

from Stilicho’s influence.

NARRATOR: Feeding the emperor \h\hanti-barbarian propaganda,

\h\hthese advisors have delayed Stilicho’s plan

to work with the Goths for years.

The Goths now demand to be paid for their service as promised.

\h\h\h\hStilicho needs to come to the Roman Senate

and he needs to ask that the senators themselves produce

4,000 pounds of gold in order to pay off the Goths for this.

\hHe has to do so in many ways over the protests of Honorius.

\hSo it’s very clear that the two of them

are beginning to part \hways at this point.

NARRATOR: But Stilicho \h\h\h\hwarns Honorius

\h\hthat if Alaric is not paid, the Goths will revolt, an event

the emperor may not survive.

Honorius at first agrees to this,

\h\h\h\h\hbut then his personnel official, who’s named Olympias,

believes that Stilicho is trying to do this so that Stilicho

himself can set up his son, \h\hEucherius on the Eastern

throne.

NARRATOR: Scared and \hconfused, Honorius

believes Olympias’s claims, \h\h\hmaking a decision that

will spell disaster \hfor both Stilicho

and the Western Empire.

[music playing]

\h\h\h\h\hFacing barbarian invasions on the frontier,

the Roman general Stilicho \h\h\h\happeals to Alaric,

King of the Goths, for troops.

But Emperor Honorius’s advisor, the anti-barbarian Olympias,

turns the emperor against Stilicho.

[music playing]

\h\hOlympias and his like-minded officers

\hincite the army to revolt against the half barbarian,

General Stilicho.

And so Olympias then starts sowing all sorts of rumors

amongst the troops as well.

The troops riot in August.

And they call for the \h\hdeath of Stilicho.

NARRATOR: Swayed by Olympias’s slander,

\h\hEmperor Honorius responds by issuing

a decree against Stilicho.

\h\h\hHonorius had many courtiers willing to play upon his fears,

\h\h\h\h\hto suggest to him that Stilicho was seeking the throne

for himself or for his son.

And the emperor’s \hmind was really

poisoned against Stilicho.

\h\hStilicho is himself declared a public enemy.

\h\h\h\hAnd many of his supporters are massacred

in cities throughout Italy.

[battle cries]

\h\hNARRATOR: Ethnic hatred explodes among the populace.

\h\h\hFifth century chronicler Orosius.

OROSIUS: Stilicho was sprung from the barbarian Vandals,

\h\h\h\hthat cowardly greedy treacherous and crafty race.

NARRATOR: The racially-motivated violence is brutal.

And the victims are quickly overwhelmed.

Determined to cleanse the empire of all barbarians,

the Romans now hunt for \h\hthe general himself.

[people yelling]

\h\hThe angry mob of Roman soldiers, eager for blood,

find Stilicho in a church in Ravenna

where he has taken refuge.

[music playing]

\h\h\hStilicho flees to a church and tries to escape the decree,

knowing full well it will mean his death.

But he’s given strong assurances that he’s only to be arrested

and not to be executed.

NARRATOR: Despite \hhis misgivings,

Stilicho decides to give \hhimself up willingly.

\h\h\h\h\hHe was in a position to seize the state for himself had

he wanted to.

\h\hBut he remained a loyal servant of the ruling family

\h\hhis whole life, even at the end when

he was betrayed by the master he had served his whole life.

He refused to rise \h\hup and resist.

And it certainly spared \h\h\hItaly a civil war.

\h\h\hNARRATOR: Outside the church among the angry mob,

Stilicho finds Olympias \h\h\h\hwaiting for him.

[music playing]

\h\h\h\h\hInstantly, a second decree arrives

ordering Stilicho’s death.

\hHis attendants and bodyguards threaten

\h\h\h\hthat they will attack those who have

been sent to arrest Stilicho.

\h\hBut Stilicho, in very noble fashion,

agrees to allow himself \hto be killed so as not

to stir up further trouble.

NARRATOR: Stilicho is stripped \hof the symbols that mark him

as a Roman general.

\h\h\h\h\h\hStilicho himself is something of a tragic figure.

\h\h\hHe could quite easily have rebelled

\h\h\h\h\hwhen he faced this hostility from his emperor.

\h\h\h\h\h\hBut instead, he surrendered, left the church

where he had taken sanctuary, and went quietly to execution.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: The great \hbarbarian general

\h\h\his felled as those he sought to protect cheer on.

His death excites the crowd, who are no longer satisfied

by symbolic gestures.

[crowd cheering]

\hTheir hatred of the Goths soon spreads beyond Ravenna

to cities throughout Italy.

Roman troops attacked any Gothic families,

\himmediately killing as many as 10,000 of them,

\h\h\h\has a response to this anti-barbarian sentiment that

\hhad arisen at the end of Stilicho’s administration.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: Sixth century \h\hhistorian, Zosimus,

describes the massacre that occurs in the Italian cities

in 408 AD.

ACTOR AS ZOSIMUS: The soldiers fell upon the barbarian women

and children in each city.

\h\h\h\hAnd as if at a predetermined signal,

\h\h\h\hdestroyed them and plundered their property.

\h\h\h\hNaturally, those Goths who remained alive

\hand who escaped this massacre were

no longer willing to associate \hthemselves with the Romans.

And they had an easy and quick \hplace to turn Alaric’s army.

30,000 Goths instantly switched allegiance and joined Alaric.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: But with Stilicho’s death, their treaty with Rome,

\h\hand the money and land it promised them, vanish.

Alaric and his now powerful \h\harmy moved towards Rome

to pressure Emperor Honorius to give them what they want.

[epic music playing]

Alaric and his tribesmen invade Italy and lay siege to Rome

in 410 AD.

But Emperor Honorius, \h\h\hsafe in Ravenna,

refuses to negotiate \h\hwith the Goths.

[music playing]

Honorius and his advisor Olympias

\h\hcare little for the people of Rome.

\h\hSo what little by little happens

is Alaric’s trying \h\hto do anything

to get Honorius’s government to sit across the table from him

and talk shop.

I mean, we’re talk--

what’s going on here?

We’re destroying Italy.

\h\h\h\hAll I want is a command, someplace to take that command.

And the court won’t talk to him.

\h\hNARRATOR: But the Roman senators insist

\h\hthat Alaric’s demands must be met or the city will fall.

[music playing]

They’re negotiating a ransom, in essence, for their city.

And what they agree to pay seems like a lot.

It’s many thousands \hof pounds of gold.

\h\hNARRATOR: Humoring the senators, Honorius

\h\hagrees, sending Alaric word of a possible treaty.

Come to Ravenna, and we’ll come to terms.

\h\hBut the anti-barbarian emperor has his own plans

for the Goths.

\h\hIn the chaos following General Stilicho’s death,

the Goths lay siege to Rome.

To save the city, \hEmperor Honorius

\hagrees to make a deal with the barbarians king, Alaric.

Alaric and his troops \hbegin their journey

from Rome to Ravenna to meet \hHonorius for negotiations

in good faith.

[music playing]

But along the way, Alaric \h\his ambushed by a group

of mercenaries working \h\h\hfor the emperor.

[ominous music plays]

\h\hThe fact is that over and over again

the Romans display that they are only barely going to tolerate

\h\h\hthese barbarians, and that whenever possible they’re going

\hto massacre them or put them in harm’s way

so that they’ll be killed.

\h\hNARRATOR: As his men are cut down around him,

Alaric knows he has been \hdeceived by the Roman

Empire once again.

[battle cries]

It’s a good story of betrayal, of a lack of honor on the part

of the court of Honorius.

\h\hAlaric is a very honorable man who’s

dishonored by both courts.

And one could go on.

\h\hNARRATOR: Alaric is done with peaceful negotiations.

He orders his men back to Rome, bent on destruction.

[drums beating]

[music playing]

[men yelling]

\h\hThe Goths break through the gates of Rome in 410 AD

\h\hand at long last enter the ancient Roman capital.

\h\h\hFor the first time in 800 years, the great city is sacked.

\h\h\h\hIt’s important to realize that Alaric didn’t want to sack

Rome.

And he did not want his \harmy to sack the city.

It was a decision made out of frustration at the fact

that really two years’ \hworth of negotiation

\hhad failed to get him anything that he wanted.

And in the end, he saw \hno other way forward

\hbut to allow his army to sack Rome.

NARRATOR: Unlike the Romans, who so recently slaughtered

\hthousands of Goth women and children,

Alaric orders his soldiers \h\h\h\hto show restraint.

\hAlaric clearly did his best to stop his troops

from indiscriminately killing \hpeople or seizing captives.

NARRATOR: Nonetheless, \h\h\h\hfor three days

\hthe Goths plunder the riches of Rome,

taking all they can carry.

[music playing]

The sack of Rome would have been devastating in terms

\hof the amount of treasure and money

\h\h\hthat was taken away from the city.

And we can be sure that \h\hhowever mild it was,

\h\hthere was still a great many atrocities perpetrated.

There’s no question of that.

[voices yelling]

NARRATOR: But the deepest effect of the sack of Rome

is psychological.

A former citizen of Rome, Saint Jerome,

writes mournfully about \h\hthe devastated city.

SAINT JEROME: My voice \hsticks in my throat.

\h\hAnd as I dictate, sobs choke my speech.

\h\h\h\hThe city which had conquered the whole world

was itself conquered.

[music playing]

\h\h\hNARRATOR: In response to this attack on the very heart

of the empire, Emperor Honorius does nothing.

It becomes clear that Stilicho’s death has robbed the empire

of its last great leader.

\h\h\hHonorius is, in a sense, a captive,

a caught figurehead alone in his palace surrounded by courtiers

with no real sense of what’s going on

in the world or anything \helse for that matter.

NARRATOR: When confronted \h\hby refugees from Rome

\h\h\hcome to beg for aid, the emperor shows only annoyance,

ordering this reminder of his failure to be removed.

So not only is he distancing \hhimself from the realities

of government, he’s progressively losing

the credibility of the office.

\h\hNARRATOR: Many Romans lose faith in the emperor’s ability

to defend its people from \htheir barbarian enemies.

[music playing]

Their fears will be justified.

As the Goths continue to savage the dwindling Roman army,

\h\h\h\h\hthe emperor is powerless to stop them.

[swords clashing]

The Goths are here to stay.

[SWORDS CLASHING AND BATTLE \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hSOUNDS]

\h\h\h\h\hThe Gothic kingdom that grows out of Alaric’s following

is the first real successor \h\h\h\hto Rome in the West.

It’s the first part of Roman \h\hterritory to fall away.

And it’s the first of many.

\h\hNARRATOR: Over the next 40 years,

\h\h\hbarbarian tribes will continue to pour

across the vulnerable borders of the empire,

taking large regions \h\h\hof Roman land.

[music playing]

These losses and the fading of the empire

\h\h\h\hwere foreseen by General Stilicho, who tried desperately

\h\hto stop them only to earn his own execution.

[crowd cheering]

\hStilicho’s tragic downfall foreshadows

the terrible and irreversible \h\hfate of the empire itself.

[metal clashing]