What I Am Reading: "Alaric the Goth: An Outsider's History of the Fall of Rome" by Douglas Boin
One of the very few silver linings of the Trump Administration has been reading, in real time, as historians publish what I'm sure future historiographers will refer to as Trump-Era Histories or something similar. These take many forms, always examining some historical era with an eye toward contemporary problems, from democratic backsliding in Benjamin Carter Hett's The Death of Democracy to the problems of a scatterbrained leader in an article on Kaiser Wilhelm by Miranda Carter to many other examples from the turning points of history. Now these are joined by this book by Professor Douglas Boin, who ties questions of immigration and citizenship to Alaric's sack of Rome in 410.
The issue is both relevant to the history and of course very timely, but in my opinion the book presses too hard on this, in some cases shoehorning it in, and skims too lightly on other aspects of the history. I do not have a very strong background in late Roman history, and though the book presents one, it skips between subjects and years too frequently; and a heavy focus on Rome's dealings with foreigners and the expansion of Christianity downplays wars and other political maneuverings. Many events or anecdotes, such as the repeated story of the kidnapping and murder of an old woman named Marcella during the sack of Rome, are given little enough attention that I can’t help but feel like I am expected to be familiar with them already. It did improve my baseline level on the topic, however.
Alaric, future Gothic chieftain, was born around the 370s near the mouth of the Danube, in (if I am reading maps right) the region of Dacia, on the frontier. This area had been colonized by the Romans in 106, but abandoned a few generations later in the 270s during a retrenchment. At this time period, his people, the Goths, lived in the region's forests in humble circumstances; though there was a lot of trade, intermarriage, and general borderlands activity between them and the Romans. The Goths' ancestors had known Roman rule and their region knew Roman infrastructure. Many had even known Roman citizenship, due to a degree propagated by Emperor Caracalla in 212 which gave citizenship to all people born free in Roman lands. This was the last great expansion of citizenship rights under the Roman empire. This grant would not eliminate the prejudice that "barbarians" from the frontiers of the empire and non-Italian ethnicities faced during the late empire, and prejudicial statements from Romans in correspondence and art are cited throughout the book. Despite this, Rome was still at the time a pluralistic empire, encompassing many cultures and peoples, all of whom bought into the cosmopolitan ideal of "Romanitas."
Alaric's early life is not well-documented, so the book's commentaries on it and on Alaric's thoughts and motivations are based heavily on "must have," "probably," and "likely." Around the time Alaric was born, the Goths were pressured by the migrations of the Huns in from the steppes to become "profugus," which Boin translates as "refugees." The Roman border guards, often unrestrained, dealt with these migrant peoples harshly and capriciously; including a brief policy of childhood separation. In 377, the border guards took Gothic children and resettled them systematically in Roman Asia to "Romanize" them away from the influences of their parents; these children were executed after the Romans lost the Battle of Adrianopolis to Gothic rebels in 378, during which Emperor Valens was killed. Valens' successor, Theodosius, moved to ease tensions with the Goths. The Roman withdrawal left the region's economy in shambles, and with Theodosius' encouragement, many Goths joined the Roman army for decent pay and eventual benefits. Alaric was one of these new soldiers in 392.
Actually, he was a brigand in the area first, thus already a leader of men to some extent. He joined the military after some kind of event where he raided the Emperor's traveling party, and was recruited personally. This is completely glossed over in the book, which seems strange to me for such an important biographical event. The Roman Empire was in its full decadence at the time that Alaric signed up to fight for it, complicating later narratives such as Gibbons' that this decadence was the source of his anger. He was not the only one of his kind either, in fact, many "barbarians" were raised to high positions in the state, though they were often the victim of popular and insider prejudice, and were never safe from intrigue. None were at any level of society, no matter how well they learned Latin or otherwise tried to assimilate, as they lacked the legal protections that would have come with citizenship. Many Goths and others were kidnapped and sold into slavery.
In a running b-plot to the story, Emperor Theodosius was an aggressive Christianizer, and Alaric was one of the soldiers mobilized in 394 to do battle against some kind of rebellion by the moderate Christian co-emperor Eugenius. This rebellion, and the pagan backing for Eugenius, is stressed as a manifestation of the crisis around expanding theocracy, but it is not really fleshed out by the book or explained in political terms.
After the battle and the slaughter of the Goth forces, an apparently-disillusioned Alaric and some followers marched on Constantinople to procure better recompense. Theodosius at that time died and was succeeded by his sons, and Alaric's petition came to naught as the official Rufinius, mocked by poet Claudian as too pro-Goth, was murdered in an intrigue. Alaric's followers then moved to Greece around 396 or 7, where they were blamed (without clear evidence) for more plunder, though they also found culturally-ingrained hospitality in Athens. In Greece, a general named Stilicho, chief of staff to the young western Emperor, Honorius, attempted to recruit Alaric to muscle the Westerners out of Illyrium province, but was expelled before this deal could be hammered out. Instead, Alaric was placed in charge of forces in Illyrium by the forces of the eastern Emperor, Arcadius, Honorius’ brother.
This arrangement apparently lasted a few years, but he was removed in a reshuffle around 401. This was at the same time that other "barbarian" officials were not faring well in the Roman administration: from Alaric's military mentor, Gothic general Gainas, to the Armenian eunuch Eutropius, who held office in Constantinople. With his Gothic followers, who had followed him still to Illyrium, Alaric crossed over into Italy in late 401, to again attempt to petition (or extort perhaps) the Roman government. In a confusing and apparently historically-jumbled series of battles, Stilicho repulsed the Goths by 403. Eloquent but xenophobic Claudian wrote his last poems celebrating this victory, though behind the scenes Stilicho, a Vandal and thus the subject of suspicion, was accused of acting too slowly and not in Rome's best interests.
The situation again became political at this point. Stilicho negotiated again with Alaric to put him on retainer, and in 406 succeeded in locking him down for the same Illyrium mission. However, Alaric and the Goths were never deployed, and he was forced to beg Stilicho for food and payment. Stilicho's efforts to arrange this payment resulted in his downfall in another political murder in 408, leading (not for the first time) to unrest targeting "foreigners" living in Rome. Alaric took matters into his own hands again, blockading the Roman harbor and helping to ensure that the winter of 408 was one of hardship. Interestingly, Stilicho's widow, Serena, was involved with the Goths in some way; and a fragment from lost historian Olympiodorus indicates that she was responsible in some way for this first march on Rome, though this information is otherwise lost to history. She was murdered not long after.
In negotiations with the Emperor, Honorius, Alaric requested funds and for his people to "live on Roman land." Since Rome always had open borders, Boin interprets this as a request for some sort of citizenship arrangement. The Goths probably wanted security and land to farm for themselves. His demands were refused, however, and Alaric sided with usurping official Priscus Attalus. Together they seized the city in 410, though they did not dislodge the Emperor from his retreat in Ravenna. This was the point of Alaric's famous three-day sack of the city, which caused considerable destruction.
Early Christians interpreted this discussion apocalyptically, and Alaric eventually entered the historical canon as a great destroyer of civilization. In the mean time, Alaric's next plan was to take his people to northern Africa, to Carthage, where they might find the farmland and easy lives they sought. He and his followers, perhaps including disillusioned people of many ethnicities by now, traveled down the Italian peninsula. While waiting out the winter to be able to sail, however, Alaric took ill and died at the end of 410.
From there, the book zooms out a bit on the subsequent history of the Goths. Alaric's brother in law, Athaulf, married Galla, daughter of Theodosius; and after his death less than a decade later she negotiated with Emperor Honorius, her half-brother, to settle the Goths in Aquatine. Here they built a kingdom that outlasted the empire by a few centuries and governed as enlightened rulers with moderate views on reproductive rights, shown through their law fining men who killed pregnant women less if the fetus was earlier in its term (I report that flippantly, but it does sound interesting). Settling in North Africa, the late Alaric's supporters would become the Visigoths, while later Goths who were encouraged by the Byzantines to retake the Italian peninsula would be known as the Ostrogoths.
The final summing up of the Goth's reputation, whereby they are demonized by the Christians but eventually come to stand for a counterculture of aesthetics freed from classicism, is where I talk about the book's strength: historiography. As noted, Boin laces the book with historical and literary observations on Romans' (usually negative) opinions of and interactions with foreigners: these are well-chosen and illuminating. This encompasses a number of historians, starting with Ovid and his observations of the Danube frontier when he lived there (prior to the time-span in question). Jordanes, writing a couple of centuries after these events, is the only Gothic historian to cover these events; though he and radical revisionist Roman Zosimus, who also wrote positively of Alaric and negatively of the Empire's border policies, are of questionable accuracy. In the meantime, both elite and man-on-the-street cultural histories of Rome were covered ably and comprehensively by Ammianus Marcellinus in the late 4th century and by his unofficial (and unconnected) successors, Eunapius of Sardis and Olympiodorus of Thebes. The works of the latter two are tragically lost, but they informed other historians and appear to us in scraps. As noted, Claudian, the poet, was eloquent but xenophobic, and he appears several times. Many other writers appear in quotations or citations. In later times, as the Christians demonized the Goths and the fall of Rome, those who actually managed to defeat the Goths in Spain, the Muslims, would come to greatly respect them. Muslim scholars collected and retold their history, including through the sympathetic Latin writer Orosius. The book, to its credit, made me want to learn more about all of these.
Along with the good historiography and the good integration of quotes and cultural notes from ancient writers, the book also branches out to interpret archaeological findings to try to tell especially the story of the Goths and how they lived, and debunk or complicate tales of their wanton destruction (though some earlier archaeologists interpreted their findings to dubiously spot this destruction everywhere).
I am the audience for this book's agenda. I think that our treatment of immigrants is cruel, toxic, and self-defeating, and from the little I know of late Rome, the lack of integration of "barbarian" tribes into society did help cause their weakness and downfall. That being said: in addition to the book's occasional glossing over of political and military events and of biographic events in Alaric's life (his brigandage and recruitment by the emperor; his work to take over Rome but failure to take Ravenna, and others), the book also pushes its ideological narrative through interpretations I find dubious. Both of the examples that stand out the most to me involve the fall of Rome itself. One is of a woman named Proba, a good citizen from a prominent family who apparently opened the gate to Alaric's forces in the dead of night on August 24th, 410. Boin says that,
"The lone ancient writer who tells this intriguing vignette, Procopius of Caesarea, lived a century after 410 and loathed Proba's family, making the details of his version of what happened that night extremely doubtful. But his memory was accurate in other ways. A Gothic pariah, like Alaric was, could have dedicated supporters in Rome, men and women like Proba who - whether driven by their ideals, their personal aspirations, or some ulterior motive - were willing to help immigrants, even at a great cost to themselves, because they likely thought that such an act would better Rome." (Ch. 9)
So here we are presented with an "extremely doubtful" "vignette" from an author who "loathed Proba's family" recounting how someone was driven by either "ideals...aspirations, or some ulterior motive." Yet it is asserted that she was "willing to help immigrants" to "better Rome?" This is where a few more "maybes" and "perhapses" would have done the most good.
My other example covers Priscus Attalus, the city official was propped up by Alaric as a pretender to the throne (and apparently lived to tell about it). Alaric was in contact with him after Honorius refused his demands, and he traveled to the city to pressure any other political actors. Attalus was a "well-liked politician" who proposed this coup as "an ingeniously simple solution...a pragmatic intellectual...was not a man to propose a dramatic military intervention lightly." Attalus' resume includes his work managing security on Rome's streets, previous time as an architect, and an appointment as the city prefect. A "man of eclectic talents," he later officiated Athaulf and Galla's wedding. Describing his political maneuver, Boin says that "[i]t is a testament to Attalus's [sic] moral character that, even as a product of Rome's traditional education system, with its systemic biases against foreigners, and even as a resident of Rome, with its sizable but often overlooked population of Gothic slaves, he sensed an urgent need to address the present injustices." (ch. 9). In brief response, I would like to posit that perhaps, instead of this liberal idealism, he was just a politician looking to come to power with the opportunities he was presented? To be fair, maybe more details lie in the work cited, The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire vol. 1, p. 180-181. However, it sounds to me like another occasion where Boin could have taken his foot off the gas on ideological interpretation.
These are just a few examples, but between them and the general lightness of the read I would say that this book, with its heart in the right place, is more enthusiastic than it is authoritative, and is best for those familiar with the history already.