When Alaric II was killed fighting Clovis I, king of the Franks, in the Battle of Vouillé ( 507 ), his kingdom fell into disarray.

In 394 Alaric served as a leader of foederati under Theodosius I in the campaign which crushed the usurper Eugenius.

* Alaric I

ca: Alaric I

cy: Alaric I

ro: Alaric I

vi: Alaric I

* 410 – The Visigoths under king Alaric I begin to pillage Rome.

The Ark of the Covenant was said to be have been kept in the Basilica of St. John Lateran, surviving the pillages of Rome by Genseric and Alaric I but lost when the basilica burned.

At first Honorius based his capital in Mediolanum, but when the Visigoths under King Alaric I entered Italy in 401 he moved his capital to the coastal city of Ravenna, which was protected by a ring of marshes and strong fortifications.

' For he had a very large cock, Rome by name ; and the eunuch comprehending his words said that it was the city of Rome which had perished at the hands of Alaric, and the emperor with a sigh of relief answered quickly: ' But I thought that my fowl Rome had perished.

The Visigoths under Alaric I sacked Rome in 410, defeated Attila at the Battle of the Catalunian Plains in 451, and founded a Kingdom in Aquitaine which was pushed to Hispania by the Franks in 507, converted to Catholicism by the late sixth century, and in the early eighth century conquered by the Muslim Moors.

A Visigothic force led by Alaric I sacked Rome in 410.

The natural consequence of all this was that these men, to the number of 30, 000, flocked to the camp of Alaric I, King of the Visigoths, clamouring to be led against their cowardly enemies.

It seems peace was restored by 399, although it is likely that no further garrisoning was ordered ; and indeed by 401 more troops were withdrawn, to assist in the war against Alaric I.

The menorah probably remained in the Temple of Peace in Rome until the city was sacked by the Visigoths under Alaric I in 410 CE.

* 401 – The Visigoths, led by king Alaric I, cross the Alps and invade northern Italy.

He identified the Visigothic kings from Alaric I to Alaric II as the heirs of the fourth-century Tervingian king Athanaric and the Ostrogothic kings from Theodoric the Great to Theodahad as the heirs of the Greuthungian king Ermanaric.

Less than twenty years after the last vestiges of Paganism were crushed with great severity by the emperor Theodosius I Rome was seized by Alaric in 410.

In 1267, Pope Clement IV and King James I of Aragon sent an ambassador to the Mongol ruler Abaqa in the person of Jayme Alaric de Perpignan.

The historian Zosimus in his Historia Nova suggests that during the sack of Rome in 410 by Alaric I, Innocent I was willing to permit private pagan practices as a temporary measure.

The Visigoths invaded Italy under Alaric I and famously sacked Rome in 410 AD, eventually settling in Spain and Portugal, where they founded a powerful Kingdom.

He was a son of king Alaric II and his first wife Theodegotho, daughter of Theodoric the Great.

" Alaric had made no provision for a successor, and although he had two sons, one was of age but illegitimate and the other the offspring of a legal marriage but still a child.

In 401 Alaric invaded Italy, but he was defeated by the Roman half-Vandal general Flavius Stilicho at Pollentia ( modern Pollenza ) on April 6, 402.

After their setbacks against the Huns, Alaric was probably a child during the Goths ' mass migration across the Danube and their subsequent war with Rome.

As the Battle of the Frigidus, which terminated this campaign, was fought at the passes of the Julian Alps, Alaric probably learned the weakness of Italy's natural defences on its northeastern frontier at the head of the Adriatic.

Instead, Rufinus attempted to negotiate with Alaric in person, which only aroused suspicions in Constantinople that Rufinius was in league with the Goths.

It was probably in 401 that Alaric made his first invasion of Italy, Supernatural influences were not lacking to urge him to this great enterprise.

After spreading desolation through North Italy and striking terror into the citizens of Rome, Alaric was met by Stilicho at Pollentia, today in Piedmont.

Alaric, too, was a Christian, though an Arian, not Orthodox.

No blood was shed this time ; Alaric relied on hunger as his most powerful weapon.

The Basilica Aemilia in the Roman Forum did burn down, which perhaps can be attributed to Alaric: the archaeological evidence was provided by coins dating from 410 found melted in the floor.

Alaric died soon after in Cosenza, probably of fever, at the age of about forty ( assuming again, a birth around 370 AD ), and his body was, according to legend, buried under the riverbed of the Busento.

Alaric was succeeded in the command of the Gothic army by his brother-in-law, Ataulf, who married Honorius ' sister Galla Placidia three years later.

According to Gregory of Tours ' account, Alaric was intimidated by Clovis into surrendering Syagrius to Clovis ; Gregory then adds that " the Goths are a timorous race.

Despite Frankish advances in the years that followed, Alaric was not afraid to take the military initiative when it presented itself.

Alaric was forced by his magnates to meet Clovis in the Battle of Vouillé ( Summer 507 ) near Poitiers ; there the Goths were defeated and Alaric slain, according to Gregory of Tours, by Clovis himself.

In religion Alaric was an Arian, like all the early Visigothic nobles, but he greatly mitigated the persecution policy of his father Euric toward the Catholics and authorized them to hold in 506 the council of Agde.

The next crisis was the Visigoth invasion of Italy in 402 under the formidable command of their king, Alaric.

Stilicho was absent in Raetia in the latter months of 401, when Alaric, who was also the eastern empire's magister militum in Illyricum, suddenly marched with a large army to the Julian Alps and entered Italy.