Honorius, however, refused to appoint Alaric as the commander of the Western Roman Army, and in 409 the Visigoths again surrounded Rome.

From there Alaric escaped with difficulty, and not without some suspicion of connivance by Stilicho, who supposedly had again received orders to depart.

Alaric cashiered his ineffectual puppet emperor after eleven months and again tried to reopen negotiations with Honorius.

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.

Stilicho defeated Alaric at Pollentia, on the river Tanarus on Easter Day ( 6 April 402 ) Alaric retreated to Verona, where Stilicho attacked him again.

Alaric again entered Italy in 410 and sacked Rome.

* June – Battle of Verona: The Visigoths under command of king Alaric I invade Italy again and advance through the Brenner Pass.

The political tension between the Catholic bishops of Arles and the Visigothic kings is epitomized in the career of the Frankish St Caesarius, bishop of Arles 503 – 542, who was suspected by the Arian Visigoth Alaric II of conspiring with the Burgundians to turn over the Arelate to Burgundy, and was exiled for a year to Bordeaux in Aquitaine, and again in 512 when Arles held out against Theodoric the Great, Caesarius was imprisoned and sent to Ravenna to explain his actions before the Ostrogothic king.

In 403 at Verona, Stilicho again bested Alaric, who as Gibbon said only escaped by the speed of his horse.

Meanwhile, Constantine ’ s rebellion having broken off the negotiations between Alaric and Stilicho for the joint attack on Illyria, Alaric demanded the payment he was owed, threatening to attack Italy again if he was not given a large amount of gold.

The loyalty of the tribes and their chieftains was never reliable, and in 395, the Visigoths, this time under the lead of Alaric, once again rose in rebellion.

Stilicho obtained a few more troops from the German frontier and continued to campaign ineffectively against the Eastern empire ; again he was successfully opposed by Alaric and his men.

The Goths, weakened, were allowed to retreat back to Illyricum where the Western court again gave Alaric office, though only as comes and only over Dalmatia and Pannonia Secunda rather than the whole of Illyricum.

Alaric was again declared an enemy of the Emperor.

Alaric tried again to negotiate with Honorius, but his demands ( now even more moderate, only frontier land and food ) were inflated by the messenger and Honorius responded with insults, which were reported verbatim to Alaric.

Naschy's only other recurring character was the villainous medieval warlock Alaric de Marnac ( who appeared in Naschy's Horror Rises From the Tomb ( 1972 ) and returned to life again in Panic Beats ( 1982 )).

Ravaged by Alaric, Senigallia was fortified by the Byzantines, and again laid waste by the Lombards in the 8th century and by the Saracens in the 9th.

One reason was that doing so would give the Franks, who had killed the Visigothic king Alaric in the Battle of Vouillé an excuse to take to the field once again.

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.

During the invasion by the Pagan Goth Radagaisus, Alaric remained idle in Illyria.

This, combined with their post-battle rewards, prompted them to raise Alaric " on a shield " and proclaim him king ; according to Jordanes ( a Gothic historian of varying importance, depending upon who is asked ), both the new king and his people decided " rather to seek new kingdoms by their own work, than to slumber in peaceful subjection to the rule of others.

Alaric in Athens by Ludwig Thiersch, 1894

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

However, this may be — for our information at this point of the story is meagre — on August 24 410, Alaric and his Visigoths burst in by the Porta Salaria on the northeast of the city.

Nonetheless, the written sources do not mention damages wrought by fire, save the Gardens of Sallust, which were situated close to the gate by which the Goths had made their entrance ; nor is there any reason to attribute any extensive destruction of the buildings of the city to Alaric and his followers.

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 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.

In 490, Alaric assisted his fellow Gothic king, Theodoric the Great, in his conquest of Italy by dispatching an army to raise Odoacer's siege of Pavia, where Theodoric had been trapped.

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.

Alaric displayed similar wisdom in political affairs by appointing a commission to prepare an abstract of the Roman laws and imperial decrees, which would form the authoritative code for his Roman subjects.

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.

Honorius, slumbering at Milan was caught unaware and quickly fled to Asti, only to be pursued by Alaric, who marched into Liguria.

In early 408, Stilicho attempted to strengthen his position at court by marrying his second daughter, Thermantia, to Honorius after the death of the empress Maria in 407 Another invasion by Alaric was prevented in 408 by Stilicho when he forced the Roman Senate to pay 4, 000 pounds of gold to persuade the Goths to leave Italy.

Stilicho now marched east against Alaric.

Alaric then crossed the Gulf of Corinth and marched with the plunder of Greece northward to Epirus.

Alaric, having penetrated the city, marched southwards into Calabria.

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.

Stilicho now marched east against Alaric.

The Senate deeply resented peace with Alaric ; in 407, when Alaric marched into Noricum and demanded a large payment for his expensive efforts in Stilicho's interests, the senate, " inspired by the courage, rather than the wisdom, of their predecessors ," preferred war.

Ataulf a Goth nominally in Roman service and brother in law to Alaric, marched through Italia to join Alaric despite taking casualties from a small force of Hunnic mercenaries led by Olympius.

* On page 27, the Goths sing " Oh grand old Alaric, he had ten thousand men / He marched them up to the gates of Rome ..." This version of The Grand Old Duke of York refers to Alaric I who sacked Rome in 410 AD.