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August 24th, 410 AD, the Empire falls.

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Rome: A city so long in control of its own destiny, and the world's, is invaded by a band of dirty, sweaty, smelly thugs.

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They are the Visigoths, a terrifying assortment of heathens from Europe's northeastern frontier, and they've come to declare the death of Roman domination.

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For the first time in 800 years, the eternal city is under siege.

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Kulikowski: Rome had not ever been conquered by a foreign enemy in the Imperial Period.

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The physiological effect of the greatest city of the ancient world being conquered was absolutely crushing.

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Narrator: For three day, the great capitol of Caesar and Augustus is ravaged by its unwelcomed guests.

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Stunning architectural marvels that have stood for centuries are burned to the ground.

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Germanic slaves rise up to enslave their Roman masters.

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And the city streets run red with the blood of its own people.

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Martin: The Roman citizens really are helpless. All they know is that they've had to surrender, that there is no one there to protect them,

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that these Gothic warriors would have been terrifying.

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Narrator: At the head of charge is Alaric, a Visigothic warrior, who had once fought on the Empire's behalf along its northern frontier.

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When he was passed over for a promotion within the ranks of the Roman legions, Alaric turned from friend to foe

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and used what he had learned about Roman warfare to launch his own campaign of aggression.

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Martin: He eventually decided that the only way he was going to advance was to really put the screws to Rome.

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So the siege of Rome was, to tell you the truth, a profit-making career move for Alaric.

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[noise and screams]

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Narrator: Two years earlier in 408 A.D., Alaric and his rebel army had arrived on the doorstep of Rome itself, looking for power, plunder, and, most of all, food.

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DeVries: Anybody wants to look at why the Visigoths win, it's because desperation. They need to win. If they don't, they starve to death, and that's the bottom line.

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[bird cry]

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Narrator: In order to conquer the city, Alaric would first have to strangle it from the outside.

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DeVries: He can't undermine the walls. They are far too large, they're far too secure, and they're far too well-built,

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so he relies on starvation.

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Narrator: Alaric's men surrounded Rome, took full control of its supply lines, and blocked all shipments of grain coming in to the city.

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Gradually, the city died from within, and the pall of impending death began to permeate even its most hallowed traditions.

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Martin: Even in times of utter distress, it's really important for Roman society to continue to have chariot races and killing of wild beasts,

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gladiatorial combats, and execution of criminals. The population was at the show, but they were literally starving,

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and when some condemned men or gladiators - it's not clear who was killed - and they are lying there, bleeding out on the sands of the arena,

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the crowd started shouting, "Let us buy that meat! How much per pound do you want for that?"

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That's how hungry they were.

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[voices]

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Narrator: In Rome, power and glory were rapidly being replaced by corpses and cannibalism.

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After two years of suffering inside the sealed off city, Roman pride had eroded enough to accept subjugation over starvation.

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[yelling]

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On the orders of a Roman aristocrat, the city gates were opened, and the Visigoths stormed in.

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Their shopping spree turned up tons of treasure but hardly any food.

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So after three days, Alaric and his men moved on in search of greener pastures and left the heart of the Roman Empire on life support.

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Kulikowski: A contempory put it very well when he says,

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"The mother of the world has been killed."

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Uhhm, that's what people thought, that the mother of the world had been brutally killed in a Gothic sack.

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Narrator: While Alaric's sacking of Rome certainly hastened its demise, the mother of the world had been terminally ill for quite some time.

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As early as the third century AD, the Empire had fallen into the hands of a series of inept emperors,

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whose obsession with personal gain, threatened the public welfare and fostered civil war.

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During a 50-year period in the third century, nearly all of the two dozen emperors who seized power were brutally slain by rivals, rebels, and subjects.

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While Rome gradually imploded from within, external threats, both natural and man-made, only aided its self destruction.

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Daileader: Diseases, such as smallpox and measles, entered the European population pool for the first time during the second and third centuries.

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In this sense, the Roman Empire paid the price for its success. It had become so wealthy,

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and had established contacts with other parts of the world to such an extent, that now,

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it was not only importing the very valuable wares of those regions, it was also importing the diseases that came from those regions.

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Narrator: As Rome's population began to dwindle, so did its border guard, leaving its emperors no choice but to hire barbarian fighters, like Alaric, as mercenaries.

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But as the Romans became more and more dependent on foreign defenders, they also became more openly hostile toward them.

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Kulikowski: When the Goths first entered the Empire, they came really as refugees, and they were forced into rebellion

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by the treatment that they received at the hands of Roman officials.

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Famously, the Roman officials allowed slave traders to profit by selling dog meat to the Goths in exchange for Gothic children as slaves,

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and so, both the incompetence and the cruelty of Roman officialdom drove the Goths into rebellion.

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Narrator: Alaric, the leader and living symbol of that rebellion, died of fever in 410, shortly after his historic sacking of Rome.

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While he wouldn't live to enjoy much of his success, future generations of barbarians would.