WEBVTT 00:00:02.579 --> 00:00:07.629 August 24th, 410 AD, the Empire falls. 00:00:07.629 --> 00:00:18.963 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. 00:00:18.963 --> 00:00:30.727 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. 00:00:30.727 --> 00:00:36.025 For the first time in 800 years, the eternal city is under siege. 00:00:37.441 --> 00:00:46.171 Kulikowski: Rome had not ever been conquered by a foreign enemy in the Imperial Period. 00:00:46.171 --> 00:00:55.194 The physiological effect of the greatest city of the ancient world being conquered was absolutely crushing. 00:00:57.794 --> 00:01:04.338 Narrator: For three day, the great capitol of Caesar and Augustus is ravaged by its unwelcomed guests. 00:01:04.338 --> 00:01:10.559 Stunning architectural marvels that have stood for centuries are burned to the ground. 00:01:10.559 --> 00:01:17.438 Germanic slaves rise up to enslave their Roman masters. 00:01:17.438 --> 00:01:23.029 And the city streets run red with the blood of its own people. 00:01:23.029 --> 00:01:30.679 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, 00:01:30.679 --> 00:01:35.164 that these Gothic warriors would have been terrifying. 00:01:35.164 --> 00:01:43.884 Narrator: At the head of charge is Alaric, a Visigothic warrior, who had once fought on the Empire's behalf along its northern frontier. 00:01:43.884 --> 00:01:50.473 When he was passed over for a promotion within the ranks of the Roman legions, Alaric turned from friend to foe 00:01:50.473 --> 00:01:56.867 and used what he had learned about Roman warfare to launch his own campaign of aggression. 00:01:56.867 --> 00:02:05.047 Martin: He eventually decided that the only way he was going to advance was to really put the screws to Rome. 00:02:05.047 --> 00:02:11.043 So the siege of Rome was, to tell you the truth, a profit-making career move for Alaric. 00:02:11.043 --> 00:02:12.401 [noise and screams] 00:02:13.525 --> 00:02:26.719 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. 00:02:26.719 --> 00:02:37.222 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. 00:02:37.222 --> 00:02:38.981 [bird cry] 00:02:38.981 --> 00:02:46.003 Narrator: In order to conquer the city, Alaric would first have to strangle it from the outside. 00:02:46.003 --> 00:02:51.659 DeVries: He can't undermine the walls. They are far too large, they're far too secure, and they're far too well-built, 00:02:51.659 --> 00:02:54.162 so he relies on starvation. 00:02:56.624 --> 00:03:05.168 Narrator: Alaric's men surrounded Rome, took full control of its supply lines, and blocked all shipments of grain coming in to the city. 00:03:07.491 --> 00:03:16.840 Gradually, the city died from within, and the pall of impending death began to permeate even its most hallowed traditions. 00:03:16.840 --> 00:03:25.895 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, 00:03:25.895 --> 00:03:34.158 gladiatorial combats, and execution of criminals. The population was at the show, but they were literally starving, 00:03:34.158 --> 00:03:44.795 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, 00:03:44.795 --> 00:03:51.301 the crowd started shouting, "Let us buy that meat! How much per pound do you want for that?" 00:03:51.301 --> 00:03:52.533 That's how hungry they were. 00:03:52.533 --> 00:03:54.927 [voices] 00:03:54.927 --> 00:04:01.393 Narrator: In Rome, power and glory were rapidly being replaced by corpses and cannibalism. 00:04:01.393 --> 00:04:11.374 After two years of suffering inside the sealed off city, Roman pride had eroded enough to accept subjugation over starvation. 00:04:12.698 --> 00:04:14.338 [yelling] 00:04:14.338 --> 00:04:21.620 On the orders of a Roman aristocrat, the city gates were opened, and the Visigoths stormed in. 00:04:23.420 --> 00:04:28.465 Their shopping spree turned up tons of treasure but hardly any food. 00:04:28.465 --> 00:04:38.307 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. 00:04:38.307 --> 00:04:41.170 Kulikowski: A contempory put it very well when he says, 00:04:41.170 --> 00:04:43.587 "The mother of the world has been killed." 00:04:43.587 --> 00:04:51.248 Uhhm, that's what people thought, that the mother of the world had been brutally killed in a Gothic sack. 00:04:52.987 --> 00:05:02.754 Narrator: While Alaric's sacking of Rome certainly hastened its demise, the mother of the world had been terminally ill for quite some time. 00:05:02.754 --> 00:05:09.671 As early as the third century AD, the Empire had fallen into the hands of a series of inept emperors, 00:05:09.671 --> 00:05:16.588 whose obsession with personal gain, threatened the public welfare and fostered civil war. 00:05:16.588 --> 00:05:28.152 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. 00:05:29.522 --> 00:05:39.171 While Rome gradually imploded from within, external threats, both natural and man-made, only aided its self destruction. 00:05:39.171 --> 00:05:46.207 Daileader: Diseases, such as smallpox and measles, entered the European population pool for the first time during the second and third centuries. 00:05:46.207 --> 00:05:50.379 In this sense, the Roman Empire paid the price for its success. It had become so wealthy, 00:05:50.379 --> 00:05:56.337 and had established contacts with other parts of the world to such an extent, that now, 00:05:56.337 --> 00:06:05.142 it was not only importing the very valuable wares of those regions, it was also importing the diseases that came from those regions. 00:06:09.773 --> 00:06:21.366 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. 00:06:21.366 --> 00:06:29.211 But as the Romans became more and more dependent on foreign defenders, they also became more openly hostile toward them. 00:06:29.211 --> 00:06:38.755 Kulikowski: When the Goths first entered the Empire, they came really as refugees, and they were forced into rebellion 00:06:38.755 --> 00:06:43.393 by the treatment that they received at the hands of Roman officials. 00:06:43.393 --> 00:06:53.775 Famously, the Roman officials allowed slave traders to profit by selling dog meat to the Goths in exchange for Gothic children as slaves, 00:06:53.775 --> 00:07:00.186 and so, both the incompetence and the cruelty of Roman officialdom drove the Goths into rebellion. 00:07:05.586 --> 00:07:15.380 Narrator: Alaric, the leader and living symbol of that rebellion, died of fever in 410, shortly after his historic sacking of Rome. 00:07:15.380 --> 00:07:19.380 While he wouldn't live to enjoy much of his success, future generations of barbarians would.