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The sack of Rome on 24 August 410 AD was undertaken by the Visigoths led by their king, Alaric. At that time, Rome was no longer the administrative capital of the Western Roman Empire , having been replaced in that position first by Mediolanum (now Milan ) in 286 and then by Ravenna in 402.
The Visigoths were never called Visigoths, only Goths, until Cassiodorus used the term, when referring to their loss against Clovis I in 507. Cassiodorus apparently invented the term based on the model of the "Ostrogoths", but using the older name of the Vesi, one of the tribal names which the fifth-century poet Sidonius Apollinaris, had already used when referring to the Visigoths.
The Visigoths with their capital at Toulouse, remained de facto independent, and soon began expanding into Roman territory at the expense of the feeble Western empire. Under Theodoric I (418–451), the Visigoths attacked Arles (in 425 [10] and 430 [11]) and Narbonne (in 436), [11] but were checked by Litorius using Hunnic mercenaries.
Sack of Rome (390 BC) following the Battle of the Allia, by Brennus, king of the Senone Gauls; Sack of Rome (410), by the Visigoths under Alaric I; Sack of Rome (455), by the Vandals under Gaiseric; Sack of Rome (546), by the Ostrogoths under King Totila; Siege of Rome (549–550), also by Totila; Sack of Rome (846), by the Arabs
Imaginative portrait of Alaric in C. Strahlheim, Das Welttheater, 4.Band, Frankfurt a.M., 1836. According to Jordanes, a 6th-century Roman bureaucrat of Gothic origin—who later turned his hand to history—Alaric was born on Peuce Island at the mouth of the Danube Delta in present-day Romania and belonged to the noble Balti dynasty of the Thervingian Goths.
The Franco–Gothic War (507–511), also known as the Second Frankish–Visigothic War, was a military conflict between the Franks and the Visigoths aimed at the hegemony of Gaul. The main opponents in this war were the kings Clovis I and Alaric II.
Taking the advice of Priscus Attalus—the former emperor whom Alaric had set up at Rome in opposition to Honorius at Ravenna, and who had remained with the Visigoths after he'd been deposed—Athaulf led his followers out of Italy. Moving north into a momentarily pacified Gaul, the Visigoths lived off the countryside in the usual way.
451 – Thorismund becomes King of the Visigoths. 453 – Theodoric II becomes King of the Visigoths. 454 – The Ibero-Roman population ask for the help of King Theodoric II of the Visigoths against Suevi incursions. 455 – The Bishop of Rome assumes control over all of Western Christianity, proclaiming himself Pope, under the name of Leo I. 456