Page:Readings in European History Vol 1.djvu/78

 42 Readings in European History bring ruin down upon their empires and withdrew from their allies, the Goths, the accustomed gifts. The Goths soon grew disgusted with the emperors, and since they were fear- ful lest their bravery in war should decline by too long a period of peace, they made Alaric their king. . . . So, since the said Alaric was chosen king, he took counsel with his fellows and declared to them that it was preferable to conquer a kingdom through one's own force rather than to live in peace under the yoke of strangers. He thereupon took his army and advanced, during the consulate of Stilicho and Aurelianus, through Pannonia and Sirmium into Italy. This country was so completely deprived of forces that Alaric approached without opposition to the bridge over the Candiano, three miles from the imperial city of Ravenna. . . . The Goths sent messengers to the emperor Honorius, who was at Ravenna, requesting that they might be per- mitted to settle quietly in Italy. Should they be allowed to do this, they would live as one people with the Romans; other- wise they would try which people could expel the other, the victor to remain in control. But the emperor Honorius, fearing both suggestions, took counsel with his senate how they might rid Italy of the Goths. He at last concluded to assign the distant provinces of Gaul and Spain to the West Goths. 1 He had, indeed, already nearly lost these districts, for they had been devastated by an incursion of Genseric, king of the Vandals. If Alaric and his people could succeed in conquering the region, they might have it as their home. [The Goths agreed to this, but on their way thither were treacherously attacked by Stilicho, the emperor's father-in- law (402). The Goths, however, held their own in the battle 1 The brief account which Jordanes here gives of the eight or ten years that Alaric spent in northern Italy before finally marching upon Rome is probably incorrect. Historians naturally prefer to rely upon the pagan historian Zosimus, who probably lived a generation or two earlier than Jordanes and who gives a very detailed account of the movements of the West Goths. He says nothing of the emperor's offer- ing Gaul and Spain to the barbarians.