Vanished Kingdoms

The ferocious character of the barbarians was displayed in the funeral of a hero whose valour… they celebrated with mournful applause… they forcibly diverted the course of the Busentinus, a small river that washes the walls of Consentia. The royal sepulchre, adorned with the splendid spoils and trophies of Rome, was constructed in the vacant bed; the waters were then restored to their natural channel; and the secret spot where the remains of Alaric had been deposited was for ever concealed by the inhuman massacre of the prisoners who had been employed to execute the work. 6

Alaric’s successor as leader of the Visigoths, therefore, struck a deal with

imperial Rome. Ataulf – the ‘Noble Wolf’ – agreed to leave Italy and to chase his fellow barbarians from Gaul and Spain.

once aspired [he said]… to obliterate the name of Rome; to erect on its ruins the dominion of the Goths; and to acquire, like Augustus, the immortal fame of the founder of a new empire. By repeated experiments [however,] I was gradually convinced that laws are essentially necessary… and that the fierce untractable humour of the Goths was incapable of bearing the salutary yoke of… civil government… it is now my sincere wish that the gratitude of future ages should acknowledge the merit of a stranger, who employed the sword of the Goths, not to subvert, but to restore and maintain, the prosperity of the Roman empire.