So the spring of 395 saw Alaric start on a conquering career for himself, an enterprise great enough to suit his soaring ambition, and aided, all unconsciously, by the Huns, who chose the same moment for their first descent on Europe. The enfeebled empires of the East and West were appalled at the flood of devastation thus let loose and scarcely knew which foe to meet first—Alaric in Greece (whither he first turned his steps) or the Huns, who were pouring over the Caucasus and terrifying Central Europe with their hideous faces and savage war-cries. It seemed as if the last days of the world had come, and black despair breathes out of every page of the chronicles of the time. But Alaric at least had no idea of continuous fighting for mere fighting’s sake; and although he did, when it suited him, permit orgies of plunder to his followers, he showed again and again the most unexpected and, as we should call it, capricious moderation, renouncing suddenly, and without apparent motive, the entire fruits of a hard-won victory. Thus, when Athens with all its riches lay, a tamed captive, to his hand, one of those strange revulsions of feeling came over him and he made peace with its rulers, entered the city as their guest, and left it without having touched any of its treasures. Twice he stood before the Gates of Rome and twice, in obedience to the Inner Voice that had sent him there, halted at the sacred threshold and withdrew, exacting, however, a heavy indemnity to pacify his troops.
But when, in just rage at the folly of Honorius, he stood for the third time before Rome’s gates, neither the promptings of the “Voice” nor the entreaties of the holy monk who had attempted to stay him and had prophesied his doom should he persist, could turn him from his resolve to take the city. And it is for the sake of my city that I have told these few scanty details of the story of Alaric. His invasion was to be the prototype of many another, but this is the first picture thrown out by the magic lantern of history showing a self-styled Christian and his horde robbing, destroying, dishonouring in the very streets of the Capital of Christianity. The Goths were given but six days (some writers say only three) in which to sate the thirst for riches and treasures which the intercourse with Rome and Constantinople had long ago aroused in their hearts. On Alaric’s former visit a great part of the tribute exacted had been stipulated for in costly garments, and—of all things!—pepper, a luxury already highly prized by the Barbarians, perhaps as stimulating to their naturally noble thirst for strong drinks; this time every man helped himself, the only prohibitions proclaimed extending to holy vessels pertaining to the great sanctuaries. It is claimed for Alaric that he forbade bloodshed, but, if he did, the command was disregarded, as the contemporary lamentations of St. Jerome and St. Augustine show us there was terrible slaughter, the citizens probably attempting, at all risks, to defend their goods and their women. St. Jerome’s quiet retreat at Bethlehem was crowded with refugees, the cream of Roman aristocracy, who gave him such terrible descriptions of the downfall of the city that he was, as he tells us himself, utterly overcome with sorrow and despair. It was on learning of the ruin of the Mistress of the World that St. Augustine, once more convinced of the passing nature of earthly things, conceived the idea of writing his great work, “De Civitate Dei,” showing the indestructibility of God’s City of the Soul, the marvellous spiritual edifice not made with hands, of which every true Christian is co-builder and co-heir.