In fact, the Goths possessed a literate culture, capable of not only producing major scholarly works, but commentaries upon those works. To this day, we possess Gothic commentaries on Gothic translations of the New Testament, and legal contracts written with the subtle sophistication in which lawyers in all cultures and all times pride themselves.
But the Romans could not admit that they had been outwitted, and would rather say that they have been overcome by primitive savages. Thus began the historically incorrect image of the Goths. Historian William Weir writes:
The Barbarians were literally at the gate. It was 408 A.D., and the Gothic king Alaric had led his army from the eastern Roman Empire to journey westward through Greece, across the Alps, and into the heart of Italy. They now surrounded the world’s capital city, controlling all means of transport in and out.
By this time, however, Rome had long ceased to be the world’s capital. The empire had been divided, east and west, and soon the division would become complete, when the Byzantine Empire was recognized as an independent entity. Europe’s Germanic tribes had shown that Rome no longer reigned supreme north of the Alps, and the Persians were demonstrating this same fact at the eastern end of the Mediterranean.
The citizens of Rome could do nothing except bide their time inside the city walls until the detested barbarians decided what to do next. They had no means of communication with the outside world and, worse, had begun to run out of food. Dead bodies started piling up throughout the city, swelling and rotting in the August sun. Then, stories of cannibalism began to spread. People were killing their own friends, it was reported, and eating them on the spot. And some people even heard tales of mothers eating their babies.
Roman imperial power, which once controlled lands from Scotland to Egypt, was now unable even to keep its own capital city secure. Rome was no longer the capital of the world - if indeed it ever truly had been - and now it was not clear if it was the capital of anything at all.
Another story making the rounds was that Serena - niece of the later emperor Theodosius, widow of the Roman general Stilichio, and surrogate mother to the present child-emperor, Honorius - had secretly conspired with Alaric to let the Goths into the city to kill everyone. The claim was based on one truth - her husband’s father was a barbarian, in this case, a Vandal - and numerous leaps of logic that racists were able to make in such situations. Once a barbarian-lover always a barbarian-lover, the thinking went. The senate hastily voted to have Serena put to death; she was strangled immediately.
Such paranoia is typical of empires in decline. Similar mentalities were noted in the last year of imperial Russia before 1917. The Goths were, in fact, open to diplomatic negotiation and even preferred it to open warfare.
Two Roman delegates bravely ventured out from the city and met with Alaric to negotiate his peaceful departure. Alaric’s demands included gold, silver, and the freedom of every barbarian slave inside Rome. “What will you leave us?” asked the delegates. “Your lives,” Alaric replied. Although they were in no real position to do so, the Romans balked at the deal. So Alaric lowered his demand for riches. But he remained firm on the freedom of all barbarians in Rome.
At this point, the Goths have given up their demands for large amounts of money, and are merely asking for the emancipation of slaves. It is the Romans who appear savage, willing to risk war over the principle of preserving slavery: an interesting foreshadowing of the American Civil War. However, before hostilities could begin, calmer heads inside Rome prevailed: Rome desperately desired to preserve the institution of slavery; the Goths wanted to get rid of it. But simple physical calculations showed that the Goths would win overwhelmingly, and so the Romans had to yield, despite their love for the institution of slavery.
The deal was soon settled, and Rome’s gates were opened to deliver the material and human treasures. A mass of 30,000 barbarian slaves poured out of Rome, many of them for the first time in their lives. Alaric kept his word and immediately lifted the siege, allowing for the passage of goods and food to and from the port.
It becomes clear that the Romans were as “savage” - or more so - than the Goths, given that they were almost willing to destroy themselves to defend the institution of slavery, and given that the Goths were willing to back down from their demands for gold and silver simply to free their fellow Germanic tribesmen. Who were the real barbarians here?
