Rome's Gothic Wars, From the Third Century to Alaric

Late in August 410, Rome was starving, its residents were turning on one another, and, to make matters worse, the Gothic army camped at Rome's gates was restless. The Gothic commander was Alaric, a Roman general and barbarian chieftain. Leading an army that was short of food and potentially mutinous, sacking Rome was his only way forward. The old heart of Rome's empire fell to a conqueror's sword for the first time in eight hundred years.

A history of the Goths, who rose as a power in the early third century and, under their famous leader Alaric, succeeded in sacking Rome in 410.