Rome was suffering a period of extreme decline which made it possible for barbarians to take over and create for themselves a new home Many believe that the violent invasions of the barbarians are what ultimately led to the fall of the Roman Empire The sharp decline in the power of the military allowed for barbarians to migrate onto Roman soil where they would have no hostile force to encounter them The quote provides an extremely unsettling description of the barbarian s invasions explaining that They killed all the people sparing neither women nor children this leads one to believe that the barbarians were harsh and coldblooded in nature and that the Romans probably also viewed them as savage or heartless The ostrogoths are a perfect example of how barbarians embedded themselves into Roman culture Ostrogoths who hailed from an area of land near the Black Sea were not in any way Roman through bloodline however they were very much considered to be supporters of the Roman way What is perhaps the most remarkable example of barbarian incorporation into Roman culture is that during the 520 s a barbarian by the name of Theodoric actually came to be the dominant ruler in western Europe this arguably marks the beginning of non Romans taking over political power in Rome In a far more violent manner the Visigoths who were West Germanic people sacked Rome in 410 for the first time in eight hundred years which intensely frightened the Romans because they were essentially attacked from their blindside This invasion was what the excerpt was beginning to discuss in the last sentence concerning How Alaric captured Rome because Alaric the Visigoth king initiated the attack on Rome in order to establish himself as a powerful and intimidating ruler Eventually the Romans decided they had no choice but to give in to the Visigoth s hostile advances and they derived a treaty granting them the kingdom of Gaul This event is depicted in the excerpt when the author explains that the barbarians Left in Rome nothing whatever of public or private wealth when they moved on to Gaul The quote also claims that the barbarians Also gathered as plunder all the money out of Europe this is in fact true in regards to the Anglo Saxons who ravaged Southern and Eastern Britain between 450 and 600 Therefore considering all of the violent attacks the barbarians plagued upon the lives of countless helpless Romans this would be a somewhat accurate representation of the relations between barbarians and Romans during the Roman Empire It is however important to consider that although the quote refers to barbarians as the most cruel of all men there was never a single organized barbarian invasion of Rome and not all encounters with barbarians were violent Word Count 462