When the Empire Trembled In 410 AD, Rome, the eternal city and symbol of imperial power, suffered an event that profoundly marked history… The sack of Rome by the Visigoths, led by Alaric, was a moment of rupture that shook the foundations of the Western Roman Empire. This event was not only a material devastation, but a symbolic blow to the greatness of Rome, which for the first time in centuries saw its walls breached by a foreign army.
The fall of Rome did not happen in a single day, but the sack of 410 was a clear sign that the Empire was faltering. The causes were multiple: internal crises, barbarian pressures on the borders, political instability and a growing inability to maintain control over a vast and fragmented territory.
Despite this, Rome remained a powerful symbol, and its sack had a profound impact on the collective conscience of the time. Augustine of Hippo, for example, reflected on this event in his work "The City of God", trying to make sense of the fall of a city that many believed to be eternal.
Even in later accounts, the sack of Rome in 1410 became a point of reference, a moment in which the ancient world seemed to give way to a new order. Human errors, political weaknesses and the force of the barbarian invasions contributed to an epochal change, which would lead, a few decades later, to the definitive end of the Western Roman Empire.