The coming of the Germans

If one wishes to consider German-Roman relations on a broad scale, there were actually four German "invasions" of the empire.

• Trade
• Military Recruiting
• Imperially-Sponsored Immigration
• The Great Invasions

The Huns from central Asia defeated the Ostrogoths and forced the Visigoths to seek the status of federati and the protection of the lower Danube river (376). Subjected to Roman taxation and other abuses by local administrators, they rebelled and marched upon Constantinople to seek redress from the emperor. The emperor determined not to allow such a precedent and led the eastern Roman army against the Visigoths. The Romans were disastrously defeated at the battle of Adrianople (378), and the emperor killed. A new emperor, Theodosius (379-396) arrived from the West and stabilized affairs by settling the Visigoths in Illyria, the former Yugoslavia

In 402, supported and subsidized by the Eastern Empire, the Visigothic king, Alaric, attacked Italy. Stilicho (STIHL-ih-cho), the German commander of the western Roman armies, stripped the western frontiers of troops in order to hold off Alaric. On Christmas Day of 406, the Germanic tribes of the Alans, Vandals and Sueves (pronounced "swaves") crossed a frozen Rhine river and the invasions had begun.

Stilicho was murdered in 408, and, in 410, Alaric and the Visigoths entered Italy and sacked Rome.

The heart of the empire could not produce enough food to feed its resident population and had depended on imports from grain-producing regions for a considerable time. Thus it was essential for the Roman command to hold onto the regions that produced the food surpluses that they needed -- Aquitaine in southern France, Andalusia in southern Spain, North Africa, and the Mediterranean islands of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica. Despite the obvious importance of these lands to the survival of the Western empire, the imperial administration managed to throw them all away.

The Roman government got the Visigoths to leave Italy by giving them Aquitaine, provided that they would drive out the Vandals occupying Andalusia. The Visigoths invade Spain in 429, and the Vandals, under King Gaiseric (guy-ZEHR-ik), fled over the Straits of Gibraltar to begin the conquest of North Africa.

Meanwhile the Visigoths decided to keep both Aquitaine and Andalusia, and the Vandals found that they had captured the Roman fleet base at Carthage together with a large part of the Western Roman fleet. Deciding to use it, they took to the sea and, in a few years, controlled the western Mediterranean, including Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica. By 455, they were strong enough to launch an amphibious operation to capture and sack Rome.