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Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag
Am . August des Jahres n. Chr. drangen die Goten unter der Fhrung ihres Knigs Alarich in Rom ein und plnderten die
Stadt drei Tage lang. Diese erste Eroberung Roms seit Jahren lste eine anhaltende Debatte ber die Auswirkungen der Kon-
version des Kaisers zum Christentum aus. Whrend die heidnische Seite diese Konversion fr die Zerstrung Roms durch die
Goten verantwortlich machte, sahen die christlichen Schriftsteller keinen Zusammenhang und spielten den Schrecken der Pln-
derung herunter. Was in jenen Tagen tatschlich geschah, ist jedoch weitgehend unbekannt. Die vorliegende Publikation einer
vom . bis . November in Rom veranstalteten Tagung bietet erstmals eine kritische Synthese der fr die Zeit um n. Chr.
relevanten archologischen Befunde Roms und bettet sie in einen breiten historischen Kontext. Dabei kommen Wissenschaftler
verschiedenster Fachrichtungen und Nationen zu Wort.
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Te Sack of Rome in AD
Te Event, its Context and its Impact
edited by
Johannes Lipps Carlos Machado Philipp von Rummel
On the
th
of August , the Goths, led by their king Alaric, broke into and sacked the city of Rome for three days. Te rst
capture of Rome in years sparked an intense debate about the impact of the conversion of Roman emperors to Christianity.
Whereas pagans blamed the sack on the new religion, Christians saw no connection between the two and actually downplayed
the horrors of the looting that took place. What actually happened, however, remains unknown. Tis book, the proceedings of a
conference held at Rome on November , provides the rst synthesis of the available archaeological evidence for the years
around , placing it in its broader historical context. Scholars from dierent nations and dierent disciplines have their say,
presenting an up-to-date discussion of the information available about this historic event, its context, and its impact.
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Contents
Vorwort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ,
Johannes Lipps Carlos Machado Philipp von Rummel
Te Sack of Rome in o AD. An Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Philipp von Rummel
Ereignis und Narrativ. Erzhlungen der Plnderung Roms im August o
zwischen Textberlieferung und Archologie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ;
Riccardo Santangeli Valenzani
Dallevento al dato archeologico. Il sacco del 410 attraverso la documentazione archeologica . . . . . . . . .
I. CONTEXT
Arnaldo Marcone
Roma caput mundi. Il significato simbolico della citt inconquistata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Carlos Machado
The Roman Aristocracy and the Imperial Court, before and after the Sack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ,
Michael Kulikowski
The Failure of Roman Arms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ;;
II. EVENT
Ralph Mathisen
Roma a Gothis Alarico duce capta est. Ancient Accounts of the Sack of Rome in o BCE . . . . . . . . . . 8;
Johannes Lipps
Alarichs Goten auf dem Forum Romanum berlegungen zu Gestalt, Chronologie
und Verstndnis der sptantiken Platzanlage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . o
Antonella Corsaro Alessandro Delfino Ilaria de Luca Roberto Meneghini
Nuovi dati archeologici per la storia del Foro di Cesare tra la fine del IV e la met del V secolo . . . . . . . . a
Fedora Filippi
Nuovi dati da Campo Marzio e Trastevere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ;
6 Contents
Stefania Fogagnolo
Testimonianze del sacco del o in un cantiere edilizio a Trastevere
(Conservatorio di San Pasquale Baylon) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Carlo Pavolini
Le conseguenze del Sacco di Alarico sul Celio. Alcune ipotesi dagli scavi recenti . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Paola Quaranta Roberta Pardi Barbara Ciarrocchi Alessandra Capodiferro
Il giorno dopo allAventino. Dati preliminari dai contesti di scavo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Axel Gering
Mit oder ohne Alarich. Geballte Einsturzkatastrophen, Abri und der monumentale
Wiederaufbau des Forums von Ostia im . Jh. n. Chr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a
Franois Baratte
Vaisselle dargent et bijoux. Des temoins du sac de o . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a
Alessia Rovelli
410, il sacco di Roma e la testimonianza delle monete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a,
Franz Alto Bauer
Saccheggi e distruzioni nellanno 410 Nuove problematiche e nuove prospettive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a,
Paolo Liverani
Alarico in Laterano e sullEsquilino. Due casi e qualche riflessione . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a;;
III. IMPACT
Michele Renee Salzman
Memory and Meaning. Pagans and o . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a,
Mischa Meier
Alarico Le tragedie di Roma e del conquistatore. Riflessioni sulle Historiae di Orosio . . . . . . . . . . .
Neil McLynn
Orosius, Jerome and the Goths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a
Silvia Orlandi
Le tracce del passaggio di Alarico nelle fonti epigrafiche . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Bryan Ward-Perkins Carlos Machado
o and the End of New Statuary in Italy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
; Contents
Clementina Panella
Roma e gli altri. La cultura materiale al tempo del sacco di Alarico . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Roberto Meneghini
Le vicende del 408410 e la comparsa delle sepolture urbane a Roma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . o
Elio Lo Cascio
La popolazione di Roma prima e dopo il o . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Christine Delaplace
La strategie des Goths aprs o et leur installation par lEmpire romain en Aquitaine (68) . . . . a
Peter Heather
o and the End of Civilisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Walter Pohl
o and the Transformation of the Roman World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ,
On August a
th
, o, Rome was captured and sacked
forthersttimein8ooyears.Accordingtooursourc-
es, barbarian troops led by the Visigothic king Alaric
took the city and sacked it for three days, after having
besieged it twice in previous years. Contemporary ac-
counts describe how the Romans, broken by hunger
and plague, and impoverished by successive ransoms,
watched as treasures were looted, aristocratic palaces
were destroyed, and Christian ascets were raped and
murdered
1
. Very few events in the history of the eter-
nalcityhaveattractedasmuchattentionfromsomany
scholars, writers, and thinkers of dierent origins and
backgrounds, fewer still have been interpreted in so
manyradicallydierentways.
Evencontemporariessawtheeventssurroundingthe
Sack in contrasting terms. Writing soon after it took
place, Jerome famously remarked that the city which
hadtakenthewholeworldwasitselftaken
2
.Orosiusand
Augustineminimizeditsmagnitude,observingthatthe
ChristianGodhadavertedamuchmoreterribledisaster,
whenRadagaisusanon-Christian,andthereforeatru-
lydangerousthreatwasdefeatedwhilstatthevergeof
conquering Rome
3
. Members of the pagan elite blamed
theabandonmentoftraditionalcultsandtheconversion
to Christianity for the Sack, Christians, however, noted
that the gods of old had not spared the city from many
othercatastrophesinthepast.Itisprobablynotacoin-
cidencethatthecalendarofPolemiusSilvius,compileda
fewdecadeslater,shouldmentionthecaptureofRomeby
theGaulsin,o BC,butnottheVisigothicsuccess.
Physical traces of the sack are equally problematic.
Dating and identifying destruction layers is a dicult
task
4
, and the evidence available for restoration works
and new buildings is usually richer and more inform-
ative than whatever signs of damage we might have.
TeinscriptionsoflateantiqueRomearenotoriousfor
mentioningvarioustypesofdisaster,fromthepassing
of time to barbarian incursions
5
. Even in this case,
however, interpretation can give rise to disagreement,
ascommissionersofinscriptionsweremoreinterested
in boasting of their love and care for the city than in
documentingtheactualstateofwhattheysaw
6
.
Scholarshavetraditionallydealtwiththeseproblems
byadoptingacircularargument,inwhicharchaeologi-
calsignsofdestructionaretreatedasproofofwhatthe
textstellusabouttheSack,whilsttheinformationgiv-
en in texts is used as a key for dating and interpreting
the archaeological record
7
. Dierent approaches were
developedinrecentdecades,bothintermsofthetreat-
mentofthesources(textualandmaterial),andinterms
of scholarly research agendas. Post-modern theories
and especially the linguistic turn have made scholars
more aware of the politics of their texts, and as a re-
sultlesslikelytotaketheinformationtheyoeratface
value. As dierent contributions to this volume argue,
ecclesiasticalwritershadtheirowninterests,andtheir
narrativesoftheeventswereshapedbyawiderangeof
literary models and theological concerns. Archaeolo-
gists have become more aware of the dangers of relat-
ing their evidence to specic historical events, while a
greaterinterestinthelateantiqueperiodhasledthem
toevaluatetheirmaterialinamorepositivefashion.In
general, scholars are more concerned with broader re-
search topics, aiming for a more context-based under-
standing of late antique Rome in other words, they
havemovedawayfromthetraditionalnarrativeofcol-
lapse with which the Sack was associated. In this pro-
cess,evencategorieslikeRomansandbarbarians,not
to mention decline and decadence, are being vigor-
ouslyquestioned
8
.
It was in this context of new approaches to the late
antiquecitythattheconferencethatgaveorigintothis
Johannes Lipps Carlos Machado Philipp von Rummel
Te Sack of Rome in AD
An Introduction