The barbarian invasions: chronology, battles and protagonists

The barbarian invasions: chronology of the raids that led to the fall of the Western Roman Empire. History, battles and protagonists

By the expression barbarian invasions, historians mean the series of raids that peoples united by the fact that they were not Romans and defined as barbarians carried out within the borders of the Roman Empire, from 166 to 476 AD. until the fall of its western part. The barbarian invasions initially had the sole purpose of plundering while, from the second half of the 4th century, the raids transformed into actual migrations of entire populations, who went from nomadic to sedentary and settled in the Roman Empire.

We can consider the barbarian invasions reported below as the most famous:

Fronted by Marcus Aurelius between 166 and 189 AD.
Of the Alemanni who characterized the 3rd century AD
Of the Visigoths who in 378 AD. defeated the Romans at Adrianople
Of the Vandals, Burgundians, Picts and Huns who plagued Rome in the 4th and 5th centuries

The phenomenon, also called migrations of peoples, ended with the formation of the Roman-barbarian kingdoms and with the definitive end of the Classical World and the entry of Europe into the Middle Ages.

Barbarian invasions or migrations? The historical context

Starting from the 2nd century AD along the border of the Roman Empire, limes in Latin, a situation of continuous conflict was created between the local populations, the Roman military garrisons and the people settled beyond the borders, the Barbarians. These populations did not initially have a single identity and only slowly managed to establish themselves as united peoples who could oppose the Romans.

It is curious to see how the barbarian invasions are defined by the historians of the various European countries: while the French and Italians usually indicate the movement of these peoples as barbarian invasions, underlining the sudden clash that occurred between the Roman and barbarian worlds and the cultural regression that victory of the Barbarians brought with it, the Germans instead speak of migrations of peoples, highlighting the positive contribution of the Germanic peoples to the development of European history.

Regardless of the terms used, relations between Romans and Barbarians were intense starting from the 2nd century.
It is said that the emperor Marcus Aurelius fought a long war against the barbarian populations, driving them away from the territories of Cisalpine Gaul and Rhaetia between 170 and 171 AD. and counterattacking until 175. These struggles forced the emperor himself to reside for years along the Pannonian front, without ever returning to Rome.

The invasions of the 3rd century AD, which presented themselves as raids within Roman borders for the purpose of plunder and not as occupation operations, which occurred only later, according to tradition instead began with the first incursion conducted by the Germanic confederation of the Alemanni in 212 against the emperor Caracalla and ended in 305 at the time of Diocletian.
It is interesting to note that starting from the 3rd century many barbarian warriors became soldiers of the Roman Empire, sometimes even reaching positions of importance.

The invasion of the Barbarians into the territories of the Empire

The delicate balance between Romans and Barbarians was broken in the second half of the 4th century with the political and economic weakening of the Roman Empire. Some barbarian populations began to militarily cross the border not to carry out raids, but to create real settlements. The Barbarians who lived along the border were aware of Rome’s military weakness and took advantage of it to cross the limes under the pressure exerted by other populations who moved from the East to the West, in turn driven by the irruption of the Huns.
The chain movements involved in particular the Goths, coming from Germany, who divided into Western Goths (Visigoths) and Eastern Goths (Ostrogoths).
The Visigoths obtained authorization from Valens, emperor of the East, to cross the border and began to devastate the southern Balkan region. Valens decided to face them but was defeated and killed at Adrianople in 378 AD.
The Roman emperors understood that they could not block the Barbarians militarily and created the systems of hospitalitas and foederatio to regulate their presence in the territory of the Empire.

Hospitalitas provided for the granting of a third of the lands or taxes of a region to barbarian populations who declared loyalty to Rome and provided military support while remaining independent
The foederatio involved an alliance in exchange for compensation

The Visigoths, who after Adrianople had declared themselves federates of the Eastern emperor, carried out other devastations to assert their position, including the sacking of Rome in 410 AD. under the leadership of King Alaric I, before leaving Italy to create a stable dominion in Spain.
In the winter of 406-407 the border along the Rhine river was crossed by Vandals and Burgundians who penetrated into Gaul. The Burgundians managed to settle permanently in central-southern Gaul, while the Vandals moved until they settled in the Roman provinces of north Africa.
In the territories to the north of the Empire the Picts and Saxons created stable settlements in Britain and in 450 the Huns led by Attila invaded the Empire and reached the gates of Rome, retreating only after the granting of huge assets by Pope Leo I .

When in 476 AD, the last Western emperor Romulus Augustulus was deposed and replaced by Odoacer, an officer of the Germanic population of the Sciri who acquired the title of king, the western territories of the Empire were already partly under the control of the Barbarians .
At the end of the 5th century AD in what had been the Western Roman Empire, the Roman-barbarian kingdoms were arising: Europe was entering the Middle Ages.

Meeting between Leo the Great and Attila

The meeting between Attila the king of the Huns and Pope Leo I is the protagonist of a fresco (approximately 660×500 centimeters in size) created by Raphael and dating back to around 1514 entitled “Meeting of Leo the Great with Attila”. The work is located in the Room of Heliodorus, one of the Vatican Rooms. Attila is represented as a bloodthirsty and ruthless king and behind him there is only fire, rubble and destruction. The scene narrates the legendary meeting that made the king of the Huns desist from invading Italy and marching on Rome. Raphael sets the scene in Rome (in reality it took place near the Mincio, Mantua) and in fact on the left side of the fresco you can see an aqueduct, a basilica and the Colosseum, on the right Monte Mario. The two opposing forces are the group of Huns who rush forward in a dynamic and furious manner, however blocked by the dazzling appearance of the apostles armed with swords in the sky. The Pope with his procession instead proceeds orderly and calmly in his infallibility. This differentiation is also reflected in the landscape, calm on the left, shocked by fire on the right.

Alaric

Alaric I was the first king of the Visigoths, and commanded the sacking of Rome in 410, an event symbolizing the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

Of noble origins, Alaric led the Gothic troops within the Roman army but upon the death of Emperor Theodosius I he was elected leader of the Visigoths; when they did not have the aid promised by Rome, Alaric marched towards the West trying to invade the Italian peninsula in 401 and 403.

After an anti-barbarian party settled in Rome in 408, the emperor Flavius Honorius refused lands and aid promised to the Visigoths, then Alaric besieged Rome again, occupying it for 3 days from 24 August 410.

He left again with the intention of occupying Sicily and the African colonies, but he died suddenly in Cosenza where he was buried.

The consequence of the invasions: the birth of the Roman-barbarian kingdoms

The Roman-barbarian kingdoms that arose from the ruins of the Western Roman Empire had different characteristics depending on the political, administrative and settlement traditions of the provinces that made up the Empire, but some traits were common.
In all the conquered territories the Barbarians were in a minority compared to the resident Romans but problems of coexistence still arose. The Romans managed them:

maintaining the Latin language as the official language
maintaining the Roman legal and administrative traditions which were flanked by the barbarian ones

The direct management of the administration was entrusted to the Roman population, while the army was entrusted to the Barbarians.
In all Roman-barbarian kingdoms the population had to recognize the king, who had the absolute power to judge, punish and was the military guide. Everywhere the concept of citizenship became something linked to the exercise of arms: only warriors could define themselves as free and only they, gathered in assembly, could elect the king.

Some examples of Roman-barbarian kingdoms are:

The kingdom of the Franks between the river Main and the river Rhine led by King Clovis, who became Christian in 496 and in 510 had the Salic law drawn up, one of the first collections of laws of the Latin-Germanic kingdoms which puts in writing legal rules which, until then, they had only been transmitted orally.
The dominion of the Anglo-Saxons in Britain
The kingdom of the Ostrogoths created by the will of the Eastern Empire in Italy and which Theodoric tried to make independent
The kingdom of the Visigoths in southern Gaul and Spain led by King Alaric II who created the Roman Law of the Visigoths, a collection of laws inspired by the Roman legal tradition
The dominion of the Vandals in North Africa which was overthrown in 533 by Belisarius, general of the Eastern Roman Empire

The barbarian invasions caused the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, but they did not only bring destruction. From these great migrations and from the Roman-barbarian kingdoms, the states from which nations such as France, Germany and England descended were born in the Middle Ages.