AL'ARIC I. (in German, Al-ric, i.e.., all rich) belonged to one of the noblest families of the Visigoths. He makes his first appearance in history in 894 A.D., as leader of the Gothic auxiliaries of Theodosius in his war with Eugenius; but after the death of the former, lie took advantage of the dissensions and weakness that prevailed in the Roman empire to invade (395) Thrace, Macedon, Thessaly, and Illyria, devastating the country, and threatening Constantinople itself. Rufinus, the minister of Arcadius, appears to have sacrificed Greece in order to rescue the capital, and Athens was obliged to secure its own safety by ransom. A. proceeded to plunder and devastate the Peloponnesus, but was interrupted by the landing of Stilicho in Elis with the troops of the west. Stilicho endeavored to hem in the Goths on the Peneius; but A. broke through his lines, and escaped with his prisoners and booty to Illyria, of which he was appointed governor by the emperor Arcadius, who was frightened by his successes, and hoped, by conferring this dignity on him, to make him a peaceful subject instead of a lawless enemy (396). In 402, lie invaded upper Italy, and Honorius, the emperor of the west, fled from Rome to the more strongly fortified Ravenna. On the way to Gaul, A. was met and defeated by Stilicho at Pollentia on the Tanaro; but it was not till the following autumn that the result of the battle of Verona forced him to retire into Illyria. Through the mediation of Stilicho, A. concluded a treaty with Honorius, according to which he was to advance into Epirus, and thence attack Arcadius in conjunction with the troops of Stilicho. The projected expedition did not take place, yet A. demanded indemnification for having undertaken it; and Honorius, by the advice of Stilicho, promised him 4000 pounds of gold. When, after the death of Stilicho (q.v.), Honorius failed to fulfill his promise, A. advanced with an army, and invested Rome, which he refused to leave till he had ob tained the promise of 5000 pounds of gold and 30,000 of silver. But neither did this
negotiation produce any satisfactory result, and A. again besieged Rome (409 A.D.). Famine soon rendered it necessary that some arrangement should be made; and in order to this, the senate proclaimed Attains, the prefect of the city, emperor instead of Hono rius. But Attains displayed so little discretion. that A. obliged him publicly to abdicate. The renewed negotiations with Honorius proved equally fruitless with the former, and A. was so irritated at a perfidious attempt to fall upon him by surprise at Ravenna, that he advanced on Rome for the third time. His victorious army entered the city on Aug. 24, 410, and continued to pillage it for 6 days, A. strictly forbidding his soldiers to dis honor women or destroy religious buildings. When A. quitted Rome, it was only to prosecute the conquest of Sicily; the occurrence of a storm, however, which his ill-con structed vessels were not able to resist, obliged him to abandon the project for the time; and his death, which took place at Cosenza, in Calabria, soon after (410), prevented his resuming it. In order that his remains might not be discovered by the Romans, they were deposited in the bed of the river Busento, and the captives who had been employed in the work were put to death. Rome and all Italy celebrated the death of A. with public festivities; and the world enjoyed a momentary repose. But A. himself was much less barbarous than his followers. He admired those monuments of civilization with Which the eternal city abounded, and sought to preserve them; he checked the excesses of his fierce soldiery, and at times gave indications that the lessons of Christianity which he had learned from the Arian missionaries had not been altogether forgotten. Yet through him the Goths learned the way to Rome.