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This week, I am going to go with a recommendation from listener Nick Dunlavy, Winston Churchill's The Second World War,

the groundbreaking history of the war as told by one of its principles.

I haven't read it myself, but just knowing that it exists makes me happy.

The history of Rome has very rarely been able to rely on first-hand accounts from people actually in the tent when decisions were made

that when you get to something like Caesar's commentaries, you sit up and take notice.

Churchill's history should probably be read with the same skeptical eye that we read Caesar, but it should definitely be read.

Or listen to anyway, just remember to go to audiblepodcast.com forward slash Rome so that they know who sent you.

Hello, and welcome to the history of Rome.

Episode 162, opening the floodgates.

On New Year's Eve 406 AD, a massive horde of barbarians crashed across the lower Rhine and began spilling into the interior of the Roman Empire.

The mixed group included vandals, alons, burgundians, and alamani, and their combined strength overwhelmed the local Roman defenses.

Well, local Roman defenses isn't entirely accurate.

Over the most part, the legions proper had been pulled south, either to bolster the defenses of the upper Rhine or to augment Stilico's Italian army as he faced off against radigaisis invading Goths.

The northern section of the frontier was thus protected only by the Allied Franks.

The Franks fought hard to stop the invasion, after all the lower Rhine was now as much their territory as it was the Romans,

...