Hello, and welcome to the history of Rome, episode 165, reviving the Roman name.

In early 412 AD, two forces converged on northern Italy.

Coming up from the south was a tall and the Goths, who were now more than a year removed

from the sack of Rome, but still no closer to finding the permanent home or the permanent

place in the Roman world that they had been searching for.

Coming down from the north was Constantius III, commander in chief of the Western Roman

Army, who had just whipped two usurpers in the span of a single summer.

Neither side was entirely sure what the motivations of the other were, so they gingerly skirted

around each other trying to get a feel for what the other intended to do.

Before the Goths going to follow up on their sack of Rome by attacking Ravenna, was Constantius

going to go for the hat trick and press for a decisive battle.

As it turned out, the answer to both of these questions was a resounding no.

A talf was obviously interested in all the things Alleric had been interested in.

A homeland for the Goths, a regular stipend for his people, and a place in the Roman military

order for himself personally.

But he was not particularly interested in using brute force to get there, at least not

at the moment.

Constantius for his part opened with a hard line, ordering the Goths to leave Italy immediately,

but he was clearly not sitting on a hair trigger.

A battle with the Goths, even a victorious battle, risked the precious military resources

of the faltering Western Empire.

Neither side wanted a battle, and so it was to everyone's great relief that the Goths

...