Barbarian Invaders: The Sacks of Rome

The Ancients

History Hit

History

4.7 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 8 May 2025

⏱️ 73 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How did the Huns, Goths, and Vandals help bring down the Roman Empire - and sack the city of Rome itself, not once but twice?

In this second episode of our special series on the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, Tristan Hughes is joined by Professor Peter Heather to explore the dramatic wave of invasions that shook Rome in the late 4th and early 5th centuries. From the arrival of the Huns to the sacks of Rome by the Goths in 410 and the Vandals in 455, we trace how the advance of innumerable barbarian tribes brewed decades of tension, betrayal, and bloodshed which helped bring the empire to its knees.

Fall of the Western Roman Empire:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2fKMe2jrV1oZKzRSws83w4

The Goths:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5PbZnN3xtQbLkcn2dPZPy2

Presented by Tristan Hughes. Audio editor and producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.

All music courtesy of Epidemic Sounds

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit.
0:08.1	With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabatans, and enjoy a new release every week.
0:19.3	Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe.
0:22.6	The year is 370 AD.
0:38.3	A cloud of dust appears on the horizon, dark against the noonday sun.
0:45.3	The thunder of hooves reverberates across the vast carpet of the Great Step,
0:50.3	a boundless expanse of scrub and grassland spanning from the plains of Hungary to the
0:56.3	deserts of Mongolia. The primal screams of warhorses bred for their agility in battle merge with
1:04.1	the guttural cries of their riders, creating an unrelenting cacophony. These riders are the hunts. A fugitive nomadic people are driven
1:15.3	from their homeland by the capricious whims of Mother Nature. Bent on pillage and bloodshed,
1:21.8	they descend westward into the Gothic lands of Eastern Europe. They are the oncoming storm,
1:31.5	a barbarian storm, and Rome is not ready for the havoc they will unleash. This is the ancients. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host,
1:40.6	and welcome to the second installment in our-series on the Fall of Rome.
1:45.0	In our last episode we traced the underlying origins of Rome's decline
1:49.0	and examined whether the empire was the victim of slow decay in the third and fourth centuries.
1:54.0	If you haven't listened, do go back and dive in.
1:57.0	Next week we'll be exploring the impact of plagues on Rome's collapse and the fate of Rome's last emperors.
2:04.3	Today, though, we're moving forward into the late 4th and early 5th centuries, to a time of great instability and upheaval.
2:12.8	When Germanic tribes who inhabited the unconquered lands of northern and eastern Europe, Goths,
2:18.8	Allens, Franks, Saxons, flooded into the empire. Coming initially as refugees, and then as invaders,
2:26.2	these so-called barbarians would ultimately surround and lay siege to the walls of rope.
2:33.2	With the Eternal City sacked by the Goths in 410 and then the Vandals in 455,
	...

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