Hello everyone and welcome to the history of Byzantium, Episode 266.

Questions 12.

Yes, more questions today.

We're into broader territory now, still focused on the fourth crusade, but expanding our

vision into the past to search for answers to wider issues.

Listen to TD, asks which was more brutal, the crusader sack of Constantinople, or the

Gothic sack of Rome in 410 AD.

I hadn't thought about Alleric's sack of Rome until Listen to TD brought it up, but it's

actually a brilliant point of comparison.

Let me briefly remind you of the narrative surrounding 410, and I think you'll see some

distant echoes of 1204.

Back in 408 AD, Alleric and his Goths were locked in protracted negotiations with the Emperor

Hanoius at Ravenna.

The Germans wanted to be settled within the Empire and given an official role in the

military hierarchy.

Hanoius refused to cooperate, so the Goths used the Eternal City as leverage against him.

They besieged the city and forced the people of Rome to cough up huge sums of money and

luxury goods to get them to leave.

But they returned the next year and put the city under siege again.

This time agreeing to retreat only when the Senate would raise a new Emperor, who would

appoint Alleric as his chief general.

When this failed to force Hanoius to the negotiating table, Alleric abandoned diplomacy

...