Before sacking Rome in 410, Alaric was bought off with pepper

Visigothic forces under King Alaric entered Rome on 24 August 410 and plundered it for three days — the first time in almost 800 years that a foreign enemy had taken the city. It was the end of a two-year shakedown, not a surprise attack.

Alaric was less a barbarian outsider than a frustrated Roman ally. What he wanted, consistently, was land in the empire — preferably Italy — for his people and supplies for his men. When the western emperor Honorius, safe in his new capital at Ravenna, refused to pay, Alaric turned on Rome itself:

Year	What Alaric did	Result
408	Besieged Rome	Bought off with 5,000 lb of gold, 30,000 lb of silver and 3,000 lb of pepper
409	Marched on Rome again	Set up a rival emperor, Priscus Attalus, later deposed
410	Took the city with some 40,000 Goths	Three days of plunder; Honorius’s sister Galla Placidia taken

The ransom list, preserved by the Greek historian Zosimus, also included 4,000 silk tunics and 3,000 scarlet-dyed hides. The figures show what the Goths valued: portable wealth, luxury cloth and imported spice.

News of the sack reached St Jerome in Bethlehem, where he described it in a letter about his friend Marcella, who died soon after the city fell:

“My voice sticks in my throat; and, as I dictate, sobs choke my utterance.” — St Jerome, Letter 127

Alaric gained little. He tried to invade Africa, Italy’s granary, and died soon afterwards. His brother-in-law Athaulf married Galla Placidia, and in 418 the Visigoths under Wallia were finally granted lands in Aquitaine — roughly the deal Alaric had been demanding. The shock lasted longer: St Augustine wrote The City of God to answer pagans who blamed Christianity for Rome’s humiliation. Sixty-six years later, the West lost its emperor too, when Odoacer deposed Romulus Augustulus.