Enlistment Contracts in the Roman Army

[Robert Vermaat]

So that is why Alaric was so cantankerous. Not a good way to impress your boss.

I think Alaric saw his strategegy not so much as impressing his boss, but rather making an offer he could not refuse..

Alaric had been a nail in the Roman coffin from day one. We think he had been the leader of Goths eluding Theodosius in the years after Adrianople, when most of the rest had calmed down and even delivered soldiers for the Roman armies. After the huge loss of Gothic life in the battle of the Frigidus (Roman civila war) Alaric may have realised that leading an army was most successful when that army was not hired and fired for single campaigns, but in regular service. Of course the Romans had different plans. After Theodsius died (394) Alaric became a pawn in the battle against Stilicho, and Alaric had the full (if silent) permission to go push his demands in the West - after all that meant the East was rid of him, meaning two birds with one stone.

Alaric was not king of the Gothic nation, he lead a mainly Gothic force that waxed and waned after success and defeat. Only later sources made him sole king of all the Visigoths, which he never was.