Alaric - 'Roman Officer'?

[Nathan Ross]

Well other Goth's attained high rank in the Roman Army, look up the career of Gainus for example.

Absolutely they did, and had been doing so since at least the mid fourth century.

Gainas, though, started out as a common soldier and rose through the ranks (Sozomen 8.4), to be one of Theodosius's leading generals at the Frigidus, command major divisions of the regular Roman army and become a palace insider, involved in imperial court politics and close to the emperor himself. He even apparently held consular rank (Theodoret 5.32).

Alaric, on the other hand, never (as far as we know) served in the regular Roman army either as soldier or officer, held no regular command in the lower ranks, and was only gifted positions of high military office as a bribe to secure his loyalty during the period of east-west rivalry. He never once led an army against a non-Roman enemy.

Alaric was probably a lot closer in position to Gainas's relative Tribigild, who seems to have been commanding a unit of foederati at the time of his revolt. Perhaps also to Fravitta, who seems to have originally gained his power as a leader of the Goths rather than within the Roman army, but who later (after crushing Gainas) gained all the top military positions - perhaps Alaric could have followed a similar path to Fravitta, but (maybe after seeing by Fravitta's untimely death how vulnerable men of barbarian origin could be at court) decided instead to use his own independent army to acquire a different kind of power, parallel to the empire rather than part of it?