Roman Army during the Sack of Rome(410)

[Flavivs Aetivs]

And don't forget the Heruli, Goths, Burgundians, Salian Franks, and Alemanni that all provided soldiers and foederati for Aetius' army. Not to mention the Huns themselves of course.

[ValentinianVictrix]

I doubt he had Roman troops, unless they were of Gothic ethnicity and gained citizenship. Roman citizens hated the Goths extremely.(a reason why the Romans didn't like him in the first place)

I agree with Evan, we do have any information about Romans hating Goths 'extremely'. I only know of one incident where citizens acted against Roman troops of Gothic origin, and we evn aren't told whether that was because of them being Goths or just 'barbarians' or something. Gainas was attacke because he captured Constantinople and that had a different reason.

The Goths did not only fight against the Romans, they also fought with and for the Romans. After Constantine defeated them, they had a great respect for the dynasty and refused to support usurpers. At Frigidus they took the brunt of the fighting (which may have caused Alaric's opposition). It's not all Adrianople! There is no support for your claim that I know of Andy, perhaps you can tell us more?

There were several incidents where it could be argued that being a Goth meant that you were treated in an appalling manner by the Romans. When the Goths first crossed the Danube in 376AD the Roman's supervising the crossing abused the situation the Goth's found themselves in by not giving the Goth's decent food as they had been ordered to, but instead they had all the dogs in the vicinity rounded up and then traded one dog for one Goth, even the sons of chieftains were traded for the dogs in this way. The dogs were then to be butchered for food. The Gothic revolt is directly traced to this event. Not much later Alavivus and Fritigern were invited along with their Goth's to Marcianopolis where those two chieftains narrowly avoided being assassinated and their followers slaughtered. And yet again in that same year the Gothic chieftains Colias and Sueridus, whom Valens had invited to spend the winter at Adrianople, were, along with their fellow tribesmen, so badly treated by the citizens of that city that those Goth's were forced to attack the citizens, killing many and then setting off to join Fritigern's revolt.

[Mrbsct]

Didn't Theodosius have a huge number of Gothic troops as his person strike force to massacre rioters? This was probably Bodyguard units right? Also it is reported that almost half of Auxilia Palantini were barbarian origin? Were they Roman citizens or just recruited from abroad?

Emperors seem be willing to deal with Goths more for political opportunity. Valens did it 2 times. Rich landowning officials according to Gibon tend to abuse the Goths.

[Robert Vermaat]

There were several incidents where it could be argued that being a Goth meant that you were treated in an appalling manner by the Romans.

Yeah I know but these incidents are quite normal evidence of the arrogant Roman way towards barbarians, and do not qualify as 'The Romans hated the Goths extremely' like Andy stated below I think.

[ValentinianVictrix]

There were several incidents where it could be argued that being a Goth meant that you were treated in an appalling manner by the Romans.

Yeah I know but these incidents are quite normal evidence of the arrogant Roman way towards barbarians, and do not qualify as 'The Romans hated the Goths extremely' like Andy stated below I think.

I agree whith you Robert about the Romans not hating the Goths 'extremely', but there was a degree of hatred towards the Goth's, I believe due to the fact that they had been at loggerheads with the Romans from at least 240AD, and managed to kill two Roman Emperors in battle by the time Theodosius took up the purple.