Alaric - 'Roman Officer'?

[Nathan Ross]

That's why he can never have been a 'regular Roman general' in command of a 'regular Roman army', because we know his demands to Honorius in that area.

Absolutely, yes. I think the best treatment of Alaric and his forces I've yet come across is J.H.W.G. Liebeschuetz's 'Alaric's Goths; Nation or Army?' (in Fifth-century Gaul: a crisis of identity?; Drinkwater, Elton 1992). Liebeschuetz describes Alaric as the leader of a mercenary army, exploiting the divisions and discords in Roman control to increase his own power and the status of his (very heterogenous) troops.

In effect, Alaric flourished in the military and political power vacuum between the eastern and western empires in the 395-408 period - specifically the period of Stilicho's conflict with the eastern court - bidding for the favours of each side, and playing each against the other. That neither side treated him as entirely one of their own is unsurprising.

Kulikowski, in his lecture, illustrates his discussion of Alaric with a slide of the Monza Diptych (labelled 'A Late Roman Officer') - whether this actually shows Stilicho or not, I think the inference is clear: Alaric, we are encouraged to believe, was a similar sort of officer to Stilicho. But Stilicho's position and promotions were very regular, including palatine tribunates, despatch as an envoy to the Persians and even marriage to the emperor's niece. Very far, I would say, from a semi-bandit warlord like Alaric.

But making Alaric into a kind of 'Roman officer' effectively turns the crisis of 408-10 leading up to the Sack of Rome into a Roman civil war. This neatly disposes of the 'problem of the barbarians', which I suspect is kind of Kulikowski's aim here!