Alaric - 'Roman Officer'?

[Nathan Ross]

the bioarchaeological evidence that people were healthier in the 5th-8th century than the 3rd-4th. 

I'd never heard about that! - although bioarchaeology tends to make my mind glaze over... Is this people everywhere, or just some people?

aren't there signs of massive movement away from the towns and villas into remote areas in Gaul and so on?... If you can't get out because the limes are guarded by soldiers, you drop out.

Desertion of towns and cities and abandonment of villas in the 3rd-4th-5th centuries is well known and studied, with reasons related to economics, infrastructure, the collapse of a cash economy (in Britain in particular), the shift from a provincial aristocracy to an imperial 'aristocracy of service', the drain of wealth into the church, and so on - big subject! But not evidence of a rejection of 'Romanisation' or imperial control, I think.

Interestingly, I don't know of any evidence for anyone trying to get out of the empire - just for plenty of people trying to get in! Where there were settlements of Romans outside of the empire's borders, it appears to have been because the border moved rather than the people... The extent to which the limes were guarded at all in the 5th century (and if so by whom) is a debatable question, but I doubt any border fortifications or zones were intended to keep people in (the vallum of Hadrian's Wall being maybe an exception?)

Returning to Alaric, though - he obviously wasn't trying to destroy the empire, and wasn't the leader of a huge 'invasion' force either. He seems to have wanted more of the Roman action, so to speak, not less of it. His ultimate goal appears to have been a secure territory, and an official title to control it and anyone living in it; maybe an attempt to 'privatise' part of the Roman empire, then?

Presumably he was already a Roman citizen (I would guess the 'Roman dignity' that he was supposedly awarded after the Frigidus included citizenship, along with some military title or other). But I would guess that the vast majority of those under his command were not, and did not want to be: it certainly never seems to have formed part of his demands.