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Link: http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/greece/paganism/sack.html

 

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Just before his death in AD 395, Theodosius I divided the empire into East and West, to be ruled by his two sons. Honorius was only ten years old at the time, and the West was governed in his stead by Flavius Stilicho, his guardian and commander of the army. The two halves of the empire were in contention, however, a situation exploited by Alaric, whose Visigoths had been used as allies but now, with the death of Theodosius, renounced their allegiance and rose in revolt. Alaric was able to negotiate the command of the army in Illyricum but later there was resistance to this concession and he was obliged to leave the area. Alaric then invaded Italy itself and in AD 402 besieged Honorius in Milan (to where the capital of the western Roman empire had been removed more than a century before). Twice defeated by Stilicho but spared each time, Alaric were forced to retreat and persuaded instead to join in a campaign to wrest Illyricum away from the East. But the scheme was abandoned when the usurper Constantine III revolted in Britain in AD 407 and Arcadius unexpectedly died the next year.