Book Review: AD 410 The Year that Shook Rome

AD 410: The Year That Shook Rome by Sam Moorhead
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The British Museum Press is famous for producing clear, well-illustrated books about archaeological subjects, and this volume is no exception. It focuses on Alaric the Visigoth's sacking of Rome in 410 AD, a momentous event that signaled the imminent collapse of the Western Roman Empire.

The authors go into detail about the politics that led to the sacking, especially Rome's mismanagement of the Visigoths. This Germanic tribe was fleeing the Huns from the east, and wanted only some land and food, offering loyalty and military help in return. The Romans in their arrogance spurned the Visigoths' offer and instead starved and massacred them. Alaric comes off as forgiving to a fault in this narrative and the Romans missed several opportunities to make good.

The book follows several other stories as well, including the clash between paganism and an emergent Christianity, rebellions in Africa and Britain, and relations with the Eastern Roman Empire, later to be called Byzantium.

Long quotes from several contemporary writers liven up the text, and there's a helpful Who's Who and annotated bibliography in the back. While any serious student of Late Antiquity will find little that is new, the educated lay reader for whom this book is targeted will find this an enjoyable, somewhat complex, and enlightening read.

View all my reviews

Siamese twins in the Middle Ages

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been traveling in Greece writing a new series for Gadling called Our past in peril: Greek tourism faces the economic crisis. The first in the series is here.

I've always been more interested in Byzantium than Classical Greece and so I spent a lot of time exploring Byzantine sights, including Mistra, a Byzantine ghost town overlooking Sparta. On one of the signs there I came across this strange story. The image above is from a Byzantine manuscript owned by the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid and the caption reads:

"In the time of Romanos Lekapenos (10th cent.) a pair of Siamese twin boys were brought to Constantinople from Armenia and they 'stayed in the city for a long time and everybody went to see them as if they were some kind of curious monster; and then they were expelled from the city because they were thought to be an evil omen."

There's a story in the making. . .

Traveling in Greece

Hi everyone. I've been a bit silent this week and that's because I'm traveling in Greece! Gadling has sent me here to write a series about how the economic crisis is affecting tourism and heritage management. The first article will appear January 30.

I'm writing this to you from Sparta. The Classical ruins here aren't as impressive as those of Corinth or Delphi, and the real reason I came here was to see Mistra. This is a late Byzantine ghost town that is, hands down, the most impressive thing I've seen in this county. Acropolis included. I've always wanted to see this place since researching my book Byzantium: An Illustrated History. It's great to finally get here! I'll be doing a heavily illustrated article on Mistra as part of the series. Here are a couple of photos to give you a taste.