Alaric (ca. 370-410) was a leader of the Visigoths who clashed repeatedly with the Roman Empire and led his troops in the sack of Rome in 410.

The Visigoths had been driven from their homeland in central Europe into Roman territory by the attacks of the neighboring Huns. After the Visigoths inflicted a massive defeat on the Eastern Roman army in 378, they were persuaded by the emperor Theodosius I to settle in the Roman province of Lower Moesia (northern Bulgaria) as Roman mercenaries.

Alaric was born near the mouth of the Danube about 370. The Visigothic troops in Roman service chose him as their leader about 390. In 395, dissatisfied by the commands given him, Alaric attacked Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece. In 397 the strongman of the Western Roman Empire, General Flavius Stilicho, sailed to Greece and convinced Alaric to leave there and settle in Epirus.

In 401 Alaric invaded Italy for the first...