In the year 410, Alaric, king of the Visigoths, led his army to the gates of the city of Rome. The Visigoths, a German tribe, were seeking to peaceably settle within the frontiers of the Roman Empire. Alaric had come to ask the Roman authorities to grant his people land and financial subsidies. However, when those authorities chose to ignore his request, Alaric ordered his troops to storm the Roman capital.

News of the sack of Rome by the Visigoths reverberated throughout the once invincible ancient empire. The reaction was shock and anger, but most of all, despair. Although the empire's fortunes had been declining for two centuries, this was the first time in nearly eight hundred years that invaders had violated the "eternal city." And as the Roman Empire collapsed, Europe entered a vast and varied period of history commonly referred to as...