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Sack of Rome (410)

410410s conflicts410s in the Roman Empire5th century in ItalyAncient city of Rome
Battles in LazioBattles involving the VisigothsLootingMilitary history of RomeSieges involving the Roman EmpireWestern Roman Empire
Sack of Rome by the Visigoths on 24 August 410 by JN Sylvestre 1890
Sack of Rome by the Visigoths on 24 August 410 by JN Sylvestre 1890

The Sack of Rome on 24 August 410 AD was undertaken by the Visigoths led by their king, Alaric. At that time, Rome was no longer the capital of the Western Roman Empire, having been replaced in that position first by Mediolanum in 286 and then by Ravenna in 402. Nevertheless, the city of Rome retained a paramount position as "the eternal city" and a spiritual center of the Empire. This was the first time in almost 800 years that Rome had fallen to a foreign enemy, and the sack was a major shock to contemporaries, friends and foes of the Empire alike. The sacking of 410 is seen as a major landmark in the fall of the Western Roman Empire. St. Jerome, living in Bethlehem at the time, wrote; "the city which had taken the whole world was itself taken."

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Sack of Rome (410)
Lungotevere dei Pierleoni, Rome Municipio Roma I

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N 41.89 ° E 12.48 °
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Anagrafe Centrale

Lungotevere dei Pierleoni
00153 Rome, Municipio Roma I
Lazio, Italy
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Sack of Rome by the Visigoths on 24 August 410 by JN Sylvestre 1890
Sack of Rome by the Visigoths on 24 August 410 by JN Sylvestre 1890
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Porta Carmentalis
Porta Carmentalis

The Porta Carmentalis was a double gate in the Servian Walls of ancient Rome. It was named for a nearby shrine to the goddess or nymph Carmenta, whose importance in early Roman religion is also indicated by the assignment of one of the fifteen flamines to her cult, and by the archaic festival in her honor, the Carmentalia. The shrine was to the right as one exited the gate. The gate's two arches seem to have been set at angles, and were known by separate names. It was unlucky to leave the city through the arch called Porta Scelerata ("Accursed Gate"), which was supposed to have been named for the military disaster at Cremera in 479 or 478 BC, since the 306 Fabii who died had departed through it. The Servian Walls, however, did not exist at that time. The accursed nature of the gate probably derives from the transport of corpses out of the city proper to funeral pyres on the Campus Martius. The family tomb of the Claudii was located outside the Porta Carmentalis.The other gate was the Porta Triumphalis. A governor returning from his province could not enter through this gate unless he had been awarded a triumph. It therefore must have been routine to use the Porta Scelerata for entering, and the Triumphalis for exiting. Funeral processions reversed the normal direction of traffic flow for the Scelerata, as the triumphal procession did for the Triumphalis. Augustus was accorded the special honor of having his funeral procession exit by the Triumphalis.The temples of Mater Matuta and Fortuna were nearby. The Carmentalis was rebuilt by Domitian, and topped with a sculpture group of a triumphal chariot drawn by elephants. The gate is depicted in relief sculpture dating to the reign of Marcus Aurelius.The Vicus Iugarius forked just before reaching the Porta Carmentalis, with one branch passing through the Forum Holitorium by making a right curve around the foot of the Capitoline Hill, and the other passing through the Forum Boarium to the mouth of the Cloaca Maxima on the Tiber. The precise location of the Porta Carmentalis itself remains unclear, despite excavations in the area from the late 1930s onward. Livy names the Porta Carmentalis as the point of entry for a ritual procession undertaken in 207 BC as part of an expiatory sacrifice for Juno. Two white cows were led from the Temple of Apollo through the Carmentalis and along the Vicus Iugarius to the Forum.