More thoughts on the collapse of the Western half of the Roman Empire

In earlier posts I discussed the possibility of the survival Roman Empire in the West for awhile longer.

It is something that I think of from time to time.  I like to look at a movie and think about how it may have gone a bit differently than the plot.  It is my way of tinkering with things.  But you can't tinker with the past. It is done and gone forever.  The only thing you can do with history is to learn from it.

So, what about Rome?  What may have gone differently?

The Emperor of the West at the time of the sack of Rome in 410 AD was Honorius.  This dude looks dumb as a rock.  He gave the barbarian general Alaric a motive for attacking Rome itself.  Honorius had thousands of Gothic women and children of Gothic soldiers killed for some strange reason.  Thousands of Gothic soldiers then joined up with Alaric, but now with revenge upon their minds.  Prior to that, he had his protector, who was half-Vandal, murdered.  Now, the provoked Alaric, who was a friend to Stilicho, had a motive for wanting to punish the Romans.  Alaric himself had been ill-treated by Honorius' father, Theodosius, even though Alaric fought and helped win a battle for the last Emperor of the united Empire.

Given the treatment he received, it is understandable why Alaric attacked.  It is hard to understand why Honorius decided to kill off his protector and to give a motivation for an ruinous attack by someone who might have been friendly if treated properly.

There's not much that can done about stupidity and incompetence.  The only way to deal with it is to get rid of it before it destroys you.

Stilicho is sometime portrayed as something of a villain, but how bad could he have been?  He protected Honorius, but the better action may have been to kill him off and take the throne for himself.