The Gates of Rome (Emperor Series, Book 1)

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Who would believe that Rome, built up by the conquest of the whole world, had collapsed, that the mother of nations had become also their tomb; that the shores of the whole East, of Egypt, of Africa, which once belonged to the imperial city, were filled with the hosts of her men-servants and maid-servants, that we should every day be receiving in this holy Bethlehem men and women who once were noble and abounding in every kind of wealth but are now reduced to poverty? These included the Amphitheatrum Castrense, the Castra Praetoria, the Pyramid of Cestius, and even a section of the Aqua Claudia aqueduct near the Porta Maggiore. King Servius Tullius, the 6 th King of Rome, who ruled from 575-535 BC, gets the credit for building the walls but the origins probably go back a lot further. After brief negotiations and maneuvers, the two forces clashed again at the Battle of Verona, where Alaric was defeated and besieged in a mountain fortress, taking heavy casualties.

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The previous name was Porta Flaminia, because the consular Via Flaminia passed, as it passes even now, through it (in ancient times, Via Flaminia started at the Porta Fontinalis, close to the current Vittoriano).Serena, the wife of the proscribed Stilicho and a cousin of emperor Honorius, was in the city and believed by the Roman populace, with little evidence, to be encouraging Alaric's invasion.

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Add to that a growing ability to lead (and the death of some of the officers above him) and he soon starts to command an increasing number of men. Galla Placidia, the sister of the emperor Honorius, was also trapped in the city and gave her consent to the Roman Senate to execute Serena. Foundations of fortification have likely surrounded the Eternal City since its inception in the 8th century BC, with the still partly standing Servian Walls dating at least back to the 6th century BC. The only ancient author to date it was Orosius, [13] who associates the event with the birth of Christ, traditionally (but probably incorrectly) assigned to December 1 BC.

Stilicho claimed that Theodosius had awarded him with sole guardianship on the emperor's deathbed and claimed authority over the Eastern Empire as well as the West.

Temple of Janus (Roman Forum) - Wikipedia Temple of Janus (Roman Forum) - Wikipedia

Magister utriusque militiae Stilicho marched east at the head of a combined Western and Eastern Roman army out of Italy. Whilst the north holds mainly crumbling Roman relics and later Renaissance additions, a journey to the east of the Eternal City reveals perhaps the best-preserved pair of gates of Ancient Rome . Yet, this does not detract from the gates of Ancient Rome that remain positioned both on its western banks. Herwig Wolfram, The Roman Empire and Its Germanic Peoples, (University of California Press, 1997), 91–92.a b c Peter Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, (Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. A power struggle emerged between Stilicho, who claimed guardianship over both emperors but was still in the West with the army that had defeated Eugenius, and Rufinus, the praetorian prefect of the East, who took the guardianship of Arcadius in the Eastern capital of Constantinople. Paulus Orosius, a Christian priest and theologian, believed the sack was God's wrath against a proud and blasphemous city, and that it was only through God's benevolence that the sack had not been too severe.