All the same, the thunderous responses of writers like Jerome and Augustine still communicate the deep shock caused by Alaric’s sack of Rome. Like the fall of the Berlin Wall, or the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States of America, the terrible symbolism of an assault on a world superpower far outweighed the immediate physical damage done. Alaric’s Goths struck at the heart of the Roman Empire, leaving scars that only hardened and deepened as the years went by.
