Although malaria didn’t stop Alaric from entering the great city, it did prevent him from basking in the glory of his achievement: the disease killed him soon afterward.[51] In the middle of the fifth century Attila the Hun rampaged across Roman territory. In 452 CE, his army razed Aquileia. The whole of the Italian Peninsula was defenseless, but after his army was struck down by a devastating disease—most likely malaria—Attila was forced to retreat to the high and dry Hungarian Steppe. It is not clear why the defensive shield that repelled invading armies for centuries finally cracked, but in
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