Rome's Gothic Wars_ From the Third Century to Alaric - Michael Kulikowski [91]
Negotiations took place at Rimini in 409, while a Gothic army camped outside the city walls. The imperial legation was led by the praetorian prefect of Italy, Jovius, a former ally of Stilicho and rival of Olympius, and perhaps an old acquaintance of Alaric. Relying on the strength of his position, Alaric set his demands quite high. He demanded money and grain, but also the highest generalship, the magisterium utriusque militiae, or command of both services, which Stilicho had held before him. Jovius, it would seem, favoured this arrangement, but either the emperor or Olympius balked at giving another barbarian the codicils of office. They conceded as much grain and money as Alaric might want but no position in the imperial hierarchy.[242] Outraged by the refusal, Alaric turned away from Rimini and began the march down the via Flaminia towards Rome, intending to renew the siege. Olympius’ hold on Honorius soon collapsed, and Olympius himself fled to Dalmatia, but this brought Alaric no comfort.[243] Having himself lost face through his failure to manage the negotiations smoothly, Jovius now joined the side of the intransigents, supposedly swearing himself and his cronies to never again attempt peace with Alaric.
The Second Siege and the Usurpation of Priscus Attalus
Alaric thus lost all potential support at the court of Honorius. As a result, when he calmed down at some place on the road between Rimini and Rome, and offered up much less stringent demands (a moderate amount of grain and a couple of unimportant provinces like Noricum in which to dwell), these were twice rejected and he found himself forced to consider stronger measures.[244] Renewing the siege of Rome was an obvious tactic, but it had not got him what he wanted last time and there was no reason to think it would now. Something more drastic was needed. Alaric had been involved in imperial affairs long enough to realize that usurpers concentrated the imperial mind wonderfully. He therefore decided to set up an emperor of his own, one who would both meet his demands and perhaps also force Honorius to take a more reasonable stance in negotiations. In December 409, therefore, he declared the Roman nobleman Priscus Attalus emperor. Attalus was one of the senate’s leading lights. He had held office already under Theodosius, and had been prominent in embassies to the imperial court earlier in the reign of Honorius. During Alaric’s first siege of Rome, he had been one of the three senatorial ambassadors who went to Ravenna and arranged for the parley at Rimini. Appointed comes sacrarum largitionum – head of the emperor’s treasury – and then prefect of the city of Rome, he was meant to keep the senate and the Roman population firmly on the side of Ravenna despite the threat posed by Alaric. He was still serving as urban prefect when Alaric offered to make him emperor.
Alaric may have intended this manoeuvre to serve only his own interests, but the new augustus had real imperial pretensions as well. Having seen how little the court at Ravenna valued the safety of Rome and the wishes of the Roman senate, Attalus appears to have turned decisively against Honorius. All our extant sources derive at one or more remove from the now fragmentary account of Olympiodorus, an eastern ambassador to the West in the 420s and the most careful and thorough Roman historian since Ammianus.[245] Though it is often hard to recover Olympiodorus’ insights from the sources like Zosimus that used him, it would seem that Attalus presumed to speak for the Romans of Rome, preparing a restoration of imperial majesty with a thoroughly Roman flavour. Attalus bestowed top military commands on Alaric and his brother-in-law Athaulf, but the rest of his nascent regime was plucked from the upper echelons of Roman senatorial society. His self-confidence was ill placed, however,