At The Gates Of Rome (the Battle For A Dying Empire)

A dramatic retelling of the final years of the Western Roman Empire and the downfall of Rome itself from the perspective of the Roman general Stilicho and Alaric, king of the Visigoths.

It took little more than a single generation for the centuries-old Roman Empire to fall. In those critical decades, while Christians and pagans, legions and barbarians, generals and politicians squabbled over dwindling scraps of power, two men – former comrades on the battlefield – rose to prominence on opposite sides of the great game of empire.

Roman general Flavius Stilicho, the man behind the Roman throne, dedicated himself to restoring imperial glory, only to find himself struggling for his life against political foes. Alaric, King of the Goths, desired to be a friend of Rome, was betrayed by it, and given no choice but to become its enemy. Battling each other to a standstill, these two warriors ultimately overcame their differences in order to save the empire from enemies on all sides. And when one of them fell, the other took such vengeance as had never been seen in history.

Don Hollway, author of The Last Viking, combines ancient chroniclers’ accounts of Stilicho and Alaric into an unforgettable history of betrayal, politics, intrigue and war for the heart and soul of the Roman Empire.

Dramatis Personae
Chronology
List of Illustrations
Author''s Note
Introduction
Prologue: The Fall of Rome

PART ONE: AD 378–397
I. Adrianople
II. Foederati
III. A World Divided
IV. Leaders
V. The Battle of the Frigidus
VI. Pater Patriae

PART TWO: AD 395–408
VII. Invaders
VIII. Betrayal
IX. Triumvirate
X. Enemies on All Sides
XI. Barring the Gates
XII. Barbarians Ascendant
XIII. Uprising
XIV. The World Turns
XV. Invasion
XVI. Death Renders All Equal
XVII. “Everything Will Fall to Pieces”
XVIII. Radagaisus
XIX. Annus Horribilis
XX. Contenders for the Throne
XXI. Overthrow
XXII. Downfall

PART THREE: AD 408–410
XXIII. The New Order
XXIV. The March on Rome
XXV. First Siege
XXVI. Poena Cullei
XXVII. Second Siege
XXVIII. Third Siege
XXIX. The Graveyard of the Romans
XXX. Finis

Epilogue: The Triumph of Barbarism
Sources
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments

Don Hollway’s At the Gates of Rome is a masterful blending of solid scholarship and excellent storytelling that brings the Eternal City’s turbulent early history to vibrant life. Patricians and barbarians, slaves and saints, victors and vanquished leap from the pages fully formed, making the book an enthralling read from the first page to the last.

Fans of Hollway’s short work already know his outstanding narrative style is matched by his impressive range. Coming on the heels of his medieval masterpiece The Last Viking, At the Gates of Rome brings Hollway’s marriage of thrilling storytelling and historical rigor to Late Antiquity. In this illuminating page-turner, Hollway walks us through the fate of one of the most significant civilizations in human history. There are works of history we return to as reference, and those we return to as inspiration. In At the Gates of Rome, Hollway has given us both.