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Updated: June 17, 2025
The Goths, the Alani, and the Vandals, after having laid waste Gaul and Spain, were taking measures to pass over into Africa. Should they renew the attempts of Alaric and Radagaisus against Italy, they would soon be masters of the entire Occident. Now these Barbarians were Arians. For the invaders carried their religion in their baggage, and forced it on the conquered.
This memorable passage of the Suevi, the Vandals, the Alani, and the Burgundians, who never afterwards retreated, may be considered as the fall of the Roman empire in the countries beyond the Alps; and the barriers, which had so long separated the savage and the civilized nations of the earth, were from that fatal moment levelled with the ground.
The mixture of Somatic and German blood had contributed to improve the features of the Alani, * to whiten their swarthy complexions, and to tinge their hair with a yellowish cast, which is seldom found in the Tartar race.
In the course of our journey, we left to the south certain great mountains, on whose sides, towards the desert, dwell the Cergis and the Alani or Acas, who are Christians, and still carry on war with the Tartars. Beyond these, near the sea or lake of Etilia, or the Caspian, are certain Mahometans named Lesgis, who are subjected to the Tartars.
After driving the Alani across the Danube and compelling them to seek an asylum within the borders of the Roman Empire, the terrible Huns had halted in their march westward for something more than a generation. They were hovering, meantime, on the eastern frontiers of the empire, "taking part like other barbarians in its disturbances and alliances."
The Goths march into Gaul, and in 414 into Spain, which had been already invaded by hosts of Vandals, Suevi, Alani, and other Germanic nations. Britain is formally abandoned by the Roman emperor of the West. Genseric, king of the Vandals, conquers the Roman province of North Africa. The Huns attack the Eastern empire.
Then the Alani, being thus divided among the two quarters of the globe the various tribes which make up the whole nation it is not worth while to enumerate although widely separated, wander, like the nomads, over enormous districts. But in the progress of time all these tribes came to be united under one generic appellation, and are called Alani.
But the bravest of their youth enlisted in the army of confederates, who formed the defence and the terror of Italy; and in this promiscuous multitude, the names of the Heruli, the Scyrri, the Alani, the Turcilingi, and the Rugians, appear to have predominated. The example of these warriors was imitated by Orestes, the son of Tatullus, and the father of the last Roman emperor of the West.
He for some time maintained a resistance to the Alani, relying on the aid of other tribes of the Huns whom by large promises of pay he had won over to his party; but, after having suffered many losses, he was defeated by superior numbers and slain in battle.
The thirty legions of Stilicho were reënforced by a large body of Barbarian auxiliaries; the faithful Alani were personally attached to his service; and the troops of Huns and of Goths, who marched under the banners of their native princes, Huldin and Sarus, were animated by interest and resentment to oppose the ambition of Radagaisus.
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