<P> However, in 405, Stilicho was distracted by a fresh invasion of Northern Italy . Another group of Goths fleeing the Huns, led by one Radagaisus, devastated the north of Italy for six months before Stilicho could muster enough forces to take the field against them . Stilicho recalled troops from Britannia and the depth of the crisis was shown when he urged all Roman soldiers to allow their personal slaves to fight beside them . His forces, including Hun and Alan auxiliaries, may in the end have totalled rather less than 15,000 men . Radagaisus was defeated and executed and 12,000 of the prisoners were drafted into Stilicho's service . Stilicho continued negotiations with Alaric; Flavius Aetius, son of one of Stilicho's major supporters, was sent as a hostage to Alaric in 405 . In 406 Stilicho, hearing of new invaders and rebels who had appeared in the northern provinces, insisted on making peace with Alaric, probably on the basis that Alaric would prepare to move either against the Eastern court or against the rebels in Gaul . The Senate deeply resented peace with Alaric; in 407, when Alaric marched into Noricum and demanded a large payment for his expensive efforts in Stilicho's interests, the senate, "inspired by the courage, rather than the wisdom, of their predecessors," preferred war . One senator famously declaimed Non est ista pax, sed pactio servitutis ("This is not peace, but a pact of servitude"). Stilicho paid Alaric four thousand pounds of gold nevertheless . Stilicho sent Sarus, a Gothic general, over the Alps to face the usurper Constantine III, but he lost and barely escaped, having to leave his baggage to the bandits who now infested the Alpine passes . </P> <P> The empress Maria, daughter of Stilicho, died in 407 or early 408 and her sister Aemilia Materna Thermantia married Honorius . In the East, Arcadius died on 1 May 408 and was replaced by his son Theodosius II; Stilicho seems to have planned to march to Constantinople, and to install there a regime loyal to himself . He may also have intended to give Alaric a senior official position and send him against the rebels in Gaul . Before he could do so, while he was away at Ticinum at the head of a small detachment, a bloody coup against his supporters took place at Honorius's court . It was led by Stilicho's own creature, one Olympius . </P> <P> Stilicho had news of the coup at Bononia (where he was probably waiting for Alaric). His small escort of barbarians was led by Sarus, who rebelled . His Gothic troops massacred the Hun contingent in their sleep, and then withdrew towards the cities in which their families were billeted . Stilicho ordered that these troops should not be admitted, but, now without an army, he was forced to flee for sanctuary, promised his life, and killed . </P> <P> Alaric was again declared an enemy of the Emperor . The conspiracy then massacred the families of the federate troops (as presumed supporters of Stilicho, although they had probably rebelled against him), and the troops defected en masse to Alaric . The conspirators seem to have let their main army disintegrate, and had no policy except hunting down supporters of Stilicho . Italy was left without effective indigenous defence forces thereafter . Heraclianus, a co-conspirator of Olympius, became governor of the Diocese of Africa, where he controlled the source of most of Italy's grain, and he supplied food only in the interests of Honorius's regime . </P>

What part of roman culture survived the fall of the roman empire in 476