<P> In 409 Olympius fell to further intrigue, having his ears cut off before he was beaten to death . Alaric tried again to negotiate with Honorius, but his demands (now even more moderate, only frontier land and food) were inflated by the messenger and Honorius responded with insults, which were reported verbatim to Alaric . He broke off negotiations and the standoff continued . Honorius's court made overtures to the usurper Constantine III in Gaul and arranged to bring Hunnic forces into Italy, Alaric ravaged Italy outside the fortified cities (which he could not garrison), and the Romans refused open battle (for which they had inadequate forces). Late in the year Alaric sent bishops to express his readiness to leave Italy if Honorius would only grant his people a supply of grain . Honorius, sensing weakness, flatly refused . </P> <P> Alaric moved to Rome and captured Galla Placidia, sister of Honorius . The Senate in Rome, despite its loathing for Alaric, was now desperate enough to give him almost anything he wanted . They had no food to offer, but they tried to give him imperial legitimacy; with the Senate's acquiescence, he elevated Priscus Attalus as his puppet emperor, and he marched on Ravenna . Honorius was planning to flee to Constantinople when a reinforcing army of 4,000 soldiers from the East disembarked in Ravenna . These garrisoned the walls and Honorius held on . He had Constantine's principal court supporter executed and Constantine abandoned plans to march to Honorius's defence . Attalus failed to establish his control over the Diocese of Africa, and no grain arrived in Rome where the famine became even more frightful . Jerome reports cannibalism within the walls . Attalus brought Alaric no real advantage, failing also to come to any useful agreement with Honorius (who was offered mutilation, humiliation, and exile). Indeed, Attalus's claim was a marker of threat to Honorius, and Alaric dethroned him after a few months . </P> <P> In 410 Alaric took Rome by starvation, sacked it for three days (there was relatively little destruction, and in some Christian holy places Alaric's men even refrained from wanton wrecking and rape), and invited its remaining barbarian slaves to join him, which many did . The city of Rome was the seat of the richest senatorial noble families and the centre of their cultural patronage; to pagans it was the sacred origin of the empire, and to Christians the seat of the heir of Saint Peter, Pope Innocent I, the most authoritative bishop of the West . Rome had not fallen to an enemy since the Battle of the Allia over eight centuries before . Refugees spread the news and their stories throughout the Empire, and the meaning of the fall was debated with religious fervour . Both Christians and pagans wrote embittered tracts, blaming paganism or Christianity respectively for the loss of Rome's supernatural protection, and blaming Stilicho's earthly failures in either case . Some Christian responses anticipated the imminence of Judgement Day . Augustine in his book "City of God" ultimately rejected the pagan and Christian idea that religion should have worldly benefits; he developed the doctrine that the City of God in heaven, undamaged by mundane disasters, was the true objective of Christians . More practically, Honorius was briefly persuaded to set aside the laws forbidding pagans to be military officers, so that one Generidus could re-establish Roman control in Dalmatia . Generidus did this with unusual effectiveness; his techniques were remarkable for this period, in that they included training his troops, disciplining them, and giving them appropriate supplies even if he had to use his own money . The penal laws were reinstated no later than 25 August 410 and the overall trend of repression of paganism continued . </P> <P> Procopius mentions a story in which Honorius, on hearing the news that Rome had "perished", was shocked, thinking the news was in reference to his favorite chicken he had named "Roma". On hearing that Rome itself had fallen he breathed a sigh of relief: </P>

He fall of the roman empire marks the beginning of the