<P> Corruption, in this context the diversion of public finance from the needs of the army, may have contributed greatly to the Fall . The rich senatorial aristocrats in Rome itself became increasingly influential during the fifth century; they supported armed strength in theory, but did not wish to pay for it or to offer their own workers as army recruits . They did, however, pass large amounts of money to the Christian Church . At a local level, from the early fourth century, the town councils lost their property and their power, which often became concentrated in the hands of a few local despots beyond the reach of the law . </P> <P> The fifth - century Western emperors, with brief exceptions, were individuals incapable of ruling effectively or even of controlling their own courts . Those exceptions were responsible for brief, but remarkable resurgences of Roman power . </P> <P> Without an authoritative ruler, the Balkan provinces fell rapidly into disorder . Alaric was disappointed in his hopes for promotion to magister militum after the battle of the Frigidus . He again led Gothic tribesmen in arms and established himself as an independent power, burning the countryside as far as the walls of Constantinople . Alaric's ambitions for long - term Roman office were never quite acceptable to the Roman imperial courts, and his men could never settle long enough to farm in any one area . They showed no inclination to leave the Empire and face the Huns from whom they had fled in 376; indeed the Huns were still stirring up further migrations which often ended by attacking Rome in turn . Alaric's group was never destroyed nor expelled from the Empire, nor acculturated under effective Roman domination . </P> <P> Stilicho moved with his remaining mobile forces into Greece, a clear threat to Rufinus' control of the Eastern empire . The bulk of Rufinus' forces were occupied with Hunnic incursions in Asia Minor and Syria, leaving Thrace undefended . He opted to enlist Alaric and his men, and sent them to Thessaly to stave off Stilicho's threat, which they did . No battle took place . Stilicho was forced to send some of his Eastern forces home . They went to Constantinople under the command of one Gainas, a Goth with a large Gothic following . On arrival, Gainas murdered Rufinus, and was appointed magister militum for Thrace by Eutropius, the new supreme minister and the only eunuch consul of Rome, who controlled Arcadius "as if he were a sheep". Stilicho obtained a few more troops from the German frontier and continued to campaign ineffectively against the Eastern empire; again he was successfully opposed by Alaric and his men . During the next year, 397, Eutropius personally led his troops to victory over some Huns who were marauding in Asia Minor . With his position thus strengthened he declared Stilicho a public enemy, and he established Alaric as magister militum per Illyricum . A poem by Synesius advises the emperor to display manliness and remove a "skin - clad savage" (probably Alaric) from the councils of power and his barbarians from the Roman army . We do not know if Arcadius ever became aware of the existence of this advice, but it had no recorded effect . Synesius, from a province suffering the widespread ravages of a few poor but greedy barbarians, also complained of "the peacetime war, one almost worse than the barbarian war and arising from military indiscipline and the officer's greed ." </P>

Why did many cities disappear after the fall of rome