<P> Stilicho moved with his remaining mobile forces into Greece, a clear threat to Rufinus' control of the Eastern empire . Rufinus, lacking adequate forces, enlisted 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> <P> The magister militum in the Diocese of Africa declared for the East and stopped the supply of grain to Rome . Italy had not fed itself for centuries and could not do so now . In 398, Stilicho sent his last reserves, a few thousand men, to re-take the Diocese of Africa, and he strengthened his position further when he married his daughter Maria to Honorius . Throughout this period Stilicho, and all other generals, were desperately short of recruits and supplies for them . In 400, Stilicho was charged to press into service any "laetus, Alamannus, Sarmatian, vagrant, son of a veteran" or any other person liable to serve . He had reached the bottom of his recruitment pool . Though personally not corrupt, he was very active in confiscating assets; the financial and administrative machine was not producing enough support for the army . </P> <P> In 399, Tribigild's rebellion in Asia Minor allowed Gainas to accumulate a significant army (mostly Goths), become supreme in the Eastern court, and execute Eutropius . He now felt that he could dispense with Alaric's services and he nominally transferred Alaric's province to the West . This administrative change removed Alaric's Roman rank and his entitlement to legal provisioning for his men, leaving his army--the only significant force in the ravaged Balkans--as a problem for Stilicho . In 400, the citizens of Constantinople revolted against Gainas and massacred as many of his people, soldiers and their families, as they could catch . Some Goths at least built rafts and tried to cross the strip of sea that separates Asia from Europe; the Roman navy slaughtered them . By the beginning of 401, Gainas' head rode a pike through Constantinople while another Gothic general became consul . Meanwhile, groups of Huns started a series of attacks across the Danube, and the Isaurians marauded far and wide in Anatolia . </P> <P> In 401 Stilicho travelled over the Alps to Raetia, to scrape up further troops . He left the Rhine defended only by the "dread" of Roman retaliation, rather than by adequate forces able to take the field . Early in spring, Alaric, probably desperate, invaded Italy, and he drove Honorius westward from Mediolanum, besieging him in Hasta Pompeia in Liguria . Stilicho returned as soon as the passes had cleared, meeting Alaric in two battles (near Pollentia and Verona) without decisive results . The Goths, weakened, were allowed to retreat back to Illyricum where the Western court again gave Alaric office, though only as comes and only over Dalmatia and Pannonia Secunda rather than the whole of Illyricum . Stilicho probably supposed that this pact would allow him to put Italian government into order and recruit fresh troops . He may also have planned with Alaric's help to relaunch his attempts to gain control over the Eastern court . </P>

What internal factors helped bring about the fall of the western roman empire