Read Casca 7: The Damned for Free Online Page A

who were suffering under the persecution of the Church. To them he gave religious freedom. Each man to his own gods and conscience.
    In the matter of war it was different. Any who came to his standards knew they had to give unquestioning obedience to him. Alaric knew that many of Rome's problems came from having too many would be leaders all working against each other . This would not be tolerated if he was to win. There could be only one master of the armies.
    All that he had ever wanted for them was to be an honored friend and ally. There was much his nation could learn from the Romans. He wanted to raise them up from being just a semi nomadic race of warriors. He wanted cities for them and schools. All this could only come from Rome.
    He gave the order. His Visigoths and their allies crossed over the frozen rivers, taking their wagons with them. One after another the cities of the Empire fell to them. Many opened their gates when they learned that those who did not oppose him would be treated gently and only their gold and the articles needed for war would be taken from them. He did not leave those he conquered to starve. He always left behind enough grain to see them through to the spring.
    He would not have chosen a winter campaign, but there was no other way to get food to feed his thousands except from the granaries of Roman provinces.
    Greece fell to them almost as an afterthought. Once they started moving there was no way to stop. Athens surrendered and paid tribute. Corinth and Sparta next. Then all of Argos yielded without raising arms to resist. The noble heroes of Greece were only legends, Achilles and Hector distant memories from a past that lived only in fables.
    Alaric had the wealth of Greece at his disposal and distributed most of it among his tribesmen. They took slaves by the thousands, especially the women. These helped to keep the tempers of the conquerors in control. The daughters of Greece went to the wagons of their new masters, and their families were spared.
    Rome put her hope in the ability of their ablest general, Stilicho, who was finally permitted to take troops from Italy and go to the aid of the Greeks. Gathering a fleet, he sailed with his army to the Isthmus, not far from Corinth.
    In time he had some measure of success in repelling the barbarians who retreated slowly to the mountain of Phloe on the border of Elis, where Stilicho put their camp under seige. But Stilicho made an error in judgment. Believing he had them bottled up and only had to wait until they were starved into submission, he left the battlefield to his subordinates in order to enjoy the fruits of his apparent victory by reveling in the sensuous pleasures of the decadent Greeks.
    While Stilicho was away, Alaric outsmarted him by making a separate treaty with Arcadius, Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire to which this part of Greece actually belonged. By making a truce, Arcadius would receive credit for ending the war, and not his cousins from Italy.
    Stilicho was forced to let the Visigoths evacuate. If he had broken the treaty made with Arcadius, there might have been civil war. Thus, Alaric was able to get his warriors and their loot out of Greece safely. Stilicho returned to Italy without the victory he had gone to Greece for.
    Alaric continued his negotiations with Arcadius and was given, to the astonishment of the West, the rank of Master General of Eastern Illyricum. He became the lawful master of many of the cities he had so recently plundered. They were forced to turn over their armories to him.
    Night and day the forges worked to turn out arms for his warriors. Too often a Roman victory came because they were better equipped. That would be changed.
    Alaric would honor his agreements with Arcadius but the memory of past treachery was too fresh for him to put much faith in it. Now he would use the time honored ploy of playing one side against the other, all the time strengthening his armies at the expense of the two