Stilicho was slain in Ravenna upon August 23rd, 408. In October of
that year Alaric, who had watched the appalling revolution that
followed his own defeat and the annihilation of Radagaisus, after
fruitless negotiations with Honorius, descended into Italy, passed
Aquileia, and coming into the Aemilian Way at Bologna found the pass
open and without misadventure entered Italy at Rimini, and, without
attacking Ravenna, marched on "to Rome, to make that city desolate."
He besieged Rome three times and pillaged it, taking with him, when he
left it, hostages. As we know he never returned, but died at Cosentia
in southern Italy, and was buried in the bed of the Buxentius, which
had been turned aside, for a moment, by a captive multitude, to give
him sepulture.

Among those hostages which Alaric had claimed from the City and taken
with him southward was the sister of the two emperors, the daughter of
the great Theodosius, Galla Placidia.

This great lady had been born, as is thought, in Rome about 390; she
had, however, spent the first seven years of her life in
Constantinople, but had returned to Italy on the death of Theodosius
with her brother Honorius, in the care of the beautiful Serena, the
wife of Stilicho. She does not seem to have followed her brother
either to Milan or to Ravenna, for indeed his residence in both these
cities was part of the great defence. She remained in Rome, probably
in the house of her kinswoman Laeta, the widow of Gratian. That she
had a grudge against Serena seems certain, though the whole story of
the plot to marry her to Eucherius, Serena's son, would appear
doubtful. That she initiated her murder, as Zosimus[1] asserts, is
extremely improbable and altogether unproven. However that may be,