The Coming of the DARK AGES
Skeptic's Version
The Dark Ages did not begin with the
murder of Hypatia in Alexandria. Most histories mark the beginning
of the Dark Ages with the Fall of Rome, when the barbarians invaded.
The "barbarians" who invaded Rome were its own mercenaries,
no strangers to the imperial court. Hired to fight Rome's later wars,
these mobile outsiders demanded settlement within the empire
and other privileges which Rome, dogged by corruption, was in
no position to refuse. By 410 A.D., in any military
sense, the empire was no longer a sovereign state and the sack
of its ancient capital by (the barbarian)
Alaric
-- a high imperial
official and even a born Roman, so far as the word has any meaning -- had
no quality of invasion about it at all. He and his men were
the Roman army, and had been for decades.
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