With the city of Rome in flames, and Visigoth forces running rampant in the heart of Italy, the situation looked dire for the empire.
While emperor Honorius would be able to reassert a degree of control, the sack of Rome was a huge blow to both his prestige, and that of the western Roman empire as a whole.
Over the next four decades, Rome's stability continued to unravel, with uprisings by provincial governors, more succession-based strife the devastating loss of critical provinces such as North Africa, whose grain supplies, especially from Carthage,had long sustained Rome... Attempts were made to stem the tide, but by this point the troubles facing Rome were almost unbearable…and this would only increase.
Emperor Honorius, whose reign was already precarious, looked to be dealt a mortal blow with the sack of Rome.
Alaric's Gothic forces only left the burning city when they saw fit, and not as a result of military pressure from Honorius, who by this time was holed up in Ravenna, largely as a result of barbarian threats.
The empire's military was simply stretched too thin by this point.
Honorius clung on to power, but crisis followed crisis- this time in the form of a new usurper in Gaul.
Possibly sensing weakness in the wake of the devastating Visigoth campaign into Italy, Constantine III had been agitating against Honorius and ruling semi-independently in Roman Britain.
By 411 AD it became clear the situation needed a resolution, so Honorius dispatched his new and capable general Constantius to deal with the threat.
Eventually forcing his surrender.
