>>12874136There are countless examples of this pattern, but allow me to start with the most famous case of Alaric of the Visigoths who had served in the Roman army for most of his life and was even appointed as one of its top generals:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaric_I>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[36] From the wiki page of that title:
Magister militum (Latin for "Master of Soldiers", plural magistri militum) was a top-level military command used in the later Roman Empire, dating from the reign of Constantine the Great
Alaric I is famous for being the first Barbarian to sack Rome itself since the start of the Roman empire:
>For they destroyed all the cities which they captured, especially those south of the Ionian Gulf, so completely that nothing has been left to my time to know them by, unless, indeed, it might be one tower or gate or some such thing which chanced to remain. And they killed all the people, as many as came in their way, both old and young alike, sparing neither women nor children. Wherefore even up to the present time Italy is sparsely populated.[89]Note that despite the vast complexities of the period, nothing in the end was more powerful than racial hatred. The Goths were Christian by this time, they were Roman subjects that were integrated into the empire serving in civilian and military posts, in top political posts. Yet still very often Gothic feadorati would massacre Huns or Romans whenever they could, especially women and children. Romans would massacre Gothic civilians. Gothic Roman soldiers would ignore the civilian Roman populations they were paid to protect.
