The Treasure of Alaric in the Busento

The story

In 410, in Rome, something happened that the ancient world would never have thought possible.

For the first time in eight hundred years, the eternal city was taken by an enemy.

The enemy was called Alaric. He was a king of the Visigoths, a Germanic people who for years had wandered on the borders of the empire. He was born around 370, and belonged to a noble line, that of the Balthi. In 395, when he was about twenty-five, the Visigoths had acclaimed him as their leader. Since then he had led his people across half of Europe: he had attacked Constantinople, invaded Macedonia and Greece, negotiated with the Roman emperors, fought and lost, and begun again.

On 24 August 410, in the dead of night, the Visigoths entered Rome by the Porta Salaria. For three days they plundered it. They were terrible days, although in those hours the churches of Saint Peter and Saint Paul gave refuge to those who sheltered in them. Among the prisoners carried off was an important young woman, Galla Placidia, sister of the emperor Honorius. Later she would marry Ataulf, Alaric's successor.

But Alaric did not stop at Rome. He wanted more.

He took the road south. He went down the peninsula, plundering the towns. His plan was clear: to cross to Sicily, then to Africa, which the Visigoths considered the granary of the empire. If he conquered Africa, he could dominate Italy too.

He never got there.

While crossing Calabria, near Cosenza, the king fell ill. Perhaps it was the climate, perhaps the strain of those years. He died within a few days, far from his own land, barely forty years old.

Up to here it is history. From here the legend begins.

It is told by a historian of the Goths, Jordanes, who wrote in the sixth century, a century and a half later. According to him, the Visigoths wanted to bury their king in such a way that nobody, ever, could disturb his rest. They knew that the Romans would look for the tomb to desecrate it. So they devised a plan.

Near Cosenza a river flows, the Busento, which empties into the Crati. The warriors decided to divert its course. With effort, for hours, they dug a new channel and pushed the water elsewhere. The old bed was left dry, a strip of mud and pebbles, under the moon.

There, in the middle of the empty river, they dug the tomb.

They buried Alaric, with all that he had. Then they covered the bed over, put the stones back in place. And, in the dead of night, they reopened the channel. The river returned to its bed, as if nothing had happened, and covered the tomb for ever.

Jordanes adds a cruel detail. The slaves who had done that work were killed, so that they could not reveal to anyone where the burial lay. So the secret really remained a secret.

The legend, over the centuries, has added other things. They say that Alaric was buried with an immense treasure, the booty of Rome. They say he wore his armour, and sat on his horse. These are additions of the tales, not things Jordanes wrote.

A German writer of the nineteenth century, the poet August von Platen, made a romantic ballad of it, and so the story travelled round Europe. Since then, many have looked for that tomb. Archaeologists, enthusiasts, adventurers. There have been digs and even searches with modern instruments.

Nobody has ever found it.

But perhaps that is as it should be. The Visigoths had asked for one thing only: that their king might sleep in peace. And it seems that the river, for now, has kept the promise.