Episode six: The Fall of Rome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Rome:_The_Rise_and_Fall_of_an_Empire At the start of the 5th century AD Rome was under siege, threatened by a vast army of Goths, forty-thousand of them were poised at the city’s gates. Rome was defenceless, even the remnants of its garrisons abandoned their posts. The events that brought Rome to the brink of disaster had their roots in a betrayal two years earlier.