The stains of melted bronze coins still are visible on the colored marble floor of the Basilica Aemilia, which was gutted by fire when Alaric sacked Rome in AD 410.
A bibliographic note: De Origine Actibusque Getarum ("The Origins and Acts of the Goths") or Getica of Jordanes was written about AD 551, probably in Constantinople, and is an abridgement of a longer history of the Goths by Cassiodorus, who was secretary to Theodoric the Ostrogoth. This account, which the emperor, himself, had requested, survives only in the history of Jordanes, who, as he relates in the Preface, once borrowed it for three days and wrote his own epitome sometime later. "The words I recall not, but the sense and the deeds related I think I retain entire."
The Getica of Jordanes, himself a Goth, preserves virtually all that remains of a Gothic history. It relates (XXX.158) that Alaric was buried, together with his plundered treasure, in a dry river bed, after which the diverted water was allowed to cover the site and those who had dug the grave killed to keep its secret. It also describes the decisive Battle of Châlons east of Paris, which in AD 451 thwarted the advance of the Huns into Europe.
Reference: The Gothic History of Jordanes (1915) translated by Charles Christopher Mierow.
