2 juill. 865 - Viking raid Rome of 865

Description:

In 860, a Viking fleet, under Björn Ironside and Hastein, landed at Luna and sacked the city. The Vikings then moved another 60 miles down the Tuscan coast to the mouth of the Arno, sacking Pisa and then, following the river upstream, also the hill-town of Faesulae.

This wasn't the last Viking try on Roman, they also began raiding the African coast, but found the local Roman armies to be a far greater opposition force than they would like, and so pulled back. Seeing no profit in Africa, the Vikings put more effort on Italy. Italy was rich, its cities were focused on the coast, and unlike in Africa there was no field army. The raid was intermittent in early 860s, however, the biggest of those were in 865, about fifty ships of Vikings penetrated the Straights, and sailed straight for Italy. They avoided detection until arriving near Ostia. The raiders landed and looted the country-side, then learned just how close they were to the near mythical city of Rome, and all the gold the Pope had inside. The fleet sailed up the Tiber, and landed just south of the city. On July 2, 865, the Vikings had against what was once the greatest city in the world.

Though the population had plummeted, the wall of Rome had just been reinforced by Pope Sergius I in the early 700s. Vikings had been probing at the defenses, buthe attacks were unable to penetrate the defenses however, and Vikings was forced to retreat after a week of inconclusive fighting, leaving five hundred men dead on the field. Viking fleet retreated, but as they exited the Tiber the force was set upon by the fleet of Syracuse and the fleet of Naples. A brief skirmish ensued, but the smaller Viking longships were unable to overcome the larger vessels of the Italians. Sixteen longships were destroyed and the rest were scattered.

Vikings returned to his homeland in defeat, though not without significant plunder. This plunder would be a key in the far larger attack Vikings would organize a decade later.

In the aftermath of Viking raid however towns began building their own, smaller, walls and organizing additional militia forces, as well as requesting Imperial garrisons be put in place. The Emperor refused. Small scale attacks, even on Italy, didn’t merit an Imperial response.

While this angered the Italian population it also wasn’t exactly surprising. So instead the great cities strengthened their defenses more, and readied forces that could hold out until Imperial reinforcements could arrive should serious attacks begin.

And those attacks did come. Over the next several years Viking raiders repeatedly struck the Western Coast of Italy, as well as Sicily and carried off looted wealth. But the populace could retreat into the fortified towns and cities and wait out the attacks. Additionally, ransoms were paid to free captives. These were paid into as an offering given to the Church which soon developed a pattern of sending men to negotiate with raiders, offering to pay them to go away. This normally amounted to a few gold coins per raider. In cases where the Vikings refused and captured loot and captives the gold would be paid to get the captives released; and if no raids came to that part of Italy the money was put toward Church causes.

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