In August 410 the Visigoths under Alaric sacked Rome — the first time in some 800 years that an enemy had taken the city. In Bethlehem, Jerome wrote that the city which had taken the whole world was itself taken.
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In the Bible · c. AD 95 (by tradition) · Patmos, in the Aegean Sea
John on Patmos
On the small island of Patmos, off the coast of Asia Minor, John sees the visions written in the book of Revelation.
Exod 34:29–35
And when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands, he was unaware that his face had become radiant from speaking with the LORD. Aaron and all the Israelites looked at Moses, and behold, his face was radiant. And they were afraid to approach him. But Moses called out to them; so Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses spoke to them. And after this all the Israelites came near, and Moses commanded them to do everything that the LORD had told him on Mount Sinai. When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face. But whenever Moses went in before the LORD to speak with Him, he would remove the veil until he came out. And when he came out, he would tell the Israelites what he had been commanded, and the Israelites would see that the face of Moses was radiant. So Moses would put the veil back over his face until he went in to speak with the LORD.At the same time in the world
By the end of the 4th century Christianity was the official religion of the Roman Empire, and in 395 the empire was divided for good between an emperor in the East and one in the West. Latin was the language of the West, but its older Bible translations differed from copy to copy. Here is the world of about AD 400.
Greece and RomeRome is sackedAD 410
IndiaFaxian’s journeyAD 399–412
The Chinese monk Faxian walked across Central Asia to India to find books of Buddhist monastic rules, and came home by sea. His account describes the Gupta lands of Chandragupta II as peaceful, with a free hospital in its capital.
ChinaThe poet of the fieldsAD 365–427
Around 405 the poet Tao Yuanming gave up a government post to farm and write. His poems about fields, wine and chrysanthemums, and his tale of the Peach Blossom Spring, a hidden valley of peace, are still learned by Chinese schoolchildren.
The AmericasA newcomer at TikalAD 378
Maya inscriptions record that in January 378 a lord named Sihyaj K’ahk’, linked with distant Teotihuacan in central Mexico, arrived at Tikal. On the same day Tikal’s king died, and a new line of kings with ties to Teotihuacan began.
EgyptHypatia of Alexandriac. AD 355–415
In Alexandria the mathematician and philosopher Hypatia taught astronomy and philosophy to pupils of many faiths and edited works of the old mathematicians. She is the first woman mathematician whose life is well recorded.
Eastern Europe and the steppeThe Huns arrivefrom c. AD 370
Horse-riding Huns from the east crossed the Volga and the Don, overran the Alans and the Goths of the steppe north of the Black Sea, and drove many Goths across the Danube into the Roman Empire.
