"Rome wasn't built in a day. They had unions." Old joke, but it wasn't destroyed in a day. Indeed, it took years. Some would argue decades. (Still others would argue centuries.) The first "barbarian" invaders in the early 5th century wanted to capture Rome, but not destroy it. The sack of Rome in 401-410 by Alaric the Visigoth was only the beginning. But the major centers of Rome were not just the Italian peninsula.