Alaric has spread desolation through North Italy, striking terror into the citizens of Rome.

Imperial forces under Stilicho's command engage the barbarian Danubian coalition at the bloody Battle of Pollentia (Polenza, near modern Bra).

The battle, fought on Easter Sunday, April 6, 402, is a victory for Rome tahht, though costly, effectively halts the Goths' progress.

Stilicho captures the Gothic camp, taking Alaric's wife and family hostage.

It is not unreasonable to suppose that he and his troops were hampered by the presence of large numbers of women and children, which give his invasion of Italy the character of a human migration.

Stilicho's enemies will later reproach him for having gained his victory by taking impious advantage of the great Christian festival.

Alaric, too, is a Christian, though an Arian, not Orthodox.

He had trusted to the sanctity of Easter for immunity from attack.

Gwanggaeto, determined to protect his Kingdom from further threat, decides in 402 to launch an attack on Later Yan itself.

In the same year, Gwanggaeto defeats the Xianbei, seizing some of their border fortresses.

Alaric and his Visigoths, defeated at Verona in June 402, subsequently withdraw from Italy.

Honorius had at first based his capital in Mediolanum (Milan), but with the Visigoths under Alaric having entered Italy, he moves his capital in 402 to …

…the coastal city of Ravenna, which is protected by a ring of marshes and strong fortifications.

While the new capital is easier to defend (although in fact the city falls to opposing forces numerous times in its history), it is poorly situated to allow Roman forces to protect central Italy from the increasingly regular threat of barbarian incursions.

It is also likely that the move to Ravenna was due to the city's port and good seaborne connections to the Eastern Roman Empire.

Murong Chao's father Murong Na was the Prince of Beihai during Former Yan, being a son of Murong Huang (Prince Wenming) and a younger brother of Murong Jun (Emperor Jingzhao).

After Former Yan's destruction by Former Qin in 370, the Former Qin emperor Fu Jiān initially made Murong Na a prefetcure governor, but later Murong Na was relieved from that post and relocated, along with his mother Lady Gongsun and Lady Duan to be with his younger brother Murong De, who was the governor of Zhangye Prefecture (roughly modern Zhangye, Gansu).

(Murong Na and Murong De had the same mother.)

Later, when Murong Na's brothers Murong De and Murong Chui rebelled against Former Qin in 384, with Murong Chui establishing Later Yan and becoming its emperor, Fu Chang, the new governor of Zhangye, arrested and executed Murong Na and all sons of Murong De and Murong Na.

At that time, Lady Duan was not executed because she was pregnant, but she was imprisoned to await execution after she gave birth.

However, the jailer Huyan Ping was a former subordinate of Murong De's, and he took Lady Gongsun and Lady Duan and escaped to the lands of the Qiang tribes, where Lady Duan gave birth to Murong Chao.

After Lady Gongsun died in 394, Huyan Ping took Lady Duan and Murong Chao to Later Liang.

Later, after Later Liang surrenders to Later Qin in 403, Huyan Ping, Lady Duan, and Murong Chao are among the populace of the Later Liang capital Guzang (in modern Wuwei, Gansu) forcibly relocated to …

…the Later Qin capital, Chang'an.

Here, Huyan Ping dies, and Lady Duan has Murong Chao take Huyan Ping's daughter as his wife.

Epiphanius had gone to Constantinople at Theophilus’ request, but when he realized that Theophilus was merely using him for his own purposes, he had left the capital, dying on his return in 403.

The Christian revival of Celtic art, which borrows heavily from late Roman provincial and contemporary Anglo-Saxon designs, is rapidly transmitted to Ireland.

The Scots of Ireland from about 395 had begun attacking Roman Britain from Strathclyde south to Wales, devastating coastal settlements and carrying off thousands of captives into slavery.

According to later tradition, during one of his many raids on Britain, Niall of the Nine Hostages, high king at Meath, captured the future Saint Patrick, aged sixteen, and brought him in bondage to Ireland, where he serves as a swineherd.

Patrick will succeed in escaping to Britain many years later, but he will eventually return to Ireland and play an important early role in the conversion of the Irish to Christianity.

The fifth and youngest son of Eochaid Mugmedon, an Irish High King, and Cairenn Chasdubh (curly black), the enslaved daughter of Sachell Balb (Sachell the stammerer), a British king, Niall is the eponymous ancestor, through his sons Conall Gulban, Endae, Eogan, Coirpre, Lóegaire, Maine of Tethba, Conall Cremthainne and Fiachu Fiachrach, of the Northern and Southern Uí Néill dynasties, some of whom will hold power in Ulster until their defeat in the Nine Years War in 1603. (In January 2006, scientists suggested that Niall may have been the most fecund male in Irish history, and second only to Genghis Khan worldwide.)

There are various versions of how Niall gained his epithet, the oldest being that he had taken a hostage from each of the nine túatha or petty kingdoms of the Airgialla.

The later, better known story is that he had taken a hostage from each of the five provinces of Ireland (Ulster, Connacht, Leinster, Munster and Meath), and one each from the Scots, Saxons, Britons, and Franks (or one each from Dál Riata, Caledonia, Strathclyde and Northumbria).

Irish sources describe Niall's expeditions to Britain and France, and his reign, as given in the Irish Annals, which is roughly contemporaneous with the foundation of Dál Riata in Scotland by Irish migrants and the raids by "Scots" on late Roman and sub-Roman Britain.

King Asin of Baekje attacks Silla in 403, whence many of his subjects had fled in 399 to avoid conscription.