Is the Holy Grail connected to a lost treasure?
It must be said here and now: Only because an immense treasure was lost is there a Holy Grail and a body of work known as grail romance. It probably was the treasure of the Visigoths, taken as booty during their sack of Rome in AD 410. Many details are documented, including a written account of what the Romans paid to Alaric as ransom prior to the actual sack. It included 5 000 pounds of gold and 30,000 pounds of silver. The gold alone would have a value of over 80 million Euros today, not counting the immense archeological value of the artifacts and coins. But this was merely a prelude, the sack and destruction of Rome was to follow and is described in the works of Orosius, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, and others. They lamented that the “End of the World” had come, and even that “Rome deserved her fate”. We can safely say today that the value of the entire booty would even put Bill Gates to shame. In fact, many writers speculate that it included artifacts from Solomon’s Temple, like the
