; had commenced, in fact, two
centuries before the overthrow of the Roman Republic. But not
until the fourth century, after the wicked old empire had espoused
Christianity, did it become obvious that its foundations were
undermined by this flood of barbarians. In 410 A.D., when the
West-Goths, under Alaric, entered and sacked Rome, her power was
broken. The roots no longer nourished the distant extremities in
Britain and Gaul, and it was only a question of time when these, too,
should succumb to the inflowing tide.

The Ostro-Goths--or East-Goths--in Northern Italy, and the
Visigoths--or West-Goths--in Gaul, were setting up kingdoms of their
own, under a Roman protectorate. The long period of peace in Spain was
broken. The Pyrenees, with their warlike tribes, defended her for a
time; but the Suevi and the Vandals--the latter a companion tribe of
the Goths--had found an easier entrance by the sea on the east. They
flowed down toward the south, and from thence across to the northern
coast of Africa, which they colonized, leaving a memorial in Spain,
in the lovely province of Andalusia, which was named after
them--_Vandalusia_. But before the sacking of Rome a wave of the
Gothic invasion had overflowed the Pyrenees, and Northern Spain had
become a part of the Gothic kingdom in Gaul, with the city of Toulouse
as its head.

A century of contact with Roman civilization had wrought great changes
in this conquering race. They were untamed in strength, but realized
the value of the civilities of life, and of intellectual superiority;
and even strove to acquire some of the arts and accomplishments of the
race they were invading. They were not yet acknowledged entire masters
of Gaul and northern Spain. On condition of military service they had
undisputed possession of their territory, with their own king,
laws, and customs, but were nominally subjects of the Roman Emperor,
Honorius.

Their attitude toward the Romans at this period cannot better be told
than in the words of Ataulf himself (or Ataulfus, or Adolphus), whose
interesting story will be briefly related. He says:

"It was my first wish to destroy the Roman name and erect in its place
a Gothic Empire, taking to myself the place and the powers of Caesar
Augustus. But when experience taught me that the untamable barbarism
of the Goths would not suffer them to live under the sway of law, and
that the abolition of the institutions on which the state rested would
involve