find it in the irruption of the
fierce Gothic tribes of the North, who, under Alaric, burst like a
tornado upon the empire about the beginning of the fifth century,
spreading destruction and desolation upon every side.

The following quotations and facts from the highest authority on the
subject, Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Vol. III, pp.
190-294), will give the reader an idea of the awful effects produced by
the invasions of these barbarous tribes. The great Theodosius, emperor
of the Western Roman empire, "had supported the frail and mouldering
edifice of the republic," but upon his death he was succeeded by the
weak Honorious. In a few months the Gothic barbarians were in arms. "The
barriers of the Danube were thrown down, the savage warriors of Scythia
issued from their forests ... and the various tribes of barbarians, who
glory in the Gothic name, were irregularly spread over the woody shores
of Dalmatia to the walls of Constantinople." They were "directed by the
bold and artful genius of Alaric," who soon concluded that the conquest
of Constantinople was an impracticable enterprise. He "disdained to
trample any longer on the prostrate and ruined countries of Thrace and
Dacia, and he resolved to seek a plentiful harvest of fame and riches in
a province which had hitherto escaped the ravages of war.... The troops
which had been posted to defend the straits of Thermopylae retired ...
without attempting to disturb the secure and rapid passage of Alaric;
and the fertile fields of Phocis and Baeotia were instantly covered by a
deluge of barbarians, who massacred the males of an age to bear arms,
and drove away the beautiful females, with the spoil and cattle of the
flaming villages. The travelers who visited Greece several years
afterwards, could easily discover the deep and bloody traces of the
march of the Goths.... The whole territory of Attica, from the
promontory of Sunium to the town of Megara, was blasted by his baleful
presence; and, if we may use the comparison of a contemporary
philosopher, Athens itself resembled the bleeding and empty skin of a
slaughtered victim.... Corinth, Argos, Sparta, yielded without
resistance to the arms of the Goths; and the most fortunate of the
inhabitants were saved, by death, from beholding the slavery of their
families and the conflagration of their cities."

Arcadius, the emperor of the East, wishing to dissuade Alaric from
further conquests and such wholesa