ew nothing of the art of attacking stone walls, and
quickly gave up the impossible task. From Adrianople they marched to
Constantinople, but were forced to content themselves with ravaging the
suburbs and gazing, with impotent desire, on the city's distant
splendor. Then, laden with the rich spoils of the suburbs, they marched
southward through Thrace, and spread over the face of a fertile and
cultivated country extending as far as the confines of Italy, their
course being everywhere marked with massacre, conflagration, and rapine,
until some of the fairest regions of the empire were turned almost into
a desert. It may be that the numbers of Romans who perished from this
invasion equalled those of the Goths whom imprudent compassion had
delivered from the Huns.

As regards the children of the Goths, who had been distributed in the
provinces of Asia Minor, there remains a cruel story to tell. Though
given the education and taught the arts of the Romans, they did not
forget their origin, and the suspicion arose that they were plotting to
repeat in Asia the deeds of their fathers in Europe. Julius, who
commanded the troops after the death of Valens, took bloody measures to
prevent any such calamity. The youthful Goths were bidden to assemble,
on a stated day, in the capital cities of their provinces, the hint
being given that they were to receive gifts of land and money. On the
appointed day they were collected unarmed in the Forum of each city, the
surrounding streets being occupied by Roman troops, and the roofs of the
houses covered with archers and slingers. At a fixed hour, in all the
cities, the signal for slaughter was given, and in an hour more not one
of these helpless wards of Rome remained alive. The cruel treachery of
this blood-thirsty act remains almost unparalleled in history.

_THE DOWNFALL OF ROME._

Theodosius, the great and noble emperor who succeeded Valens, pacified
and made quiet subjects of the Goths. He died in 395, and before the
year ended the Gothic nation was again in arms. At the first sound of
the trumpet the warriors, who had been forced to a life of labor,
deserted their fields and flocked to the standards of war. The barriers
of the empire were down. Across the frozen surface of the Danube flocked
savage tribesmen from the northern forests, and joined the Gothic hosts.
Under the leadership of an able commander, the famous Alaric, the
barbarians swept from their fields and poured d