their secluded villas for luxurious leisure, but were
forced to perpetual warfare, and with foes they had hitherto despised.

Two things marked the one hundred years before the accession of
Theodosius of especial historical importance,--the successful inroads
of barbarians carrying desolation and alarm to the very heart of the
Empire; and the wonderful spread of the Christian religion. Persecution
ended with Diocletian; and under Constantine Christianity seated herself
upon his throne. During this century of barbaric spoliations and public
miseries,--the desolation of provinces, the sack of cities, the ruin of
works of art, the burning of palaces, all the unnumbered evils which
universal war created,--the converts to Christianity increased, for
Christianity alone held out hope amid despair and ruin. The public
dangers were so great that only successful generals were allowed to wear
the imperial purple.

The ablest men of the Empire were at last summoned to govern it. From
the year 268 to 394 most of the emperors were able men, and some were
great and virtuous. Perhaps the Empire was never more ably administered
than was the Roman in the day of its calamities. Aurelian, Diocletian,
Constantine, Theodosius, are alike immortal. They all alike fought with
the same enemies, and contended with the same evils. The enemies were
the Gothic barbarians; the evils were the degeneracy and vices of Roman
soldiers, which universal corruption had at last produced. It was a sad
hour in the old capital of the world when its blinded inhabitants were
aroused from the stupendous delusion that they were invincible; when the
crushing fact blazed upon them that the legions had been beaten, that
province after province had been overrun, that the proudest cities had
fallen, that the barbarians were advancing,--everywhere
advancing,--treading beneath their feet temples, palaces, statues,
libraries, priceless works of art; that there was no shelter to which
they could fly; that Rome herself was doomed. In the year 378 the
Emperor Valens himself was slain, almost under the walls of his capital,
with two-thirds of his army,--some sixty thousand infantry and six
thousand cavalry,--while the victorious Goths, gorged with spoils,
advanced to take possession of the defeated and crumbling Empire. From
the shores of the Bosporus to the Julian Alps nothing was seen but
conflagration, murders, and depredations, and the cry of anguish went up
to heaven in