the Rhine, where
they once more found themselves at home among the vines which Probus, in
his victorious progress, had been the first to have planted, and with
probably their old taste for adventure and plunder.

After the commencement of the fifth century, from A.D. 406 to 409, it
was no longer by incursions limited to certain points, and sometimes
repelled with success, that the Germans harassed the Roman provinces; a
veritable deluge of divers nations forced, one upon another, from Asia,
into Europe, by wars and migration in mass, inundated the empire and
gave the decisive signal for its fall. St. Jerome did not exaggerate
when he wrote to Ageruchia: "Nations, countless in number and exceeding
fierce, have occupied all the Gauls; Quadians, Vandals, Sarmatians,
Alans, Gepidians, Herulians, Saxons, Burgundians, Allemannians,
Pannonians, and even Assyrians have laid waste all that there is between
the Alps and the Pyrenees, the ocean and the Rhine. Sad destiny of the
Commonwealth! Mayence, once a noble city, hath been taken and destroyed;
thousands of men were slaughtered in the church. Worms hath fallen after
a long siege. The inhabitants of Rheims, a powerful city, and those of
Amiens, Arras, Terouanne, at the extremity of Gaul, Tournay, Spires, and
Strasburg have been carried away to Germany. All hath been ravaged in
Aquitania (Novempopulania), Lyonness, and Narbonensis; the towns, save a
few, are dispeopled; the sword pursueth them abroad and famine at home.
I cannot speak without tears of Toulouse; if she be not reduced to equal
ruin, it is to the merits of her holy bishop Exuperus that she oweth
it."

Then took place throughout the Roman Empire, in the East as well as in
the West, in Asia and Africa as well as in Europe, the last grand
struggle between the Roman armies and barbaric nations. _Armies_ is the
proper term; for, to tell the truth, there was no longer a Roman nation,
and very seldom a Roman emperor with some little capacity for government
or war. The long continuance of despotism and slavery had enervated
equally the ruling power and the people; everything depended on the
soldiers and their generals. It was in Gaul that the struggle was most
obstinate and most promptly brought to a decisive issue, and the
confusion there was as great as the obstinacy. Barbaric peoplets served
in the ranks and barbaric leaders held the command of the Roman armies;
Stilicho was a Goth; Arbogastes and Mellobaudes were Fr