n council held in the same year by
Ambrose was the first effective help from the West. It secured a
rescript of Valentinian in favour of the Nicenes; and if he did not long
survive, his action was enough to show that Valens might not always be
left to carry out his plans undisturbed.

CHAPTER VIII.

_THE FALL OF ARIANISM._

[Sidenote: Prospects in 375.]

The fiftieth year from the great council came and went, and brought no
relief to the calamities of the churches. Meletius and Cyril were still
in exile, East and West were still divided over the consecration of
Paulinus, and now even Alexandria had become the prey of Lucius. The
leaden rule of Valens still weighed down the East, and Valens was
scarcely yet past middle life, and might reign for many years longer.
The deliverance came suddenly, and the Nicene faith won its victory in
the confusion of the greatest disaster which had ever yet befallen Rome.

[Sidenote: The Empire in 376.]

In the year 376 the Empire still seemed to stand unshaken within the
limits of Augustus. If the legions had retired from the outlying
provinces of Dacia and Carduene, they more than held their ground on the
great river frontiers of the Euphrates, the Danube, and the Rhine. If
Julian's death had seemed to let loose all the enemies of Rome at once,
they had all been repulsed. While the Persian advance was checked by the
obstinate patriotism of Armenia, Valens reduced the Goths to submission,
and his Western colleague drove the Germans out of Gaul and recovered
Britain from the Picts. The Empire had fully held its own through twelve
years of incessant warfare; and if there were serious indications of
exhaustion in the dwindling of the legions and the increase of the
barbarian auxiliaries, in the troops of brigands who infested every
mountain district, in the alarming decrease of population, and above all
in the ruin of the provinces by excessive taxation, it still seemed
inconceivable that real danger could ever menace Rome's eternal throne.

[Sidenote: The Gothic war (377-378).]

But while the imperial statesmen were watching the Euphrates, the storm
was gathering on the Danube. The Goths in Dacia had been learning
husbandry and Christianity since Aurelian's time, and bade fair soon to
become a civilized people. Heathenism was already half abandoned, and
their nomad habits half laid aside. But when the Huns came up suddenly
from the steppes of Asia, the stately Gothic warri