irds of the Roman army perished
in a scene of unequalled horror since the butchery of Cannae.

[Sidenote: Results of the battle.]

Beneath that crushing blow the everlasting Empire shook from end to end.
The whole power of the East had been mustered with a painful effort to
the struggle, and the whole power of the East had been shattered in a
summer's day. For the first time since the days of Gallienus, the Empire
could place no army in the field. But Claudius and Aurelian had not
fought in vain, nor were the hundred years of respite lost. If the
dominion of Western Europe was transferred for ever to the Northern
nations, the walls of Constantinople had risen to bar their eastward
march, and Christianity had shown its power to awe their boldest
spirits. The Empire of the Christian East withstood the shock of
Hadrianople--only the heathen West sank under it. When once the old
barriers of civilization on the Danube and the Rhine were broken
through, the barbarians poured in for centuries like a flood of mighty
waters overflowing. Not till the Northman and the Magyar had found their
limit at the siege of Paris [Sidenote: 888.] and the battle of the
Lechfeld [Sidenote: 955.] could Europe feel secure. The Roman Empire and
the Christian Church alone rode out the storm which overthrew the
ancient world. But the Christian Church was founded on the ever-living
Rock, the Roman Empire rooted deep in history. Arianism was a thing of
yesterday and had no principle of life, and therefore it vanished in the
crash of Hadrianople. The Homoean supremacy had come to rest almost
wholly on imperial misbelief. The mob of the capital might be in its
favour, and the virtues of isolated bishops might secure it some support
elsewhere; but serious men were mostly Nicenes or Anomoeans.
Demophilus of Constantinople headed the party, and his blunders did it
almost as much harm as the profane jests of Eudoxius. At Antioch
Euzoius, the last of the early Arians, was replaced by Dorotheus. Milan
under Ambrose was aggressively Nicene, and the Arian tyrants were very
weak at Alexandria. On the other hand, the greatest of the Nicenes had
passed away, and few were left who could remember the great council's
meeting. Athanasius and Hilary were dead, and even Basil did not live to
greet an orthodox Emperor. Meletius of Antioch was in exile, and Cyril
of Jerusalem and the venerated Eusebius of Samosata, while Gregory of
Nazianzus had found in the Isaurian mou