n 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 Narbonness; 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 the 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:
Stilieho was a Goth; Arbogastes and Mellobaudes were Franks; Ricimer was
a Suevian. The Roman generals, Bonifacius, Aetius, AEgidius, Syagrius,
at one time fought the barbarians, at another negotiated with such and
such of them, either to entice them to take service against other
barbarians, or to promote the objects of personal ambition, for the Roman
generals also, under the titles of patrician, consul, or proconsul,
aspired to and attained a sort of political independence, and contributed
to the dismemberment of t