eror to grant the request. Political
considerations bade him refuse. To admit such a host of warlike
barbarians to the empire was full of danger. Finally they were permitted
to cross, under two stringent conditions: they must deliver up their
arms, and they must yield their children, who were to be taken to Asia,
educated, and held as hostages. Such was the first fatal step in the
overthrow of Rome.

The task of crossing was a difficult one. The Danube there was more than
a mile wide, and had been swollen with rains. A large fleet of boats and
vessels was provided, but it took many days and nights to transport the
mighty host, and numbers of them were swept away and drowned by the
rapid current. Probably the whole multitude numbered nearly a million,
of whom two hundred thousand were warriors.

Of the conditions made only one was carried out. The children of the
Goths were removed, and taken to the distant lands chosen for their
residence. But the arms were not given up. The Roman officers were
bribed to let the warriors retain their weapons, and in a short time a
great army of armed barbarians was encamped on the southern bank of the
Danube.

These new subjects of Rome were treated in a way well calculated to
convert them into enemies. The officials of Thrace disobeyed the orders
of the emperor, sold the Goths the meanest food at extravagant prices,
and by their rapacious avarice bitterly irritated them. While this was
going on, the Ostrogoths also appeared on the Danube, and solicited
permission to cross. Valens, the emperor, refused. He was beginning to
fear that he had already too many subjects of that race. But the
discontent of the Visigoths had drawn the soldiers from the stream and
left it unguarded. The Ostrogoths seized vessels and built rafts. They
crossed without opposition. Soon a new and hostile army was encamped
upon the territory of the Roman empire.

The discontent of the Visigoths was not long in breaking into open war.
They had marched to Marcianopolis, seventy miles from the Danube. Here
Lupicinus, one of the governors of Thrace, invited the Gothic chiefs to
a splendid entertainment. Their guards remained under arms at the
entrance to the palace. But the gates of the city were closely guarded,
and the Goths outside were refused the use of a plentiful market, to
which they claimed admission as subjects of Rome.

The citizens treated them with insult and derision. The Goths grew
angry. Words led