ations of contemporary writers. "The irruption of these nations
was followed by the most dreadful calamities; as the Barbarians
exercised their indiscriminate cruelty on the fortunes of the Romans
and the Spaniards, and ravaged with equal fury the cities and the open
country. The progress of famine reduced the miserable inhabitants to
feed on the flesh of their fellow-creatures; and even the wild beasts,
who multiplied, without control, in the desert, were exasperated, by
the taste of blood, and the impatience of hunger, boldly to attack
and devour their human prey. Pestilence soon appeared, the inseparable
companion of famine; a large proportion of the people was swept away;
and the groans of the dying excited only the envy of their surviving
friends. At length the Barbarians, satiated with carnage and rapine, and
afflicted by the contagious evils which they themselves had introduced,
fixed their permanent seats in the depopulated country. The ancient
Gallicia, whose limits included the kingdom of Old Castille, was divided
between the Suevi and the Vandals; the Alani were scattered over the
provinces of Carthagena and Lusitania, from the Mediterranean to the
Atlantic Ocean; and the fruitful territory of Btica was allotted to the
Silingi, another branch of the Vandalic nation. After regulating this
partition, the conquerors contracted with their new subjects some
reciprocal engagements of protection and obedience: the lands were again
cultivated; and the towns and villages were again occupied by a captive
people. The greatest part of the Spaniards was even disposed to prefer
this new condition of poverty and barbarism, to the severe oppressions
of the Roman government; yet there were many who still asserted their
native freedom; and who refused, more especially in the mountains of
Gallicia, to submit to the Barbarian yoke."

The important present of the heads of Jovinus and Sebastian had approved
the friendship of Adolphus, and restored Gaul to the obedience of his
brother Honorius. Peace was incompatible with the situation and temper
of the king of the Goths. He readily accepted the proposal of turning
his victorious arms against the Barbarians of Spain; the troops of
Constantius intercepted his communication with the seaports of Gaul, and
gently pressed his march towards the Pyrenees: he passed the mountains,
and surprised, in the name of the emperor, the city of Barcelona. The
fondness of Adolphus for his Roman bride,