h the other evils of the
empire--the heavy cost of administration relatively heavier when the
density of the population is low; the empty fields, the dwindling
legions which did not suffice to guard the frontier.

To cure this sickness of population the Roman rulers knew no other way
than to dose it with barbarian vigour. Just a small injection to begin
with and then more and more till in the end the blood that flowed in its
veins was not Roman but barbarian. In came the Germans to settle the
frontier, to till the fields, to enlist first in the auxiliaries and
then in the legions, to fill the great offices of state. The army is
barbarized, and a modern writer, Mr Moss, has quoted most effectively
the complaint of the Egyptian mother clamouring to get back her son who
(as she says) has gone off with the barbarians--he means that he has
enlisted in the Roman legions. The legions are barbarized and they
barbarize the Emperor. For them he is no longer the majestic embodiment
of law, he is their leader, their Fuehrer, and they raise him on their
shields. And side by side with the barbarization of the army goes the
barbarization of civil manners too. In 397 Honorius has to pass an edict
forbidding the wearing of German fashions within the precincts of Rome.
And in the end, half barbarian themselves, they have only barbarians to
defend them against barbarism.

Such was the general picture of the great ruin of civilization amidst
which the Romans of the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries lived. What
then did it feel like to live at a time when civilization was going down
before the forces of barbarism? Did people realize what was happening?
Did the gloom of the Dark Ages cast its shadow before? It so happens
that we can answer these questions very clearly if we fix our eyes on
one particular part of the Empire, the famous and highly civilized
province of Gaul. We can catch the decline at three points because in
three consecutive centuries, Gallo-Roman writers have left us a picture
of their life and times. In the fourth century we have Ausonius, in the
fifth Sidonius Apollinarius, in the sixth Gregory of Tours and
Fortunatus, a stranger from Italy, who made his home in Poitiers. They
show us Auvergne and the Bordelais in the evening light. The fourth, the
fifth, and the sixth centuries--going, going, gone!

2. AUSONIUS

Going! This is the world of Ausonius, south-western France in the latter
half of the fourth century, 'an