ric marched southward, the Goths plundering the villas of the Roman
nobles on their way. At Cosenza, in the extreme south, he fell ill of a
fever and died. His warriors turned the stream of the river Bionzo out
of its course, caused his grave to be dug in the bed of the torrent, and
when his corpse had been laid there, they slew all the slaves who had
done the work, so that none might be able to tell where lay the great
Goth.

CHAPTER XLII.

THE VANDALS.

403.

One good thing came of the Gothic conquest--the pagans were put to
silence for ever. The temples had been razed, the idols broken, and no
one set them up again; but the whole people of Rome were Christian, at
least in name, from that time forth; and the temples and halls of
justice began to be turned into churches.

Honorius still lived his idle life at Ravenna, and the Bishop--or, as
the Romans called him, Papa, father, or Pope--came back and helped them
to put matters into order again. Alaric had left no son, but his wife's
brother Ataulf became leader of the Goths. At Rome he had made prisoner
Theodosius' daughter Placidia, and he married her; but he did not choose
to rule at Rome, because, as he said, his Goths would never bear a quiet
life in a city. So he promised to protect the empire for Honorius, and
led his tribe away from Italy to Spain, which they conquered, and began
a kingdom there. They were therefore known as the Visigoths, or Western
Goths.

Arcadius, in the meantime, reigned quietly at Constantinople, where St.
John Chrysostom, the golden-mouthed preacher of Antioch, was made
Patriarch, or father-bishop. The games and races in the circus at
Constantinople were as madly run after as they had ever been at Rome or
Thessalonica; there were not indeed shows of gladiators, but people set
themselves with foolish vehemence to back up one driver against another,
wearing their colors and calling themselves by their names, and the two
factions of the Greens and the Blues were ready to tear each other to
pieces. The Empress Eudoxia, Arcadius' wife, was one of the most
vehement of all, and was, besides, a vain, silly woman, who encouraged
all kinds of pomp and expense. St. Chrysostom preached against all the
mischiefs that thus arose, so that she was offended, and contrived to
raise up an accusation against him and have him driven out of the city.
The people of Constantinople still showed so much love for him that she
insisted on his being se