history of the Roman empire. The footsteps of the Barbarians, who, in
the reign of Gallienus, had penetrated beyond the Pyrenees, were soon
obliterated by the return of peace; and in the fourth century of the
Christian aera, the cities of Emerita, or Merida, of Corduba, Seville,
Bracara, and Tarragona, were numbered with the most illustrious of the
Roman world. The various plenty of the animal, the vegetable, and the
mineral kingdoms, was improved and manufactured by the skill of
an industrious people; and the peculiar advantages of naval stores
contributed to support an extensive and profitable trade. [155] The arts
and sciences flourished under the protection of the emperors; and if
the character of the Spaniards was enfeebled by peace and servitude, the
hostile approach of the Germans, who had spread terror and desolation
from the Rhine to the Pyrenees, seemed to rekindle some sparks of
military ardor. As long as the defence of the mountains was intrusted
to the hardy and faithful militia of the country, they successfully
repelled the frequent attempts of the Barbarians. But no sooner had
the national troops been compelled to resign their post to the Honorian
bands, in the service of Constantine, than the gates of Spain were
treacherously betrayed to the public enemy, about ten months before the
sack of Rome by the Goths. [156] The consciousness of guilt, and the
thirst of rapine, prompted the mercenary guards of the Pyrenees to
desert their station; to invite the arms of the Suevi, the Vandals, and
the Alani; and to swell the torrent which was poured with irresistible
violence from the frontiers of Gaul to the sea of Africa. The
misfortunes of Spain may be described in the language of its most
eloquent historian, who has concisely expressed the passionate, and
perhaps exaggerated, declamations of contemporary writers. [157] "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