ther hand, must
always be remembered for his heroic and glorious victory over Attila
at Chalons which delivered Gaul from the worst deluge of all--that of
the Huns.

The truth would seem to be that while corruption of every sort, and
especially political corruption, was destroying the empire, the
importance of Christianity was vastly increasing. The great quarrel
was really that between Catholicism and heresy. This was a living
issue while the cause of the empire as a political entity was already
dead. Placidia certainly eagerly considered all sorts of
ecclesiastical problems and provided and legislated for their
solution. We do not find her seeking the advice and offensive and
defensive alliance of Constantinople for the restoration of her
provinces. It might seem almost as though the mind of her time was
unable to fix itself upon the vast political and economic problem that
now for many generations had demanded a solution in vain. No one seems
to have cared in any fundamental way, or even to have been aware, that
the empire as a great state was gradually being ruined, was indeed
already in full decadence--a thing to despair of. That is the curious
thing--no one seems to have despaired. On the other hand, every one
was keenly interested in the religious controversy of the time which,
because we cannot fully understand that time, seems to us so futile.
But it is only what is in the mind that is fundamentally important to
man, and that will force him to action. The council of Ephesus which
destroyed Nestorius in 431, the council of Chalcedon which condemned
Dioscorus in 451, seemed to be the important things, and one day we
may come to think again, that on those great decisions, and not on the
material defence, both military and economic, of the West, depended
the future of the world. If this be so, it would at least explain the
hopeless variance of East and West, which, almost equally concerned in
the material problem, were by no means at one in philosophy.

[Illustration: THE MAUSOLEUM OF GALLA PLACIDIA]

Nevertheless, although Theodosius II. had not trodden "the narrow path
of orthodoxy with reputation unimpaired," as Placidia certainly had,
the material alliance of East and West were seen to be so important
that in 437 Valentinian III., the son of Placidia, and emperor in the
West, was married to Eudoxia, the daughter of Theodosius II., in
Constantinople.

Neither the accession of her son nor his marriage seem t