Honorius went to Rome, where he enjoyed the empty honor of being received in triumph; but after a short time he removed to Raven'na, which from this time began to be regarded as the most secure seat of Italian government.) Scarcely had Al'aric departed, when Italy was invaded by new hordes of Vandals, Suevi, Burgundians, and Goths, under the command of Radagaísus. (Once more the peninsula was saved by Stil'icho: he allowed the barbarians to lay siege to Florence, which was well garrisoned and provisioned; then securing all the passes, he blockaded them in their turn, and reduced them to such distress, that they surrendered at discretion (A. D. 406). Radagaísus was put to death; his followers were sold as slaves; but about two thirds of the hordes fell back upon Gaul, and laid waste that province from the Rhine to the Pyrenees. The provincials, receiving no aid from the court of Raven'na, proclaimed Constantine, the governor of Britain, emperor, who gained some advantages over the Germans, and wrested Spain from Honorius. Stil'icho entered into a treaty with Al'aric against the usurper; but before it could take effect, the able minister was treacherously murdered by his unworthy master (A. D. 408), and the wretched Olympus was appointed premier in his stead. The first measure of the new minister was as impolitic as it was monstrous. He ordered a promiscuous massacre of the families of the barbarians throughout Italy, instead of retaining them as hostages for the fidelity of his mercenary cohorts. The barbarous edict was too well obeyed; and thirty thousand of the bravest soldiers in the Roman pay invited Al'aric to head them in avenging the slaughter of their wives and children.

Al'aric was not slow in obeying the summons: he hastened into Italy, and, disregarding meaner prizes, marched directly against Rome (A. D. 408). "The eternal city" was closely besieged: plague, pestilence, and famine, raged within its walls. The emperor at Raven'na made no effort to relieve his hapless subjects; and the senate at length purchased temporary safety by paying an enormous ransom. Al'aric led his forces into Tuscany, and was joined on his march by forty thousand Goths and Germans, whom his victorious career had enabled to burst the bonds of slavery. Honórius refused to ratify the treaty that had been concluded by the Romans; and in the following year, Al'aric appeared once more before the city. He took possession of Ostia, where the magazines were established for the corn that supplied the capital; and having thus deprived the citizens of all means of sustenance, summoned them to surrender. They complied with great reluctance: Al'aric raised Attalus to the empire, but soon deposed him, and renewed his negotiations with the court of Raven'na. Once more Honorius refused to treat, and once more Al'aric marched to punish the Romans for the crime of their sovereign (A. D. 410). He marched against Rome; the Gothic slaves in the city opened to him one of the gates, and the city became the prey of the barbarians. The horrors of the pillage that ensued were in some degree alleviated by the piety of the Goths, who spared the churches and religious houses. Al'aric himself was unwilling that a city which had been so long the mistress of the world should be so totally ruined; and on the sixth day after its capture evacuated the place, and took the road for southern Italy. He was preparing to invade Sicily, when he was seized with a mortal dis

ease, which brought him prematurely to his grave. His remains were interred in the bed of a small rivulet near Consen'tia (Cosenza), and the captives who prepared his grave were murdered, in order that the Romans might never learn the place of his sepulture.

Adolphus succeeded his brother Al'aric, and concluded a peace with the empire, on condition of receiving the princess Placid'ia as his bride. He led his forces into Gaul, reunited that province to the dominions of Honórius, and then passed into Spain, which had been invaded by hordes of Suevi, Vandals, and A'lans. He was murdered; but his successor Wal'lia established the supremacy of the Visigoths in Spain and the east of Gaul. About the same time, the Franks, the Burgundians, and other barbarous tribes, established themselves in Gaul; while Britain and Armorica, neglected by the emperor, became independent. The Britons had so degenerated under the empire, that they were unable to resist the barbarous Picts and Scots; they therefore applied for aid to the Angles and Saxons, warlike tribes (A. d. 448). The Saxons readily obeyed the summons; but, after repelling the Picts and Scots, they took possession of southern Britain, which they named Angle-land, since contracted into England.

In the meantime, the reign of Arcádius in the east was dishonored by the profligate administration of the eunuch Eutropius and the empress Eudox'ia, to whose cruelty the most illustrious persons, and among others St. Chrysostom, were victims. After his death (A. D. 408), the young Theodósius succeeded to the purple; but the administration was usurped by his sister Pulchéria, who ruled the east with singular energy and ability for more than forty years. During a great portion of this period, there was little sympathy between the courts of Rome and Constantinople; but the family intercourse was renewed when Placid'ia, the widow of Adolphus, was banished by her brother, after the death of her second husband Constantius. She sought refuge in the court of Theodósius, bringing with her Valentinian and Honória, her infant children. She had scarcely time to enjoy the hospitality with which she was received, when news arrived of the death of Honórius (A. D. 423), and the usurpation of the empire by John, his principal secretary. Theodósius levied an army to support the claims of his relative; John was deposed and slain; Valentinian III. was proclaimed emperor of the west, under the guardianship of his mother Placid'ia; and thus two women wielded the destinies of the civilized world.

Placid'ia, seduced by the interested counsels of her minister Æ'tius, recalled Count Boniface, the most faithful friend of the imperial family, from Africa; but that governor, deceived by the same crafty adviser, refused obedience, and invited Gen'seric, king of the Vandals, to his aid. That nation occupied the Spanish province, called from them Vandalúsia, a name which it still retains, with but slight alteration. They were still restless, eager to seek further conquests and fresh plunder, so that nothing could have been more grateful to Gen'seric than such an invitation. Boniface had soon reason to lament the effects of his precipitate resentment. When it was too late, he attempted to check the progress of the Vandals, and returned to his allegiance. Auxiliaries were sent to his aid from the eastern empire; but the un

fortunate count was irretrievably defeated. He returned to Italy, where he engaged in a civil war with E'tius, and was slain by his rival. Placid ia having discovered the double treachery of E'tius, proclaimed him a traitor, and that general found it necessary to seek shelter in Pannónia with the Huns. At'tila, justly called "the scourge of God," was now the ruler of the formidable Hunnish hordes: he extorted vast sums, as the price of his forbearance, from the Byzantine empire. On the death of Theodosius II. he threatened war against Marcian his successor, the nominal husband of Pulchéria; but the victories of E'tius over the Franks and Vandals, when restored to Placid'ia's favor, induced the fierce barbarian to turn his arms against the western empire (A. D. 451). He had an additional pretext, through the malice of the princess Honória, who secretly offered him her hand, to revenge her exclusion from power; and the barbarian monarch, though he already had several wives, proclaimed himself her champion. When the Huns appeared in Gaul, Æ'tius entered into an alliance with the Visigoths, aided by whom he gained a great victory over At'tila, and drove him beyond the frontiers. But in the ensuing spring (A. D. 452) the Huns poured like a torrent into Italy, and laid waste the peninsula. The death of At'tila, who fell a victim to intemperance, and the civil wars between his followers, delayed the utter ruin of the empire; but the murder of Æ'tius by the ungrateful Valentinian, and the unchecked ravages of the barbarians, rendered all the provinces miserable and wretched. Valentinian himself was murdered by the patrician Max'imus, whose wife he had debauched (A. D. 455), and the injured husband assumed the imperial purple.

Max'imus had scarcely been three months upon the throne when the fleet of the Vandals appeared in the Tiber. His subjects, attributing this new calamity to his supineness, stoned him to death; but ere a successor could be chosen, Gen'seric marched his soldiers into the defenceless city, and pillaged everything that had been spared by the piety or mercy of Al'aric. Many thousands of the unfortunate citizens were transported as slaves into Africa; but their condition was in some degree alleviated by the generosity of Deográtias, bishop of Carthage, who sold the gold and silver plate of his churches to purchase the redemption of his brethren.

By the influence of Theod'oric, king of the Visigoths, Avítus, a Gaul of noble family, was installed emperor; but he was soon deposed by Count Rícimer, the principal commander of the barbarian auxiliaries intrusted with the defence of Italy. He did not long survive his fall; he died on his way to the Alps, as he was about to seek refuge among the Visigoths. Majoriam received the degraded sceptre from Rícimer, and made some vigorous efforts to remedy the disorders of the state. His virtues were not appreciated by his subjects. He was dethroned by a licentious soldiery (A. D. 461), and died in a few days after.

Rícimer chose one of his own creatures, Sevérus, to be nominal emperor, retaining all the power of the state in his own hands; but the superior strength of the Vandals compelled him to have recourse to the court of Constantinople for aid, and to offer the nomination of a sovereign for the west to Leo, the successor of Marcian. Leo appointed the patrician Anthémius to this high but dangerous station, and sent a

large armament against the Vandals in Africa. The imperial forces were completely defeated, and when the shattered relics of the armament returned to Constantinople, Rícimer deposed Athémius, put him to death, and elevated Olyb'rius to the throne (A. D. 472). Both Rícimer and Olyb'rius died within a few months: and Leo, after some delay, appointed Julius Nepos his colleague.

Glycérius, an obscure soldier, trusting to the aid of the Burgundians, attempted to dispute the empire with Nepos; but finding his strength inadequate to the contest, he resigned the sceptre for the crosier, and became bishop of Salona. Nepos himself was soon driven from the throne by Ores'tes, the successor of Rícimer in the command of the barbarian mercenaries. He fled into Dalmátia, where he was assassinated by his old rival Glycérius.

Ores'tes gave the throne to his son Rom'ulus Momil'lus, whom he dignified with the title of Augus'tus, or, as he is more frequently called, Augus'tulus. Odoácer, the leader of the German tribes in the Roman pay, persuaded his countrymen to take arms against the usurper. Ores'tes was made prisoner, and put to death. Augus'tulus was sent into captivity, but was allowed a pension for his support; and the conqueror, abolishing the name and office of emperor, took the title of king of Italy (A. D. 476). The Ostrogoths finally conquered Italy (A. D. 492), deposed Odoácer, and founded a new empire.

During this calamitous period Christianity was sullied by the admixture of various superstitions, borrowed from ancient paganism. The Gnostics attempted to combine the truths of the gospel with the wild dreams of oriental philosophy, and they prepared medals with mystic devices, which were worn as charms or amulets, in the belief that they would protect men from danger and disease.

CHAPTER XVIII.

INDIA.

WHEN India became known to the Greeks by the conquests of Alexander, its inhabitants were found in very nearly the same state of civilization as the Hindoos of the present day; we may therefore fairly conclude that this civilized state must have been several hundred years in existence, else it could not have been so complete in its parts and so permanent in its influence. As Alexander's invasion took place about the fourth century before the Christian era, we may regard it as pretty certain that the civilization of India reaches back to at least one thousand years before Christ, but how much further it is impossible to determine with certainty. From the institution of caste, it seems probable that the Hindoos are of a mixed origin, for the difference between the castes is so very great that we are almost obliged to admit a corresponding difference of original extraction. "I could at all times, and in every part of India," says Major Bevan, "distinguish a Brahmin by his complexion and peculiar features." All the Hindoo traditions unite in representing the neighborhood of the Ganges as the cradle of their race; their most ancient records intimate that the first kingdoms in this sacred spot were founded by persons who came from the north, and the existing series of temples and monuments, both above and below ground, is a species of chronicle of the progressive extension of an immigrating and highly-civilized race from north to south. This is the very reverse of what we find to have occurred in Egypt, where the social and religious advance was from south to north.

The Brahmins in India, like the priests in Egypt, exercised an indirect sovereignty over the other classes of society; the kings, in both countries, were selected from the warrior caste, but the priestly caste restrained the power of the sovereign by religious enactments and institutions which brought both public and private affairs under their cognizance. How this influence was obtained is merely matter of conjecture, but it certainly existed before the appearance of the two great Indian epics, the Ramayana and the Máha-bhárata, both of which contain several instances of the awful veneration in which the Brahmins were held by the kings themselves. In the interesting drama, "The Toy Cart," translated by Professor Wilson, we find a notice of a strange revolution effected in the government of Ujayín (Oogein) by Brahminical intrigue. The drama itself was written before the Christian era, but the incidents on which it is founded are of much earlier date; it describes how the Brahmins, offended by their sovereign Palaka's public disregard of them, brought about a change in the government, employing a hermit and a cow-boy as their instruments. Aryaka, the cow