FIFTH CENTURY. Thy 5th century has its special place in history as the period of culmination of that decadence of human inter ests under the stress of barbaric invasions which is coincident with the fall of the Western Em pire. The last of the Roman emperors whose title Romulus Augustulus so fittingly concludes the list of rulers at Rome, was dethroned by Odoacer, king of the Herulii, who founded the kingdom of Italy (476). The battle of Adrian ople (378), in which the Goths defeated and slew the Roman Emperor Valens, destroyed the prestige of the Empire. The barbarians, as all those who were not Romans were called, had learned that they could defeat the Roman le gions, and while they were induced to accept peace for the time, it was only by strengthening the Roman army by taking into it foreign sol diers and leaders that even a precarious peace at intervals could be procured. Among the Germans given an important post in the Roman army was Alaric. He collected an army com posed mainly of West Goths or Visigoths and dissatisfied with the treatment accorded him, marched on Rome which he captured and plun dered (410).
He did not seriously damage the city but Rome's reputation suffered disaster. After this, barbarians were not deterred by any feeling of the inviolability of the capital of the Empire, and the Empire itself ceased to be an object of respect. Alaric died and the West Goths wan dered through Gaul and then into Spam when they established a kingdom under Eric (468) They found in Spain another German tribe, the Vandals who began their wanderings shortly before Alaric captured Rome. After ravaging Gaul, they had settled in Spain but now under pressure from the Visigoths, they crossed the Straits of Gibraltar and established a kingdom in northern Africa. Wherever they went they left destruction in their path, so that the word °Vandal* became the term for such destructive ness. Meantime the Angles formed their king doms of Anglia (England), the kingdom of France was founded by Clovis (481), Italy was conquered by Theodonc, the king of the Ostro goths who put Odoacer to death (493). While the Western Empire was thus dismembered, the Eastern Empire was stripped of Pannonia, Dal matia and Noricum. For a time, the Eastern
Empire, under the regency of the young Em peror's sister Pulcheria in the early century, en joyed a period of peace and prosperity, but the one saving feature of the century's almost con tinual warfare is the battle of Chalons-sur Marne, the first battle of the Marne in history, which ended with the complete defeat of Attila and his Huns (451). Attila had created an em pire reaching from China to the Atlantic at the north and he was endeavoring to extend his sway over the southern countries when he met this severe check. Undefeated in spirit, the Hun went on another raid in 452, this time in north ern Italy, destroying Aquileia, the mistress of the Adriatic, so completely that only a trace of it remained. The inhabitants took refuge in the lagoons, to found what has since become Venice. Verona, Padua, Bergamo and Fienza shared Aquileia's fate, while Milan and Parma had to buy off °the Scourge of God," who did not hesi tate to attribute to himself Divine assistance and direction in his work of destruction. He an nounced that he was the agent of God's ven geance on the western nations. In 453, Attila led his troops toward Rome He was met not far from Mantua by Pope Leo I, the Great, who succeeded in persuading him to withdraw his troops from Italy, and obtained from him the promise of opening negotiations for peace with the emperor. Under the influence, it is said, of a dream in which he had seen this venerable man who had come to plead with him, Attila consented, and a treaty with the Emperor Va lentinian was signed. The Hun returned to Pannonia, where he died not long afterward, and his great army without a leader gradually disintegrated. The protagonists who thus met on the banks of the Mincio are the two men i who for good and ill have most deeply impressed themselves on the century. The position of moral influence which the Pope had acquired by this time may be appreciated by a similar incident two years later when Gaiseric King of the Vandals captured Rome. At the inter cession of the Pope, Gaiseric spared the city.