celebrated with greater pride and magnificence than his.  And as the victorious emperor in his triumphal chariot marched along the Via Sacra up the Capitoline hill, with the spoils and trophies of one hundred battles, with ambassadors and captives, including Zenobia herself, fainting with the weight of jewels and golden fetters, it would seem that Rome was destined to overcome all the vicissitudes of Nature, and reign as mistress of the world forever.

But that century did not close until real dangers stared the people in the face, and so alarmed the guardians of the Empire that they no longer could retire to their secluded villas for luxurious leisure, but were forced to perpetual warfare, and with foes they had hitherto despised.

Two things marked the one hundred years before the accession of Theodosius of especial historical importance,—­the successful inroads of barbarians carrying desolation and alarm to the very heart of the Empire; and the wonderful spread of the Christian religion.  Persecution ended with Diocletian; and under Constantine Christianity seated herself upon his throne.  During this century of barbaric spoliations and public miseries,—­the desolation of provinces, the sack of cities, the ruin of works of art, the burning of palaces, all the unnumbered evils which universal war created,—­the converts to Christianity increased, for Christianity alone held out hope amid despair and ruin.  The public dangers were so great that only successful generals were allowed to wear the imperial purple.

The ablest men of the Empire were at last summoned to govern it.  From the year 268 to 394 most of the emperors were able men, and some were great and virtuous.  Perhaps the Empire was never more ably administered than was the Roman in the day of its calamities.  Aurelian, Diocletian, Constantine, Theodosius, are alike immortal.  They all alike fought with the same enemies, and contended with the same evils.  The enemies were the Gothic barbarians; the evils were the degeneracy and vices of Roman soldiers, which universal corruption had at last produced.  It was a sad hour in the old capital of the world when its blinded inhabitants were aroused from the stupendous delusion that they were invincible; when the crushing fact blazed upon them that the legions had been beaten, that province after province had been overrun, that the proudest cities had fallen, that the barbarians were advancing,—­everywhere advancing,—­treading beneath their feet temples, palaces, statues, libraries, priceless works of art; that there was no shelter to which they could fly; that Rome herself was doomed.  In the year 378 the Emperor Valens himself was slain, almost under the walls of his capital, with two-thirds of his army,—­some sixty thousand infantry and six thousand cavalry,—­while the victorious Goths, gorged with spoils, advanced to take possession of the defeated and crumbling Empire.  From the shores of the Bosporus to the Julian Alps nothing was seen but conflagration, murders, and depredations, and the cry of anguish went up to heaven in accents of almost universal despair.