so that the Romans had peace for one hundred years.  These barbarians went under different names, which I will not enumerate,—­different tribes of the same Germanic family, whose remote ancestors lived in Central Asia and were kindred to the Medes and Persians.  Like the early inhabitants of Greece and Italy, they were of the Aryan race.  All the members of this great family, in their early history, had the same virtues and vices.  They worshipped the forces of Nature, recognizing behind these a supreme and superintending deity, whose wrath they sought to deprecate by sacrifices.  They set a great value on personal independence, and hence had great individuality of character.  They delighted in the pleasures of the chase.  They were generally temperate and chaste.  They were superstitious, social, and quarrelsome, bent on conquest, and migrated from country to country with a view of improving their fortunes.

The Goths were the first of these barbarians who signally triumphed over the Roman arms.  “Starting from their home in the Scandinavian peninsula, they pressed upon the Slavic population of the Vistula, and by rapid conquests established themselves in southern and eastern Germany.  Here they divided.  The Visi or West Goths advanced to the Danube.”  In the reign of Decius (249-251) they crossed the river and ravaged the Roman territory.  In 269 they imposed a tribute on the Emperor Gratian, and seem to have been settled in Dacia.  After this they made several successful raids,—­invading Bythinia, entering the Propontis, and advancing as far as Athens and Corinth, even to the coasts of Asia Minor; destroying in their ravages the Temple of Diana at Ephesus, with its one hundred and twenty-seven marble columns.

These calamities happened in the middle of the third century, during the reign of the frivolous Gallienus, who received the news with his accustomed indifference.  While the Goths were burning the Grecian cities, this royal cook and gardener was soliciting a place in the Areopagus of Athens.

In the reign of Claudius the barbarians united under the Gothic standard, and in six thousand vessels prepared again to ravage the world.  Against three hundred and twenty thousand of these Goths Claudius advanced, and defeated them at Naissus in Dalmatia.  Fifty thousand were slain, and three Gothic women fell to the share of every soldier.  On the return of spring nothing of that mighty host was seen.  Aurelian—­who succeeded Claudius, and whose father had been a peasant of Sirmium—­put an end to the Gothic war, and the Empire again breathed; but only for a time, for the barbarians continually advanced, although they were continually beaten by the warlike emperors who succeeded Gallienus.  In the middle of the third century they were firmly settled in Dacia, by permission of Valerian.  One hundred years after, pressed by Huns, they asked for lands south of the Danube, which request was granted by Valens; but they were