to castigate the sins of society.  Thus Salvian of Marseilles who would no doubt have been called the gloomy dean if he had not been a bishop.  For him all that the decadent Roman civilization needs is to copy some of the virtues of these fresh young barbarian people.  There is the familiar figure of Orosius, defending the barbarians with the argument that when the Roman empire was founded it was founded in blood and conquest and can ill afford to throw stones at the barbarians; and after all the barbarians are not so bad.  ’If the unhappy people they have despoiled will content themselves with the little that is left them, their conquerors will cherish them as friends and brothers.’  Others, especially the more thoughtful churchmen are much concerned to explain why an empire which had flourished under paganism should be thus beset under Christianity.  Others desert the Empire altogether and (like St Augustine) put their hope in a city not made with hands—­though Ambrose, it is true, let fall the pregnant observation that it was not the will of God that his people should be saved by logic-chopping.  ’It has not pleased God to save his people by dialectic.’

And how were they living?  We have only to read the letters written by Sidonius during the period between 460 and 470, when he was living on his estate in Auvergne, to realize that on the surface all is going on exactly as before.  Gaul is shrunk, it is true, to a mere remnant between three barbarian kingdoms, but save for that we might be back in the days of Ausonius.  There is the luxurious villa, with its hot baths and swimming pool, its suites of rooms, its views over the lake; and there is Sidonius inviting his friends to stay with him or sending round his compositions to the professors and the bishops and the country-gentlemen.  Sport and games are very popular—­Sidonius rides and swims and hunts and plays tennis.  In one letter he tells his correspondent that he has been spending some days in the country with his cousin and an old friend, whose estates adjoin each other.  They had sent out scouts to catch him and bring him back for a week and took it in turns to entertain him.  There are games of tennis on the lawn before breakfast or backgammon for the older men.  There is an hour or two in the library before we sit down to an excellent luncheon followed by a siesta.  Then we go out riding and return for a hot bath and a plunge in the river.  I should like to describe our luscious dinner parties, he concludes, but I have no more paper.  However, come and stay with us and you shall hear all about it.  Clearly this is no Britain, where in the sixth century half-barbarian people camped in the abandoned villas and cooked their food on the floors of the principal rooms.