Where, now, do we find the object that fully meets the requirements of this symbol—­destructive agents descending upon the Roman empire like a furious storm of hail and fire, accomplishing the first important step toward the subverting of the empire?  We find it in the irruption of the fierce Gothic tribes of the North, who, under Alaric, burst like a tornado upon the empire about the beginning of the fifth century, spreading destruction and desolation upon every side.

The following quotations and facts from the highest authority on the subject, Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Vol.  III, pp. 190-294), will give the reader an idea of the awful effects produced by the invasions of these barbarous tribes.  The great Theodosius, emperor of the Western Roman empire, “had supported the frail and mouldering edifice of the republic,” but upon his death he was succeeded by the weak Honorious.  In a few months the Gothic barbarians were in arms.  “The barriers of the Danube were thrown down, the savage warriors of Scythia issued from their forests ... and the various tribes of barbarians, who glory in the Gothic name, were irregularly spread over the woody shores of Dalmatia to the walls of Constantinople.”  They were “directed by the bold and artful genius of Alaric,” who soon concluded that the conquest of Constantinople was an impracticable enterprise.  He “disdained to trample any longer on the prostrate and ruined countries of Thrace and Dacia, and he resolved to seek a plentiful harvest of fame and riches in a province which had hitherto escaped the ravages of war....  The troops which had been posted to defend the straits of Thermopylae retired ... without attempting to disturb the secure and rapid passage of Alaric; and the fertile fields of Phocis and Baeotia were instantly covered by a deluge of barbarians, who massacred the males of an age to bear arms, and drove away the beautiful females, with the spoil and cattle of the flaming villages.  The travelers who visited Greece several years afterwards, could easily discover the deep and bloody traces of the march of the Goths....  The whole territory of Attica, from the promontory of Sunium to the town of Megara, was blasted by his baleful presence; and, if we may use the comparison of a contemporary philosopher, Athens itself resembled the bleeding and empty skin of a slaughtered victim....  Corinth, Argos, Sparta, yielded without resistance to the arms of the Goths; and the most fortunate of the inhabitants were saved, by death, from beholding the slavery of their families and the conflagration of their cities.”