Fortunately the invading tribes were on the whole a kindly race.  When they joyously whirled their huge battle-axes against iron helmets, smashing down through bone and brain beneath, their delight was not in the scream of the unlucky wretch within, but in their own vigorous sweep of muscle, in the conscious power of the blow.  Fierce they were, but not coldly cruel like the ancients.  The condition of the lower classes certainly became no worse for their invasion; it probably improved.  Much the new-comers undoubtedly destroyed in pure wantonness.  But there was much more that they admired, half understood, and sought to save.

Behind them, however, came a conqueror of far more terrible mood.  We have seen that when the Goths first entered Roman territory they were driven on by a vast migration of the Asiatic Huns.  These wild and hideous tribes then spent half a century roaming through central Europe, ere they were gathered into one huge body by their great chief, Attila, and in their turn approached the shattered regions of the Mediterranean.[3] Their invasion, if we are to trust the tales of their enemies, from whom alone we know of them, was incalculably more destructive than all those of the Teutons combined.  The Huns delighted in suffering; they slew for the sake of slaughter.  Where they passed they left naught but an empty desert, burned and blackened and devoid of life.

Crossing the Danube, they ravaged the Roman Empire of the East almost without opposition.  Only the impregnable walls of Constantinople resisted the destruction.  A few years later the savage horde appeared upon the Rhine, and in enormous numbers penetrated Gaul.  No people had yet understood them, none had even checked their career.  The white races seemed helpless against this “yellow peril,” this “Scourge of God,” as Attila was called.

Goths and Romans and all the varied tribes which were ranging in perturbed whirl through unhappy Gaul laid aside their lesser enmities and met in common cause against this terrible invader.  The battle of Chalons, 451,[4] was the most tremendous struggle in which Turanian was ever matched against Aryan, the one huge bid of the stagnant, unprogressive races, for earth’s mastery.

Old chronicles rise into poetry at thought of that immeasurable battle.  They figure the slain by hundred thousands; they describe the souls of the dead as rising above the bodies and continuing their furious struggle in the air.  Attila was checked and drew back.  Defeated we can scarce call him, for only a year or so later we find him ravaging Italy.  Fugitives fleeing before him to the marshes lay the first stones of Venice.[5] Leo, the great Pope, pleads with him for Rome.  His forces, however, are obviously weaker than they were.  He retreats; and after his death his irresponsible followers disappear forever in the wilderness.

THE PERIOD OF SETTLEMENT