The victory which the Roman general Aetius, with his Gothic allies, had then gained over the Huns, was the last victory of imperial Rome.  But among the long fasti of her triumphs, few can be found that, for their importance and ultimate benefit to mankind, are comparable with this expiring effort of her arms.  It did not, indeed, open to her any new career of conquest—­it did not consolidate the relics of her power—­it did not turn the rapid ebb of her fortunes.  The mission of imperial Rome was, in truth, already accomplished.  She had received and transmitted through her once ample dominion the civilization of Greece.  She had broken up the barriers of narrow nationalities among the various states and tribes that dwelt around the coasts of the Mediterranean.  She had fused these and many other races into one organized empire, bound together by a community of laws, of government and institutions.  Under the shelter of her full power the true faith had arisen in the earth, and during the years of her decline it had been nourished to maturity, it had overspread all the provinces that ever obeyed her sway.  For no beneficial purpose to mankind could the dominion of the seven-hilled city have been restored or prolonged.  But it was all-important to mankind what nations should divide among them Rome’s rich inheritance of empire.  Whether the Germanic and Gothic warriors should form states and kingdoms out of the fragments of her dominions, and become the free members of the Commonwealth of Christian Europe, or whether pagan savages, from the wilds of central Asia, should crush the relics of classic civilization and the early institutions of the Christianized Germans in one hopeless chaos of barbaric conquest.  The Christian Visigoths of King Theodoric fought and triumphed at Chalons side by side with the legions of Aetius.  Their joint victory over the Hunnish host not only rescued for a time from destruction the old age of Rome, but preserved for centuries of power and glory the Germanic element in the civilization of modern Europe.

In order to estimate the full importance to mankind of the battle of Chalons we must keep steadily in mind who and what the Germans were, and the important distinctions between them and the numerous other races that assailed the Roman Empire; and it is to be understood that the Gothic and Scandinavian nations are included in the German race.  Now, “in two remarkable traits the Germans differed from the Sarmatic as well as from the Slavic nations, and, indeed, from all those other races to whom the Greeks and Romans gave the designation of barbarians.  I allude to their personal freedom and regard for the rights of men; secondly, to the respect paid by them to the female sex, and the chastity for which the latter were celebrated among the people of the North.  These were the foundations of that probity of character, self-respect, and purity of manners which may be traced among the Germans and Goths even during pagan times, and which, when their sentiments were enlightened by Christianity, brought out those splendid traits of character which distinguish the age of chivalry and romance.”