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other Germans, were not of a roving disposition. They contented themselves with a gradual advance into Roman territory. It was not until near the close of the fifth century that they overthrew the Roman power in northern Gaul and began to form the Frankish kingdom, out of which modern France has grown.

The Angles and Saxons in Britain,

from 449 A.D.

The troubled years of the fifth century saw also the beginning of the Germanic conquest of Britain. The withdrawal of the legions from that island left it defenseless, for the Celtic inhabitants were too weak to defend themselves. Bands of savage Picts from Scotland swarmed over Hadrian's Wall, attacking the Britons in the rear. Ireland sent forth the no less savage Scots. The eastern coasts, at the same time, were constantly exposed to raids by German pirates. The Britons, in their extremity, adopted the old Roman practice of getting the barbarians to fight for them. Bands of Jutes were invited over from Denmark in 449 A.D. The Jutes forced back the Picts and then settled in Britain as conquerors. Fresh swarms of invaders followed them, chiefly Angles from what is now Schleswig-Holstein and Saxons from the neighborhood of the rivers Elbe and Weser in northern Germany. The invaders subdued nearly all that part of Britain that Rome had previously conquered. In this way the Angles and Saxons became ancestors of the English people, and Engleland became England.1

By the middle of the fifth century the larger part of the Roman Empire in the West had come under barbarian control. Political situ- The Germans ruled in Africa, Spain, Britain, and ation in 451 parts of Gaul. But now the new Germanic kingdoms, together with what remained of the old empire, were threatened by a common foe the terrible Huns.

A.D.

1 The invasion of Britain by the Anglo-Saxons was followed by the migration across the Channel of large numbers of the defeated islanders. The district in France where they settled is called after them, Brittany.

85. Inroads of the Huns

The Huns

We know very little about the Huns, except that they were not related to the Germans or to any other European people. Some scholars believe them to have belonged to the Mongolian race. But the Huns, to the excited imagination of Roman writers, were demons rather than men. Their olive skins, little, turned-up noses, and black, beady eyes must have given them a very frightful appearance. They spent most of their time on horseback, sweeping over the country like a whirlwind and leaving destruction and death in their wake.

The Huns did not become dangerous to Rome for more than half a century after their first appearance in Europe.1 During this time they moved into the Danube region and Attila the settled in the lands now known as Austria and Hun Hungary. At last the Huns found a national leader in Attila, "a man born into the world to agitate the nations, the fear of all lands," 2 one whose boast it was that the grass never grew again where his horse's hoofs had trod. He quickly built up a great military power obeyed by many barbarous nations from the Caspian to the Rhine.

Invasion of

Gaul by

Attila

Attila, from his capital on the Danube, could threaten both the East and the West. The emperors at Constantinople bought him off with lavish gifts, and so the robberruler turned to the western provinces for his prey. In 451 A.D. he led his motley host, said to number. half a million men, across the Rhine. Many a noble municipality with its still active Roman life was visited by the Huns with fire and sword. Paris, it is worthy of note, escaped destruction. That now famous city was then only a little village on an island in the Seine.

In this hour of danger Romans and Germans gave up quarreling and united against the common foe. Visigoths under their native king hastened from Spain; Burgundians and Franks joined their ranks; to these forces a German general, named 2 Jordanes, De rebus Geticis, 35.

1 See page 241.

Battle of
Châlons, 451
A.D.

Aëtius, added the last Roman army in the West. Opposed to them Attila had his Huns, the conquered Ostrogoths, and many other barbarian peoples. The battle of Châlons has well been called a struggle of the nations. It was one of the fiercest conflicts recorded in history. On both sides thousands perished, but so many more of Attila's men fell that he dared not risk a fresh encounter on the following day. He drew his shattered forces together and retreated beyond the Rhine.

Attila invades
Italy, 452
A.D.

In spite of this setback Attila did not abandon the hope of conquest. The next year he led his still formidable army over the Julian Alps and burned or plundered many towns of northern Italy. A few trembling fugitives sought shelter on the islands at the head of the Adriatic. Out of their rude huts grew up in the Middle Ages splendid and famous Venice, a city that in later centuries was to help defend Europe against those kinsmen of the Huns, the Turks.

Death of
Attila, 453
A.D.

The fiery Hun did not long survive this Italian expedition. Within a year he was dead, dying suddenly, it was said, in a drunken sleep. The great confederacy which he had formed broke up after his death. The German subjects gained their freedom, and the Huns themselves either withdrew to their Asiatic wilds or mingled with the peoples they had conquered. Europe breathed again; the nightmare was over.

86. End of the Roman Empire in the West, 476 A.D. Rome escaped a visitation by the Huns only to fall a victim, three years later, to the Vandals. After the capture of Carthage, these barbarians made that city the seat of

Vandal pirates

1

a pirate empire. Putting out in their long, light vessels, they swept the seas and raided many a populous city on the Mediterranean coast. So terrible were their inroads that the word "vandalism" has come to mean the wanton destruction of property.

1 See page 245.

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