55. The piety of the Goths spared the churches and religious houses, for Al' aric himself, and many of his countrymen, professed the name of Christians; but Rome was pillaged of her wealth, and a terrible slaughter was made of her citizens. Still Al' aric was unwilling that Rome should be totally ruined; and at the end of six days he abandoned the city, and took the road to southern Italy. As he was preparing to invade Sicily, with the ulterior design of subju gating Africa, his conquests were terminated by a premature death. (A. D. 410.) His body was interred in the bed of a small rivulet,a and the captives who prepared his grave were murdered, that the Romans might never learn the place of his sepulture.

56. After the death of Al'aric, the Goths gradually withdrew from Italy, and, a few years later, that branch of the nation called Vis' igoths established its supremacy in Spain and the east of Gaul. Toward the middle of the same century, the Britons, finally abandoned by the Romans, and unable to resist the barbarous inroads of the Picts and Scots, applied for assistance to the Angles' and Saxons, warlike tribes from the coasts of the Baltic. The latter, after driv ing back the Piets and Scots, turned their arms against the Britons, and after a long struggle finally established themselves in the island.

XXXII.

57. During these events in the north and west, the Van'dals, a Gothic tribe which had aided in the reduction of Spain, and whose name, with a slight change, has been given to the fertile province of Andalusia," passed the straits of Gibraltar under the guidance of their chief Gen'seric, and, in the course of ten years, completed, in the VALENTIN' capture of Carthage, the conquest of the Roman provIAN III. inces of northern Africa. (A. D. 439.) Honórius was already dead, and had been succeeded by Valentin' ian III., a youth only six years of age. In the meantime Attila, justly CONQUESTS called the " scourge of God" for the chastisement of OF AT TILA. the human race, had become the leader of the Hunnish hordes. He rapidly extended his dominion over all the tribes of Germany and Scythia, made war upon Persia, defeated Theodosius,

XXXIII.

1. Angles. From them the English have derived their name.

2. Andalusia, so called from the Van' dals, comprised the four Moorish kingdoms of Seville, Cor' dova, Jáen, and Granada. It is the most southern division of Spain. Trajan and the Senecas were natives of this province. (Map No. XIII.)

3. The Huns, when first known, in the century before the Christian era, dwelt on the western borders of the Caspian sea. The power of the Huns fell with Attila, and the nation was soon after dispersed. The present Hungarians are descended from the Huns, intermingled with Turkish, Slavonic, and German races.

a. The Buscntinus, a small stream that washes the walls of Consentia, now Cosenza.

1

the emperor of the East, in three bloody battles, and after ravaging Thrace, Macedónia, and Greece, pursued his desolating march westward into Gaul, but was defeated by the Romans and their Gothic allies in the bloody battle of Chálons. (A. D. 451.) The next year the Huns poured like a torrent upon Italy, and spread their ravages over all Lombardy. This visitation was the origin of the • Venetian republic,' which was founded by the fugitives who fled at the terror of the name of At' tila.

58. The death of the Hunnic chief soon after this inroad, the civil wars among his followers, and the final extinction of the empire of the Huns, might have afforded the Romans an opportunity of escaping from the ruin which impended over them, if they had not been lost to all feelings of national honor. But they had admitted numer ous bands of barbarians in their midst as confederates and allies; and these, courted by one faction, and opposed by another, became, ere long, the actual rulers of the country. The provinces were pillaged, the throne was shaken, and often overturned by seditions; and two years after the death of At' tila, Rome itself was taken and pillaged by a horde of Van' dals from Africa, VAN' DALS. conducted by the famous Gen' seric, who had been invited across the Mediterranean to avenge the insults which a Roman princessa had received from her own husband. (A. D. 455.)

XXXIV. THE

1. Chalons (shah-long) is a city of France, on the river Marne, a branch of the Seine, ninetyfive miles east from Paris, and twenty-seven miles south-east from Rheims. It is situated in the middle of extensive meadows, which were formerly known as the Catalaunian fields, (Gibbon, iii. 340.) In the battle of Chalons the nations from the Caspian sea to the Atlantic fought together; and the number of the barbarians slain has been variously estimated at from one hundred and sixty-two thousand to three hundred thousand. (Map No. XIII.)

2. The origin of Venice dates from the invasion of Italy by the Huns, A. D. 452. The city is built on a cluster of numerous small islands in a shallow but extensive lagoon, in the northwestern part of the Adriat' ic, north of the Po and the Adige, about four miles from the main land. It is divided into two principal portions by a wide canal, crossed by the principal bridge in the city, the celebrated Rialto. Venice is traversed by narrow lanes instead of streets, seldom more than five or six feet in width but the grand thoroughfares are the canals; and gondolas, or canal boats, are the universal substitute for carriages.

Venice gradually became a wealthy and powerful independent commercial city, maintaining its freedom against Charlemagne and his successors, and yielding a merely nominal allegiance to the Greek emperors of Constantinople. Towards the middle of the fifteenth century the republic was mistress of several populous provinces in Lom' bardy,―of Crete and Cyprus-of the greater part of southern Greece, and most of the isles of the Ægean sea; and it continued to engross the principal trade in Eastern products, till the discovery of a route to India by the Cape of Good-Hope turned this traffic into a new channel. From this period Venice rapidly declined. Stripped of independence and wealth, she now enjoys only a precarious existence, and is slowly sinking into the waves from which she arose. (Map No. VIII.)

a. Eudox'ia, the widow of Valentin' ian III., had been compelled to marry Max' imus, the murderer, and successor in the empire, of her late husband, and it was she who invited the Van' dal chief to avenge her wrongs.

59. After the withdrawal of the Van' dals, which occurred the year of the death of Valentin' ian III., Av' itus, a Gaul, was installed

XXXV. AV' ITUS.

MAJO' RIAN.

Emperor by the influence of the gentle and humane Theod'oric, king of the Vis' igoths; but he was soon deposed by Ric' imer, the Gothic commander of the barba rian allies of the Romans. (A. D. 456.) The wise and beneficent Majórian was then advanced to the throne by Ric' imer; but his virtues were not appreciated by his subjects; and a sedition of the troops compelled him to lay down the sceptre after a reign of four years. (A. D. 461.)

XXXVI SEVERUS.

of state in his own hands.

60. Ric' imer then advanced one of his own creatures, Sevérus, to the nominal sovereignty; but he retained all the powers Annually the Van' dals from Africa, having now the control of the Mediterranean, sent out from Carthage, their seat of empire, piratical vessels or fleets, which spread desolation and terror over the Italian coasts, and entered at will nearly every port in the Roman dominions. At length application for assistance was made to Leo, then sovereign of the Eastern empire, and a large armament was sent from Constantinople to Carthage. But the aged Gen' seric eluded the immediate danger by a truce with his enemies, and, in the obscurity of night, destroyed by fire almost the entire fleet of the unsuspecting Romans.

61. Amid the frequent revolutionary changes that were occurring in the sovereignty of the Western empire,a Roman freedom and dig. nity were lost in the influence of the confederate barbarians, who formed both the defence and the terror of Italy. As the power of the Romans themselves declined, their barbarian allies augmented their demands and increased their insolence, until they finally insisted, with arms in their hands, that a third part of the lands of Italy should be divided among them. Under their leader Odoácer, a chief of the barbarian tribe of the Her' uli,' they overcame the little re

1. Of all the barbarians who threw themselves on the ruins of the Roman empire, it is most difficult to trace the origin of the Her' uli. Their names, the only remains of their language, are Gothic; and it is believed that they came originally from Scandinavia. They were a fierce people, who disdained the use of armor: their bravery was like madness: in war they showed no pity for age, nor respect for sex or condition. Among themselves there was the same ferocity: the sick and the aged were put to death at their own request, during a solemn festival; and the widow hung herself upon the tree which shadowed her husband's tomb. The Her' uli, though brave and formidable, were few in number, claiming to be mostly of royal blood; and they seem not so much a nation, as a confederacy of princes and nobles, bound by an oath to live and die together with their arms in their hands. (Gibbon, iii. 8; and Note, 495-6.)

a. The remaining sovereigns of the Western empire, down to the time of its subversion were Anthemius, Olyb' rius, Glycérus, Népos, and Augus tulus.

The Western em

VERSION OF

sistance that was offered them; and the conqueror, abolishing the imperial titles of Cæsar and Augustus, proclaimed him- XXXVII. SUBself king of Italy. (A. D. 476.) pire of the Romans was subverted: Roman glory had THE WESTpassed away: Roman liberty existed only in the remembrance of the past: the rude warriors of Germany and Scythia possessed the city of Romulus; and a barbarian occupied the palace of the Cæsars.

ERN EMPIRE.

CHAPTER II.

HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES:

EXTENDING FROM THE OVERTHROW OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE OF THE ROMANS = 1016 YEARS.

A. D. 476, TO THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA, A. D. 1492

SECTION I.

GENERAL HISTORY, FROM THE OVERTHROW OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE OF THE ROMANS, TO THE BEGINNING OF THE TENTH CENTURY:= 424 YEARS.

ANALYSIS. 1. INTRODUCTORY. The period embraced in the Middle Ages.-2. Uninstructive character of its early history. At what period its useful history begins.-3. Extent of the barbarian irruptions. The Eastern Roman empire. Remainder of the Roman world.— 4. The possessions of the conquerors toward the close of the sixth century. The changes wrought by them. Plan of the present chapter.

5. THE MONARCHY OF THE HER' ULI. Its overthrow.-6. MONARCHY OF THE OS' TROgoths. Theod oric. Treatment of his Roman and barbarian subjects.-7. General prosperity of his reign. Extent of his empire. The Os' trogoth and Vis' igoth nations again divided.-8. The successors of Theod' oric. The emperor of the East.-9. THE ERA OF JUSTIN' IAN. State of the kingdom. Persian war.-10. Justin' ian's armies. Absence of military spirit among the people.-11. African war. First expedition of Belisarius, and overthrow of the kingdom of the Van'dals. Fate of Gel' imer. His Van' dal subjects.-12. Sicily subdued. Belisárius advances into Italy. Besieged in Rome.-13. The Gothic king Vit' iges surrenders. Final reduction of Italy by Nar' ses.-14. Second war with Persia. Barbarian invasion repelled by Belisarius. Mournful fate of Belisarius. Death and character of Justin' ian.-15. His reign, why memorable. Its brightest ornament. Remark of Gibbon. History of the "Pandects and Code."-16. Subsequent history of the Eastern empire. Invasion of Italy by the Lombards.-17. THE LOMBARD MONARCHY. Its extent and character.-18. Period of general repose throughout Western Europe. Events in the East.-19. The darkness that rests upon European history at this period. Remark of Sismondi. The dawning light from Arabia.

20. THE SARACEN EMPIRE. History of the Arabians.-21. Ancient religion of the Arabs. Religious toleration in Arabia. [Judaism. The Magian idolatry.]—22. Mahomet begins to preach a new religion.-23. The declared medium of divine communication with him. Declared origin of the Koran.-24. The materials of the Koran. Chief points of Moslem faith. Punishment of the wicked. The Moslem paradise. Effects of the predestinarian doctrine of Mahomet. Practical part of the new religion. Miracles attributed to Mahomet. [Mecca.]-25. Beginning of Mahomet's preaching. The Hegira.-26. Mahomet at Medina. [Medina.] Progress of the new religion through out all Arabia. [Mussulman.]-27. The apostasy that followed Mahomet's death. Restoration of religious unity.-28. Saracen conquests in Persia and Syria. [Saracens. Bozrah.]-29. Conquest of all Syria. [Emes' sa. Baalbec. Yermouk. Aleppo.]-30."Conquest of Persia, and expiration of the dynasty of the Sassan' idæ. [Cadésiah. Review of Persian History.]—31. Conquest of Egypt. Destruction of the Alexandrian library.-32. Death of Omar. Caliphate of Othman.-33. Military events of the reign of Othman. [Rhodes. Tripoli.] Othman's successors. Conquest of Carthage, and all northern Africa.-34. Introduction of the Saracens into Spain.-35. Defeat of Roderic, and final conquest of Spain. [Guadalète. Guadalquiver. Merida.]-36. Saracen encroachments in Gaul. Inroad of Abdelrahman. [The Pyrenees.]-37. Over