The tale emphasizes the disgrace of the famous capital; it
had sunk to be but one city among many. Alaric's Goths had been
nominally an army belonging to the Emperor of the East; their invasion
was regarded as only one more civil war.
Besides, the Roman world might yet have proved itself big enough to
assimilate and engulf the entire mass of this already half-civilized
people. Its name was still a spell on them. Ataulf, the successor of
Alaric, was proud to accept a Roman title and become a defender of the
Empire. He marched his followers into Gaul under a commission to
chastise the "barbarians" who were desolating it.
These later comers were the instruments of that more overwhelming
destruction for which the Goths had but prepared the way. To resist
Alaric, the Roman legions had been withdrawn from all the western
frontiers, and thus more distant and far more savage tribes of the
Teutons beheld the glittering empire unprotected, its pathways most
alluringly left open. They began streaming across the undefended Rhine
and Danube. Their bands were often small and feeble, such as earlier
emperors would have turned back with ease; but now all this fascinating
world of wealth, so dimly known and doubtless fiercely coveted, lay
helpless, open to their plundering.
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