The Vandals ravaged Gaul and Spain,
and, being defeated by the Goths, passed on into Africa. The Saxons and
Angles penetrated England[2] and fought there for centuries against the
desperate Britons, whom the Roman legions had perforce abandoned to
their fate. The Franks and Burgundians plundered Gaul.
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.
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