The Visigoths held the North of Spain, and Gaul south of the Loire.
Franks, Alemanni, Alans, and Burgundians had established themselves in
other Gallic provinces, and the Suevi were masters of a large southern
portion of the Spanish peninsula. A king of the Vandals reigned in
North Africa; and the Ostrogoths had firmly planted themselves in the
provinces north of Italy. Of these powers and principalities, that of
the Visigoths, under their king Theodoric, son of Alaric, was by far the
first in power and in civilization.
The pressure of the Huns upon Europe had first been felt in the fourth
century of our era. They had long been formidable to the Chinese empire,
but the ascendency in arms which another nomadic tribe of Central Asia,
the Sienpi, gained over them, drove the Huns from their Chinese conquest
westward; and this movement once being communicated to the whole chain
of barbaric nations that dwelt northward of the Black Sea and the Roman
Empire, tribe after tribe of savage warriors broke in upon the barriers
of civilized Europe. The Huns crossed the Tanais into Europe in 375, and
rapidly reduced to subjection the Alans, the Ostrogoths, and other
tribes that were then dwelling along the course of the Danube.
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