Since the Christian religion was established during the period of the empire's weakening, the Christians reproached the pagans for this decline, and the pagans held the Christian religion responsible. The Christians said that Diocletian had ruined the empire in taking on three colleagues [1], because each emperor wanted to make as great outlays and maintain as strong armies as if he were alone. In this way, they claimed, the number of those receiving public funds bore no proportion to the number of those giving them, and tax burdens became so great that the lands were abandoned by their cultivators and turned into forests. The pagans, on the other hand, did not cease their outcry against the new religion, unheard of till then. And, as formerly in a flourishing Rome the floodings of the Tiber and the other effects of nature were attributed to the anger of the gods, so now, in dying Rome, misfortunes were imputed to the new religion and the overthrow of the old altars.

In a letter to the emperors concerning the altar of Victory [a], a prefect named Symmachus made the most of the popular and hence most seductive objections to the Christian religion.

"What can better lead us to knowledge of the gods," he said, "than the experience of our past prosperity? We ought to be faithful to so many centuries, and follow our fathers who so successfully followed theirs. Imagine that Rome is talking to you, saying: Great princes, fathers of your country, respect my years, during which I have always observed the ceremonies of my ancestors. This religion has subjected the world to my laws; by it Hannibal was repulsed from my walls, and the Gauls from the Capitol. It is for the gods of our country that we ask peace; we ask it for the native gods. We do not enter into disputes fit only for idlers, and we wish to offer prayers, not blows" [2].

Three celebrated authors responded to Symmachus. Orosius composed his history to prove that there had always been as great evils in the world as those the pagans bemoaned. Salvian wrote a book maintaining that the disorders of the pagans had attracted the ravages of the barbarians [3]. And Saint Augustine showed that the city of heaven was different from this earthly city [4] in which the ancient Romans, for some human virtues, had received rewards that were as vain as these virtues.

We have said that in early times the policy of the Romans was to divide all the powers that offended them. Later they were unable to do so. They had to suffer Attila's subjugating all the nations of the north. He extended his power from the Danube to the Rhine, destroyed all the forts and fortifications that had been erected on these rivers, and made the two empires his tributaries.

"Theodosius," he had the insolence to say, "is, like myself, the son of a very noble father. But in paying tribute to me he is stripped of his nobility and has become my slave, It is not just for him to lay snares for his master, like a wicked slave" [5].

"It is not fitting," he said on another occasion, "for an emperor to be a liar. He promised to give Saturnilus' daughter in marriage to one of my subjects. If he does not wish to keep his word, I declare war on him. If he cannot, and is so badly off that his subjects dare to disobey him, I march to his assistance."

We need not believe it was from moderation that Attila let the Romans exist. He was following the ways of his nation, which led him to subjugate peoples rather than conquer them. This prince -- in the wooden house in which Priscus portrays him to us [6], master of all barbarian nations and, in a way, of almost all civilized ones [7] -- was one of the great monarchs of history.

At his court were seen the ambassadors of the Romans of the East and West who came to receive his laws or implore his mercy. Sometimes he demanded the return of fugitive Huns or runaway Roman slaves; sometimes he wanted some minister of the emperor handed over to him. He had placed a tribute of twenty-one hundred pounds of gold on the empire of the East. He received the salary of a general of the Roman armies. He sent those he wanted to reward to Constantinople to have them heaped with gifts, thus trafficking continually on the fright of the Romans.

He was feared by his subjects, but it does not appear he was hated by them [8]. Prodigiously proud, and yet wily; fierce in his anger, but knowing how to pardon or defer punishment, as it suited his interests; never making war when peace could give him sufficient advantage; faithfully served by the very kings who were his dependents -- he had kept the Huns' old simplicity of manners for himself alone. Yet one can hardly praise for bravery the chief of a nation where children went into a frenzy at the recital of their fathers' splendid passages at arms, and fathers shed tears because they could not imitate their children.

After Attila's death, all the barbarian nations became divided again; but the Romans were so weak that there was no people so small it could not do them harm.

It was not a particular invasion that destroyed the empire, but all of them together. Since the invasion that was all but universal under Gallus, the empire seemed reestablished because it had not lost any territory. But it went by slow degrees from decline to fall, until it suddenly collapsed under Arcadius and Honorius [b].

In vain were the barbarians driven back to their own country; they would have gone back anyhow to safeguard their booty. In vain were they exterminated; cities were sacked, villages burned, and families killed or dispersed nonetheless [9].

When a province had been ravaged, the barbarians who followed found nothing left and had to pass on to another. At the beginning, they ravaged only Thrace, Moesia and Pannonia. When these countries were devastated, they destroyed Macedonia, Thessaly and Greece. From there they had to go to Noricum [c]. The empire -- that is, the inhabited area -- kept shrinking, and Italy became a frontier.

The reason why no settlement of the barbarians occurred under Gallus and Gallienus was that they still found places to pillage.

Thus, when the Normans -- who were just like the conquerors of the empire -- had ravaged France for several centuries and found nothing left to take, they accepted a province which was entirely deserted and divided it among themselves [10].

Since Scythia in those times was almost totally uncultivated [11], its peoples were subject to frequent famines. They subsisted, in part, through commerce with the Romans that supplied them with provisions from provinces around the Danube [12]. In return the barbarians gave the things they had pillaged, the prisoners they had taken, and the gold and silver they received for peace. But when they could no longer pay these rather considerable tributes to keep themselves alive, they were forced to settle down [13].

The Western empire was the first to fall. Here are the reasons why.

Having crossed the Danube, the barbarians found to their left the Bosporus, Constantinople, and all the forces of the Eastern empire stopping them. This made them turn to the right, towards Illyria, and push westward. A shifting of nations and a transporting of peoples away from that coast took place. Since the passages into Asia were better guarded, the whole movement flowed toward Europe, whereas in the first invasion, under Gallus, the forces of the barbarians split up.

Once the empire was really divided, the emperors of the East, who had alliances with the barbarians, did not want to break them for the sake of assisting the emperors of the West. This division of the administration, says Priscus [14], was very prejudicial to the affairs of the West. Thus, because of their alliance with the Vandals, the Romans of the East [15] refused a fleet to those of the West. The Visigoths, having made an alliance with Arcadius, entered the West, and Honorius was forced to flee to Ravenna [16]. Finally, to get rid of Theodoric, Zeno [d] persuaded him to attack Italy, which Alaric had already ravaged.

There was a very close alliance between Attila and Genseric, king of the Vandals [17]. The latter feared the Goths [18]. He had married his son to the daughter of the king of the Goths; later, after having her nose cut off, he sent her back to her father; he therefore made common cause with Attila. The two empires, as if they were bound in chains by these two princes, did not dare help each other. The situation of the empire of the West was particularly deplorable. It had no sea power, all of which was in the East [19] -- in Egypt, Cyprus, Phoenicia, Ionia, and Greece, the only countries where there was then some commerce. The Vandals and other peoples attacked all over the coasts of the West. A delegation of Italians came to Constantinople, says Priscus [20], to report that affairs could not possibly kept going without a reconciliation with the Vandals.

Those who governed in the West were not impolitic. They judged it essential to save Italy, which was in one sense the head, in another the heart, of the empire. They made the barbarians pass to the outlying areas, and settled them there. The design was well conceived and well executed. These nations asked only for subsistence. They were given areas in the plains, but the mountainous regions, stream crossings, passes, and strongholds on the great rivers were kept from them, thus protecting Roman sovereignty. It is likely that these peoples would have been forced to become Romans; and the ease with which these destroyers were themselves destroyed by the Franks, the Greeks and the Moors is enough to substantiate this view. But this whole scheme was upset by a revolution more fatal than all the others. The army of Italy, composed of foreigners, exacted what had been accorded to nations that were more foreign still. Under Odoacer, it formed an aristocracy that gave itself a third of the lands of Italy, thus delivering the mortal blow to this empire.

Amid so many misfortunes, one looked with sad curiosity for the fate of the city of Rome. It was, so to speak, defenseless. It could easily be starved; the extent of its walls made them very difficult to guard. Since it was situated on a plain, it could easily be taken by force; its people, extremely reduced in number, offered no resource. The emperors had to withdraw to Ravenna, a city formerly protected by the sea, like Venice today.

Almost always abandoned by their sovereigns, the Roman people began to become their own sovereign and make treaties for their preservation [21] -- which is the most legitimate means of acquiring sovereign power. This is the way Amorica [e] and Brittany began to live under their own laws [22].

Such was the end of the Western empire. Rome had extended its power because its wars came only one at a time; by unbelievable good luck, each nation had attacked it only after the previous one had been ruined, Rome was destroyed because all nations attacked it at once and penetrated everywhere.