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THE NATIONAL, GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



then rising on the Dnieper and the Volga. 

 They left little behind except an execra- 

 ble memory. 



THE ADVENT OF THE GERMANS 



A few years after the disruption of the 

 Huns, Odoacer, chief of the German He- 

 ruli and of tribes in alliance with them, 

 forced the last emperor in Rome to abdi- 

 cate the throne. Thus he extinguished 

 the western Roman Empire, fixed the 

 boundary between ancient and modern 

 history, and eternalized himself as the 

 first northern barbarian to rule in Italy. 

 Indifferent to the weak Slavic tribes scat- 

 tered in their midst and to the more nu- 

 merous Slavs in the marshes and forests 

 beyond, no longer hampered by awe of 

 Rome or terror of the Huns, the Teutons 

 were ready for the conquest of western 

 Europe. 



When Theodoric, greatest of the 

 Goths, died at his capital, Ravenna, in 

 526, just fifty years after the extinction 

 of the western Roman Empire, that con- 

 quest had apparently been achieved. The 

 definite subjugation of Britain, though 

 not yet complete, was assured by the 

 solid settlements of the Jutes, Saxons, 

 and Angles. 



The few Celts of Armorica or Brittany, 

 of Ireland and Scotland, the still fewer 

 Basques in the Pyrenees, and that part 

 of the Balkan Peninsula which the im- 

 pregnable walls of Constantinople de- 

 fended, had not been subdued. With 

 those exceptions, all Europe west of the 

 Vistula and Dneister, all from Norway 

 and Sweden as far as and beyond the 

 Mediterranean, was occupied by German 

 kingdoms and ruled by German kings. 

 The western world had become Teutonic. 

 The conquest seemed not only universal 

 but permanent. 



The strongest of such kingdoms were 

 those of the Ostro-Goths in Italy and 

 the Visi-Goths in Spain. The one ruled 

 from Sicily to the Danube ; the other 

 from the south of Spain to the Loire. 



The Goths had become Christians in 

 the fourth century, long before any other 

 Teutonic people. Their conversion, ac- 

 complished not by the sword or royal 

 command, but through the preaching of 



Ulfilas, their great apostle, seems to have 

 affected their conduct and character. In 

 the version made for them by Ulfilas in 

 an alphabet probably of his own devising, 

 they possessed the first translation of the 

 Bible in any Teutonic, Celtic, or Slavic 

 tongue. From it Ulfilas carefully omitted 

 the four Books of the Kings, fearing they 

 would excite further the warlike passions 

 of his countrymen. The Goths were the 

 least barbarous and most humane of all 

 the early invaders. Yet neither of their 

 kingdoms was to continue long. 



Residence in a southern climate sapped 

 the vigor of the forest-bred warriors of 

 the north. All Goths, as supporters of 

 the Arian doctrine, met the active opposi- 

 tion of the Church of Rome. Family 

 quarrels wasted resources and energy. 

 In Italy the long-wandering pagan Lom- 

 bards, a Teutonic tribe, and the Hunnic 

 horde of the Avars replaced the Ostro- 

 Goths. In Spain the Visi-Goths were 

 overthrown by the Arab invasion. So 

 the more than 300,000 Goths disappeared, 

 absorbed among the inhabitants of the 

 two peninsulas. Fragments of the Gothic 

 Bible still exist, precious relics of an 

 otherwise extinct tongue. Even Gothic 

 architecture has no connection with the 

 Goths or with any structure they ever 

 built. It was introduced by purists in the 

 seventeenth century as a term of re- 

 proach, meaning barbarous, and applied 

 to all styles not classic. 



This story of the Goths is important 

 as affording example of what went on 

 for many, many years throughout the 

 lands once part of the Roman Empire. 

 States, great and small, of various de- 

 grees of dignity, were constantly set up 

 by various tribes and races, only to top- 

 ple over, and chiefs and followers to 

 be absorbed into the native population. 

 Every political division was a crucible 

 of evershifting size wherein races were 

 fused. 



As Britain had been a Roman prov- 

 ince in hardly more than name, fallen 

 Rome became to the Briton a mere tradi- 

 tion of the past, and little of her majesty 

 was left in England to impress the bar- 

 barian invader. Elsewhere the Greco- 

 Latin influence is almost startling in its 



