civilization needs is to copy some of the virtues of these fresh young
barbarian people. There is the familiar figure of Orosius, defending the
barbarians with the argument that when the Roman empire was founded it
was founded in blood and conquest and can ill afford to throw stones at
the barbarians; and after all the barbarians are not so bad. 'If the
unhappy people they have despoiled will content themselves with the
little that is left them, their conquerors will cherish them as friends
and brothers.' Others, especially the more thoughtful churchmen are much
concerned to explain why an empire which had flourished under paganism
should be thus beset under Christianity. Others desert the Empire
altogether and (like St Augustine) put their hope in a city not made
with hands--though Ambrose, it is true, let fall the pregnant
observation that it was not the will of God that his people should be
saved by logic-chopping. 'It has not pleased God to save his people by
dialectic.'

And how were they living? We have only to read the letters written by
Sidonius during the period between 460 and 470, when he was living on
his estate in Auvergne, to realize that on the surface all is going on
exactly as before. Gaul is shrunk, it is true, to a mere remnant between
three barbarian kingdoms, but save for that we might be back in the days
of Ausonius. There is the luxurious villa, with its hot baths and
swimming pool, its suites of rooms, its views over the lake; and there
is Sidonius inviting his friends to stay with him or sending
round his compositions to the professors and the bishops and the
country-gentlemen. Sport and games are very popular--Sidonius rides and
swims and hunts and plays tennis. In one letter he tells his
correspondent that he has been spending some days in the country with
his cousin and an old friend, whose estates adjoin each other. They had
sent out scouts to catch him and bring him back for a week and took it