and children, horses, dogs, and cattle, all rushing headlong into
that great whirlpool of Italy: and yet the gulf is never full. The
earth drinks up the blood; the bones decay into the fruitful soil;
the very names and memories of whole tribes are washed away. And the
result of an immigration which may be counted by hundreds of
thousands is this--that all the land is waste.

The best authorities which I can give you (though you will find many
more in Gibbon) are--for the main story, Jornandes, De Rebus Geticis.
Himself a Goth, he wrote the history of his race, and that of Attila
and his Huns, in good rugged Latin, not without force and sense.

Then Claudian, the poet, a bombastic panegyrist of contemporary Roman
scoundrels; but full of curious facts, if one could only depend on
them.

Then the earlier books of Procopius De Bello Gothico, and the
Chronicle of Zosimus.

Salvian, Ennodius and Sidonius Apollinaris, as Christians, will give
you curious details, especially as to South France and North Italy;
while many particulars of the first sack of Rome, with comments
thereon which express the highest intellects of that day, you will
find in St. Jerome's Letters, and St. Augustine's City of God.

But if you want these dreadful times EXPLAINED to you, I do not think
you can do better than to take your Bibles, and to read the
Revelations of St. John the Apostle. I shall quote them, more than
once, in this lecture. I cannot help quoting them. The words come
naturally to my lips, as fitter to the facts than any words of my