back by main force, or tempted to enlist in the Roman ranks.
Theodosius regarded them as a nation, and one which it was his
interest to hire, to trust, to indulge at the expense of his Roman
subjects.

Theodosius has received the surname of Great--seemingly by
comparison; 'Inter caecos luscus rex;' and it was highly creditable
to a Roman Emperor in those days to be neither ruffian nor villain,
but a handsome, highbred, courteous gentleman, pure in his domestic
life, an orthodox Christian, and sufficiently obedient to the Church
to forgive the monks who had burnt a Jewish synagogue, and to do
penance in the Cathedral of Milan for the massacre of Thessalonica.
That the morals of the Empire (if Zosimus is to be at all believed)
grew more and more effeminate, corrupt, reckless; that the soldiers
(if Vegetius is to be believed) actually laid aside, by royal
permission, their helmets and cuirasses, as too heavy for their
degenerate bodies; that the Roman heavy infantry, which had conquered
the world, ceased to exist, while its place was taken by that
Teutonic heavy cavalry, which decided every battle in Europe till the
English yeoman, at Crecy and Poictiers, turned again the balance of
arms in favour of the men who fought on foot; that the Goths became
the 'foederati' or allies of the Empire, paid to fight its battles
against Maximus the Spaniard, and Arbogast the Frank, the rebels who,
after the murder of young Gratian, attempted to set up a separate
empire in the west; that Stilicho the Vandal was the Emperor's
trusted friend, and master of the horse; that Alaric the Balth, and
other noble Goths, were learning to combine with their native courage
those Roman tactics which they only needed to become masters of the
world; that in all cities, even in the Royal Palace, the huge Goth
swaggered in Roman costume, his neck and arms heavy with golden torcs