protect the frontier. In 376, the Goths, hard pressed by the Huns, came to
the Danube and implored to be taken as subjects by the emperor. After
mature deliberation the Council of Valens granted the prayer, and some
five hundred thousand Germans were cantoned in Moesia. The intention of
the government was to scatter this multitude through the provinces as
_coloni,_ or to draft them into the legions; but the detachment detailed
to handle them was too feeble, the Goths mutinied, cut the guard to
pieces, and having ravaged Thrace for two years, defeated and killed
Valens at Hadrianople. In another generation the disorganization of the
Roman army had become complete, and Alaric gave it its death-blow in his
campaign of 410.

Alaric was not a Gothic king, but a barbarian deserter, who, in 392, was
in the service of Theodosius. Subsequently he sometimes held imperial
commands, and sometimes led bands of marauders on his own account, but was
always in difficulty about his pay. Finally, in the revolution in which
Stilicho was murdered, a corps of auxiliaries mutinied and chose him their
general. Alleging that his arrears were unpaid, Alaric accepted the
command, and with this army sacked Rome.

During the campaign the attitude of the Christians was more interesting
than the strategy of the soldiers. Alaric was a robber, leading mutineers,
and yet the orthodox historians did not condemn him. They did not condemn
him because the sacred class instinctively loved the barbarians whom they
could overawe, whereas they could make little impression on the
materialistic intellect of the old centralized society. Under the empire
the priests, like all other individuals, had to obey the power which paid
the police; and as long as a revenue could be drawn from the provinces,
the Christian hierarchy were subordinate to the monied bureaucracy who had
the means to coerce them.