THE ROMAN EMPIRE 123 cessor Athaulf led the Goths out of Italy again into Gaul and thence westwards, where they established a great dominion over the south-west of France and the greater part of Spain. The Vandals in Spain were driven before them and evacuated the country, satisfying themselves by taking possession of the province of Africa. Another Teutonic group, the Teutonic Franks, established themselves over most of the rest Movements, of Gaul ; and another group, the Burgundians, settled in the south- eastern part of Gaul. Towards the middle of the fifth century, the Huns, under their terrible chief Attila, threatened __ -M ... _, Attila, 450. to carry their devastating arms all over Europe. Attila however received a severe check at what is called the battle of Chalons, at the hands of the combined forces of the West Goths or Visi-Goths, the Franks, and the Imperial armies com- manded by Aetius. Attila died soon afterwards ; the armies of the Huns were broken up and rolled back, and we hear no more of them. All this time Italy was in a state of chaos under the nominal rule of a series of incompetent emperors, while the real power lay in the hands of the Teutonic masters of the legions. At last the western emperors disappeared altogether, when the young Romulus Augustulus was deposed by Odoacer, called the Herulian, who got himself formally acknowledged as the official ruler of Italy under the Emperor Zeno at Constantinople, with the title of Patrician ' in 479 a.d. Seventy years earlier Britain had passed out of the Roman dominion. The Roman troops and the Roman government had been withdrawn, owing to the hopeless impossibility of maintaining control in remote regions ; and about the middle of the fifth century had begun the conquest of Britain by still another Teutonic group, the Jutes, Saxons, and Angles.
