564 WESTERN EMPIRE had arisen in consequence, and Alaric publicly deprived the new emperor of all semblance of sovereignty. The Gothic king opened nego- tiations once more with the court of Ravenna ; but with returning fortune the insolence of the imbecile government returned. A herald announced that the guilt of Alaric had for ever shut him out from the friendship and alliance of Honorius, and Alaric for the third time be- gan his march to Rome. The city was taken by treachery on the night of Aug. 24, 410, and given up to the fury of his warriors, who pil- laged private houses, burned a large number of the dwellings, and carried off many works of art; but by a special decree of Alaric the churches and the treasures contained in them were left untouched. After six days of spoli- ation the Goths took up their line of march along the Appian way to southern Italy, plun- dering the country and capturing the cities as they went. They were on the point of cross- ing the straits of Messina into Sicily, when the sudden death of their leader put an end to their design. Alaric was succeeded by his brother Ataulphus, who as a Roman general marched in 412 to southern Gaul, which he soon con- quered as far as the ocean. In 409 Constan- tino, who had usurped the dominion of Gaul and Spain, had made a treaty with Honorius to drive the Goths from Italy, and for this purpose he conducted an army as far as the Po. During his absence, his general Geron- tius, commanding in Spain, revolted, set up Maximus as emperor, crossed the Pyrenees, defeated and slew Constans, and besieged Con- stantino at Aries, whither he had hastily re- turned. The place was about to surrender when the approach of the array of Honorius under Constantius scattered the forces of Ge- rontius, who fled and was killed. Constantius then took Arlea and sent Constantino to Hono- rius, who put him to death. Jovinus, who had assumed the title of emperor in Gaul, marched to the Rh6ne with a large body of barbarians, and Constantius gave up Gaul without a battle. Jovinus was afterward defeated and slain by Ataulphus, who was compelled by Constantius to withdraw into Spain, where he was assassi- nated in 415. Wallia, the next king of the Goths, entered the service of the Romans, nnd subdued the Vandals, Suevi, and other tribes who had ravaged Spain. In 418 the Goths re- ceived from Honorius southwestern Gaul, with Toulouse for the capital, as a kind of feudal de- pendency of the empire. The Burgundians and Franks also occupied permanent seats in Gaul, and the British asserted their independence. In 421 Constantius, who had married Placidia, daughter of Theodosius the Great, was raised to a share in the government, but he died shortly after, and Placidia fled in 423 to the court of Theodosius II. In the same year Honorius died. The throne was usurped by his principal secretary Joannes till 425, when Valentinian III., a boy of six years, received the imperial purple. Placidia, as guardian for her son, was the real sovereign. Agtius, the former general of Joannes, was raised to the dignity of comes. By intrigue he led Count Boniface, then commanding in Africa, to re- volt, and the latter in 429 called in to his aid the Vandals, who under Genseric overthrew the Roman power and established the Vandal empire in Africa. A war broke out in south- ern Gaul, where the Goths under their king Theodoric defeated and made prisoner the Ro- man general. The extreme cities and provinces began gradually to drop off from the western empire ; Sicily was ravaged by Genseric in 440 ; in 446 Britain was entirely abandoned by the Roman forces; and in 451 Attila, king of the Huns, marched into Gaul, and began the siege of Orleans. The city was almost on the point of surrendering, when the Roman and Gothic army under Aetius and Theodoric ad- vanced to its rescue. Attila crossed the Seine, and was defeated in a terrible battle on the plains of Chalons. In 455 Valentinian was as- sassinated. He was succeeded by Petronins Maximus, the unanimous choice of the senate and the people. The new emperor forced En- doxia, the widow of Valentinian, to become his bride, though acknowledging to her his agency in the murder of Valentinian, and she secretly implored the aid of Genseric, king of the Van- dals, whose fleets had already ravaged the coasts of Italy. At the head of an army Genseric landed at the mouth of the Tiber. Maximus in an attempt to flee was slain in a tumult at Rome, after a reign of three months. Three days afterward the Vandals marched upon the city, and for 14 days and nights the pillage went on. All the wealth and treasure that had been left by the Goths, together with a large number of captives, including the em- press and her two daughters, were carried off. Avitus, an illustrious Roman, now ascended the imperial throne, but was soon displaced by Count Ricimer, one of the leaders of the bar- barian troops defending Italy. In 457 Rici- mer consented to the accession of Majorian, the ablest and best of the later Roman emperors. Majorian granted release from all arrears of tribute and public debt, restored the juris- diction of the provincial magistrates whose functions had been superseded in great measure by extraordinary commissions, compelled the municipal corporations to resume their duty of levying the tribute, revived the office of de- fenders of cities to protect the lower classes against the higher, and checked by severe laws the destruction of the public buildings in Rome. Nor was he less able and successful in his for- eign policy. Vast numbers of barbarians, at- tracted by his fame, flocked to his standard from all quarters, and he reduced Gaul to obe- dience, defeating the Visigoths under Theodo- ric, whom he admitted to an alliance. Spain, which during the reign of Avitus had been overrun by the Goths, submitted to his author- ity. He undertook to restore Africa to the empire, but by treachery Genseric was enabled
