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 own.
I do not come here to interpret the Book of Revelations. I do not understand that book. But I do say plainly, though I cannot interpret the book, that the book has interpreted those times to me. Its awful metaphors give me more living and accurate pictures of what went on than any that Gibbon’s faithful details can give.
You may see, if you have spiritual eyes wherewith to see, the Dragon, the serpent, symbol of political craft and the devilish wisdom of the Roman, giving authority to the Beast, the symbol of brute power; to mongrel Ætiuses and Bonifaces, barbarian Stilichos, Ricimers and Aspars, and a host of similar adventurers, whose only strength was force.
You may see the world wondering after the beast, and worshipping brute force, as the only thing left to believe in.
You may see the nations of the world gnawing their tongues for pain, and blaspheming God, but not repenting of their deeds.
You may see the faith and patience of the saints—men like Augustine, Salvian, Epiphanius, Severinus, Deogratias of Carthage, and a host more, no doubt, whose names the world will never hear—the salt of the earth, which kept it all from rotting.