It was under pressure of their own kinsmen, the Ostrogoths, acting with their superior lords, the Huns, that the Visigoths at this time invaded Gaul and pushed into the north of Italy and down into Greece. They had become Christians. A large number of monks came with the armies and, in their religious zeal, destroyed many beautiful temples of the pagan gods in Greece and elsewhere.

The westward advance of the Goths was not continuous. It met with checks from the legions, but again and again they came on, like waves of the sea, returning after retreating. In 402 they were driven back, but in a later invasion they came three times, in three successive years, up to the walls of Rome itself: that is, in 408, 409, and 410; and some time in these years it seems that a large force of the Ostrogoths joined their kinsmen of the Western Goths in this Italian invasion. These Eastern Goths were still pagans. In 410 the Goths actually entered and sacked Rome. The effect of this was that the Empire was compelled, if it was to survive at all, to make some terms of peace with the invaders, even if the terms meant that it had to give up a large territory to them. This is precisely what happened. Within a few years after the sack of Rome the Goths had established themselves in the south of Gaul and pushed down over the Pyrenees into Spain. Their Spanish conquests at this time were given back to the Roman Empire, though some of the Goths remained in Spain, but by way of compensation Rome recognised what was known as the Visigothic Kingdom of Toulouse. This Visigothic territory reached right across to the Atlantic Ocean and as far north as the River Loire.

The Vandals

But now we ought to take a look at what was happening a little further north again, for this pressing through of the Germanic barbarians went on, as I have said, all along the eastern boundary. Just as the Goths had come flooding in from across the Danube, so too came the Vandals from across the Rhine. This happened in 406 or 407; and it was in 407 that the Empire, harassed by all these incursions from the east, was obliged to withdraw its legions from Britain.

We have seen something already of a tribe or nation called Franks, that had passed into Northern Gaul some years before this and had been repelled by the Romans. But some of them stayed within the Empire's bounds on terms of friendship with the Romans, and when the Vandals appeared in Gaul these Franks met them in a great battle wherein the Vandals are said to have lost two thousand killed—a very large number, considering the comparatively small armies of the time. The effect of this beating seems, curiously enough, to have been, not to send them back, as we should expect, to the north-east, whence they came. Instead of that we find them going onward, south-west, and two years later crossing the Pyrenees into Spain. They fought there with the Visigoths and other German tribes that had found their way there before them, and in the end—that is to say, after twenty or more years—had taken possession of that southern part of Spain, which is called Andalusia.

And then a very strange thing happened, and they undertook an extraordinary adventure, which we have already just glanced at.

Vandals in Africa

A stretch of the northern coast of Africa, along the south of the Mediterranean Sea, belonged to the Western Roman Empire. It ran from the Straits of Gibraltar eastward to the boundary of the province of Egypt which was part of the Eastern Empire. All this strip was put under the command of a Roman official who had the title of Count of Africa.

Just at this time the Count of Africa had given offence to the Imperial authority, and, in his fear of what the offended majesty of Rome might do to him, he invited the Vandals to come across the straits to his assistance. They came—probably in larger numbers than he had reckoned on. Eighty thousand of them, in all, including the women and children, are said to have come. The Count of Africa quickly repented of what he had done. He patched up his quarrel with the Emperor, and then set to work to turn out these guests and helpers that he had invited. But they were by no means so ready to go as they had been to come. They fought to remain, and so successfully that within two years of their landing in Africa they had possession of all the Roman territory along that shore with the exception of three cities, of which Carthage was the chief. At this time Carthage was estimated as the most important city, after Rome and Constantinople, in the Empire. And a few years later again, the Vandal king, breaking a treaty which he had made with Rome, attacked and took Carthage itself; and so, once again, this city, which had been the source of such deadly peril to the Empire in the days of Hannibal, fell into an enemy's hands; and it was for nearly a hundred years held in those hands.

Thus, to the year 440 or so, we may trace the extraordinary fortunes of this people to their zenith—their highest point. There, for the moment, we leave them.