A second world force had now come into its own. The new power was the Germanic peoples, those wandering tribes who, after shattering the Roman Empire, were destined to form the modern nations of Europe and to find in Christianity the religion most admirably adapted to fill their spiritual needs and shape their ideals. In the year 476 the barbarian Odoacer ascended the throne of the Caesars. He still pretended to govern by virtue of the authority delegated to him by Zeno, emperor at Constantinople; but the rupture between East and West was becoming final and after the reign of Justinian (527-565) it was practically complete. Henceforth the eastern empire had little or nothing to do with western Europe and subsisted as an independent monarchy until Constantinople was taken by the Turks in 1453. I shall not concern myself with it any longer. In western Europe, then, new races with new ideals were forming the nations that to-day are England, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Austria. It is interesting to note what some of these barbarians thought about women and what place they assigned them. [Sidenote: Julius Caesar's account.] Our earliest authorities on the subject are Julius Caesar and Tacitus. Caesar informs us[288] that among the Gauls marriage was a well recognized institution. The husband contributed of his own goods the same amount that his wife brought by way of dowry; the combined property and its income were enjoyed on equal terms by husband and wife. If husband or wife died, all the property became the possession of the surviving partner. Yet the husband had full power of life and death over his wife as over his children; and if, upon the decease of a noble, there were suspicions regarding the manner of his death, his wife was put to inquisitorial torture and was burnt at the stake when adjudged guilty of murder. Among the Germans women seem to have been held in somewhat greater respect. German matrons were esteemed as prophetesses and no battle was entered upon unless they had first consulted the lots and given assurance that the fight would be successful.[289] As for the British, who were not a Germanic people, Caesar says that they practiced polygamy and near relatives were accustomed to have wives in common.[290] [Sidenote: The account of Tacitus.]