Moreover the continuity of this ancient culture had been perhaps less rudely disturbed in Spain than elsewhere by the shock of the barbaric invasions. Here its geographical situation stood the country in good stead; the barbarian frontier was far away and the chances were that barbarians destined by fortune to enter Spain would first spend much time in aimless wandering within the empire, with consequent loss of numbers and some lessening of savagery. Such, at least, was the case with the Visigoths, who alone of the barbarians proved a permanent factor in the country’s development. They were first admitted to the empire in 376, and must have passed largely into the second generation before they began to penetrate into Spain, while the real conquest by them did not begin until much later. “At the time of their appearance as a governing aristocracy in Spain” they “had become by long contact with the Romans to all intents and purposes a civilized people.”[8] They were thus in a position to coalesce with the Romanized natives, and that this was largely brought to pass is shown by the conversion of the Arian Goths to orthodoxy, the removal of the ban of intermarriage between the two races, the use of Latin in all official documents, and finally by the establishment of a common law for both peoples. The “sixty-one correct hexameters” of the Visigothic king Sisebutus (612–620),[9] compared, for instance, with the absolutely hopeless attempts of Charlemagne two centuries later to learn the art of tracing letters,[10] show plainly that Spanish culture had not sunk to the level of that of other parts of the western empire.[11] [8] Martin A. S. Hume, _The Spanish People_, p. 45. [9] See Teuffel and Schwabe, _History of Roman Literature_, vol. ii, sec. 495, 1, and _Poetae Latini Minores_, 5, 357. [10] See Einhard, _Vita Caroli Magni_ in _Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores_ (Pertz ed.), vol. ii, p. 456. [11] Another factor in the history of Spain at this time that may have had a slight influence on the culture of the country was the reoccupation of the southeastern part of the country by the Eastern Empire, which lasted from Justinian’s time down to 628. The region so held included even Seville for some years.