It may be that nothing could have secured the West; that the foundation of Constantinople saved the East is certain. Because the West was the weaker and the richer, because the name of Rome was so tremendous, the West, as we know, bore the full brunt of the Barbarian assault. That assault was a much looser and more haphazard affair than we have been wont to believe. The West was rather engulfed than defeated. For a time it was lost in a sea of barbarism; that it emerged, that it rearose, and that we are what we are, we owe to the foundation of Constantinople and to the Catholic Church. I say that the Empire was rather engulfed than defeated. Let us consider this. In the year 375 the frontiers were secure; nevertheless before then the defence had failed. Long before then it had become obvious that the vast hordes of Barbarians beyond the Rhine and the Danube could not be held back if anything should occur to drive them on. If they came on they would have to be met, not beyond, or even upon the rivers, but within the Empire itself. If anything should occur to drive them on.... In the year 375 this befell. Ammianus Marcellinus, the contemporary Roman historian, writing of the incursions of the Barbarians, asserts that all the evils which befell the Empire at that time were due to one people--the Huns. In the year 375 the Huns were finally victorious over the Goths who in 376 in utter despair appealed to the Eastern Emperor Valens for protection. “Suppliant multitudes of that warlike nation,” we read of the Goths, “whose pride was now humbled in the dust, covered a space of many miles along the banks of the Danube. With outstretched arms and pathetic lamentations they loudly deplored their past misfortunes and their present danger; acknowledged that their only hope of safety was in the clemency of the Roman Government; and most solemnly protested that if the gracious liberality of the Emperor would permit them to cultivate the waste lands of Thrace they would ever hold themselves bound by the strongest obligations of duty and gratitude to obey the laws and guard the tenets of the republic.” Their prayers were granted and their service was accepted by the Imperial Government. They were transported over the Danube into the Roman Empire. In some ways this act and its date 376 are among the most momentous in the history of Europe.