Constans had, in the meantime, been sent back to Spain, and took with him Justus as his general. This gave great offence to Gerontius the Briton, who probably only waited for a pretext to endeavour to overturn the government of Constantine; and, having gained over the soldiers in Spain, who, being principally Attacotts, were probably more accessible to the influence of their countrymen, he incited the Barbarians in Gaul to revolt, and invited those beyond the Rhine to enter the provinces. The latter ravaged them at pleasure, the main attack having been upon those of Britain. This took place in the year 409, and that part of the Barbarians who were thus invited and encouraged to attack the provinces of Britain were, we know from other sources, their old enemies, the Picts, Scots, and Saxons. The civil government of the Romans still continued in Britain, but Honorius, being unable to afford them assistance, wrote letters in the following year to the cities in Britain, urging them to look after their own safety. This was equivalent to an abandonment of the imperial authority over Britain; and the provincial Britons, who, no doubt in common with the inhabitants of the other provinces, groaned under the intolerable weight of the Roman civil government, rose against them, and having, by one unanimous and vigorous effort, freed their cities from the invading Barbarians, drove out the Roman prefects likewise, and shook off the Roman yoke. In the following year Honorius, finding that the existence of the opposing tyrants, Constantine and Gerontius, had prevented him from opposing the Barbarians, and led to the defection of Britain and Armorica, resolved to make an effort for their destruction, and sent Constantius into Gaul with an army, who shut Constantine into the town of Arles, took it, and slew him. Gerontius, at the same time, no doubt aiming at the possession of Britain for himself, followed up his proceedings by slaying Constans at Vienne, and setting up Maximus, said by one author to have been his son, in his place. Gerontius was shortly after slain by his own soldiers, and Maximus, stripped of the purple, fled into exile among the Barbarians in Spain. The death of Gerontius thus prevented him from reaping the fruit of his designs, whatever his object in precipitating the Barbarians again upon the provinces of Britain may have been. No attempt was made to recover Britain. It no longer formed a portion of the Roman Empire, and the Roman legions never returned to it. This great and momentous change in the political and social condition of the island took place in the year 410; and thus terminated the Roman dominion in that island, which, for good or for evil, had so long endured, and so powerfully influenced the fortunes of its inhabitants.