As to the main cause of the raids, it was rather love of Rome’s wealth than a sturdy contempt of luxury that led these barbarians to assault the dreaded legions. Had it been mere love of fighting, the Alemanni would as soon have slain their Saxon neighbours as the imperial troops; but nowhere save in Spain, or southern Gaul, or on the plains of Italy could they hope to find opulent cities or herds of cattle. Plunder was their earliest rallying cry; but in the third century the pressure of other tribes on their flank forced them to redouble in self-defence efforts begun for very different reasons. This movement of the barbarians has been called ‘the Wandering of the Nations’. Gradually but surely, like a stream released from some mountain cavern, Goths from the North and Huns and Vandals from the East descended in irresistible numbers on southern Germany, driving the tribes who were already in possession there up against the barriers, first of the Danube and then of the Alps and Rhine. Italy and Gaul ceased to be merely a paradise for looters, but were sought by barbarians, who had learned something of Rome’s civilization, as a refuge from other barbarians who trod women and children underfoot, leaving a track wherever their cruel hordes passed red with blood and fire. With their coming, Europe passed from the brightness of Rome into the ‘Dark Ages’. III THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY When Augustus became Emperor of Rome, Jesus Christ was not yet born. With the exception of the Jews, who believed in the one Almighty ‘Jehovah’, most of the races within the boundaries of the Empire worshipped a number of gods; and these, according to popular tales, were no better than the men and women who burned incense at their altars, but differed from them only in being immortal, and because they could yield to their passions and desires with greater success. The Roman god ‘Juppiter’, who was the same as the Greek ‘Zeus’, was often described as ‘King of gods and men’; but far from proving himself an impartial judge and ruler, the legends in which he appears show him cruel, faithless, and revengeful. ‘Juno’, the Greek ‘Hera’, ‘Queen of Heaven’, was jealous and implacable in her wrath, as the ‘much-enduring’ hero, Ulysses, found when time after time her spite drove him from his homeward course from Troy. ‘Mercury’, the messenger of the gods, was merely a cunning thief.