This signal victory of the Goths was followed by a siege of Adrianople. But the barbarians knew nothing of the art of attacking stone walls, and quickly gave up the impossible task. From Adrianople they marched to Constantinople, but were forced to content themselves with ravaging the suburbs and gazing, with impotent desire, on the city's distant splendor. Then, laden with the rich spoils of the suburbs, they marched southward through Thrace, and spread over the face of a fertile and cultivated country extending as far as the confines of Italy, their course being everywhere marked with massacre, conflagration, and rapine, until some of the fairest regions of the empire were turned almost into a desert. It may be that the numbers of Romans who perished from this invasion equalled those of the Goths whom imprudent compassion had delivered from the Huns. As regards the children of the Goths, who had been distributed in the provinces of Asia Minor, there remains a cruel story to tell. Though given the education and taught the arts of the Romans, they did not forget their origin, and the suspicion arose that they were plotting to repeat in Asia the deeds of their fathers in Europe. Julius, who commanded the troops after the death of Valens, took bloody measures to prevent any such calamity. The youthful Goths were bidden to assemble, on a stated day, in the capital cities of their provinces, the hint being given that they were to receive gifts of land and money. On the appointed day they were collected unarmed in the Forum of each city, the surrounding streets being occupied by Roman troops, and the roofs of the houses covered with archers and slingers. At a fixed hour, in all the cities, the signal for slaughter was given, and in an hour more not one of these helpless wards of Rome remained alive. The cruel treachery of this blood-thirsty act remains almost unparalleled in history. _THE DOWNFALL OF ROME._ Theodosius, the great and noble emperor who succeeded Valens, pacified and made quiet subjects of the Goths. He died in 395, and before the year ended the Gothic nation was again in arms. At the first sound of the trumpet the warriors, who had been forced to a life of labor, deserted their fields and flocked to the standards of war. The barriers of the empire were down. Across the frozen surface of the Danube flocked savage tribesmen from the northern forests, and joined the Gothic hosts. Under the leadership of an able commander, the famous Alaric, the barbarians swept from their fields and poured downward upon Greece, in search of an easier road to fortune than the toilsome one of industry. Many centuries had passed since the Persians invaded Greece, and the men of Marathon and Thermopylae were no more. Men had been posted to defend the world-famous pass, but, instead of fighting to the death, like Leonidas and his Spartans of old, they retired without a blow, and left Greece to the mercy of the Goth.