Instantly a deluge of barbarians spread right and left, and the whole country was ravaged. Thebes alone resisted. Athens admitted Alaric within its gates, and saved itself by giving the barbarian chief a bath and a banquet. The other famous cities had lost their walls, and Corinth, Argos, and Sparta yielded without defence to the Goths. The wealth of the cities and the produce of the country were ravaged without stint, villages and towns were committed to the flames, thousands of the inhabitants were borne off to slavery, and for years afterwards the track of the Goths could be traced in ruin throughout the land. By a fortunate chance Rome possessed at that epoch a great general, the famous Stilicho, whose military genius has rarely been surpassed. He had before him a mighty task, the forcing back of the high tide of barbarian overflow, but he did it well while he lived. His death brought ruin on Rome. Stilicho hastened to Greece and quickly drove the Goths from the Peloponnesus. But jealousy between Constantinople and Rome tied his hands, he was recalled to Italy, and the weak emperor of the East rewarded the Gothic general for his destructive raid by making him master-general of Illyricum. Alaric, fired by ambition, used his new power in forcing the cities of his dominion to supply the Goths with the weapons of war. Then, Greece and the country to the north having been devastated, he turned his arms against Italy, and about 400 A.D. appeared at the foot of the Julian Alps, the first invader who had threatened Italy since the days of Hannibal, six hundred years before. There were at that time two rulers of the Roman empire,--Arcadius, emperor of the East, and Honorius, emperor of the West. The latter, a coward himself, had a brave man to command his armies,--Stilicho, who had driven the Goths from Greece. But Italy, though it had a general, was destitute of an army. To meet the invading foe, Stilicho was forced to empty the forts on the Rhine, and even to send to England for the legion that guarded the Caledonian wall. With the army thus raised he met the Gothic host at Pollentia, and defeated them with frightful slaughter, recovering from their camp many of the spoils of Greece. Another battle was fought at Verona, and the Goths were again defeated. They were now forced to retire from Italy, Stilicho and the emperor entered Rome, and that capital saw its last great triumph, and gloried in a revival of its magnificent ancient games. [Illustration: THE LAST COMBAT OF THE GLADIATORS.]