experience obtained in frequent expeditions and protracted campaigns, imperceptibly modified the ancient laws of the Goths; the very essence of which was, from the first, and long continued to be, the assertion of the principle of personal liberty. Rome, whose toleration of the religious prejudices and customs of the nations subjected to her dominion--so long as they did not conflict with her interests or contravene her authority--was one great secret of her power, had, in accordance with that policy, indulged the Iberians in the use of their own laws, and only those who enjoyed the privileges of citizenship could be summoned before the tribunal of the imperial magistrate. The incursions of the barbarians had abolished every restraint, and transformed the previous quiet and peaceful condition of the Peninsula into a state of anarchy. There was then no law but the will of the chieftain, who was inclined to encourage, rather than to repress, the excesses of a brutalized soldiery. All records and muniments of title had disappeared; boundaries had ceased to exist; the tenure of lands was entirely dependent upon the numerical strength of the claimants; and when the fields of one district were exhausted, the discontented settlers sought a new residence in another locality, whose wealth had excited their avarice, and the inferior military resources of whose occupants rendered the retention of their possessions uncertain. The cessation of hostilities was always accompanied with the plunder and impoverishment of the vanquished; no treaty was valid, because no moral obligation, or superior power by which it could be enforced, existed; every vice was committed with impunity; every grudge was satisfied with all the abuse of unrestricted license; the caprice of the military commander had supplanted the precedents of the prætor, and the sword had become the only acknowledged arbiter of every controversy.