The Goths, and the Germans who soon followed their example, moved as a whole people, with their wives and children, their cattle, and the few household goods they owned. Wherever they wished to settle they demanded of the Romans one third, sometimes two thirds, of the land. They soon learned to be good neighbors of the older inhabitants, although at first they were little better than robbers. Alaric, one of the leaders of the Goths, led them into Italy and in the year 410 captured Rome. Alaric did not injure the buildings much, and he kept his men from robbing the churches. Some of the other barbarous tribes who roamed about plundering villages and attacking cities did far greater damage. The Roman government grew weaker and weaker, until one by one the provinces fell into the hands of German kings. BEGINNINGS OF ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND GERMANY. Britain was attacked by the Angles and Saxons from the shores of Germany across the North Sea. They drove away the inhabitants or made slaves of them and settled upon the lands they had seized. The country was then called Angle-land or England, and the people Anglo-Saxons or Englishmen. The Roman provinces in Gaul were gradually conquered by the Franks from the borders of the Rhine, and they gave the name France to the land. At about the same time the other German tribes that had remained in Germany united under one king. THE RESULT OF BARBARIAN ATTACKS. The part of the ancient world which lay about Constantinople was less changed than the rest during the Middle Ages. The walls of Constantinople were high and thick, and they withstood attack after attack until 1453. Within their shelter men continued to live much as they had lived in Ancient Times. A few delighted to study the writings of the ancient Greeks. In Italy and the other countries of western Europe most of the cities were in ruins. The ancient baths, amphitheaters, aqueducts, and palaces of Rome crumbled and fell. The mediaeval Romans also used huge buildings like the Colosseum as quarries of cut stone and burned the marble for lime. This was done in every country where Roman buildings existed. [Illustration: THE AMPHITHEATER AT ARLES] The amphitheater at Arles in southern France had a still stranger fortune. It was used at one time as a citadel, at another as a prison and gradually became the home of hundreds of the criminals and the poor of the city. "Every archway held its nest of human outcasts. From stone to stone they cast their rotting beams and plaster and burrowed into the very entrails of the enormous building to seek a secure retreat from the pursuit of the officers of the law." Few persons traveled from Constantinople to Italy or France, and few from western Europe visited Constantinople. The men of Italy and France and England did not know how to read Greek. Many of them also ceased to read the writings of the ancient Romans.