This prosperity received a fearful shock under Decius after the middle of the third century, when the Goths, like a devastating torrent, spread over the coast of Asia and Greece from the Black Sea. Athens was now ransacked for plunder and partly burnt, and many took refuge in Piraeeus. After this calamity was over, the people returned. We do not know what was the condition of domestic life at this period, but Libanius, Himerius, and S. Basilius[49] give us an interesting picture of another aspect of life at the time: from the mode of life of the young men who then studied at Athens, we see how insignificant the city was, how the people derived their means of subsistence solely from the university and a little traffic in the produce of the country, such as honey and olives. Justinian abolished the schools, and Athens thereby lost its last resources. Henceforth nothing can be said of Athens for a period of seven hundred years; this only may be gathered from all the circumstances of the times, that the transition to Christianity took place gradually, without any shock or violent dissensions, and in a very different way from that which we witness at Rome, where the collision between what was established and that which was struggling into existence was of a very violent character. At Rome the tombs of Christians and Pagans are always separate in the catacombs, and afterwards the bodies of Christians alone were deposited in them; but at Athens, where the tombs are in layers one above another, the Pagan ones are below, and above them those of the Christians, while on some of them we find a mixture of Christian and non-Christian emblems. Previous to the 13th century, not the slightest mention of Athens occurs. When the Franks had destroyed the eastern empire (1204), a Frenchman of the name of Otto de la Roche, as a vassal of the Emperor of Constantinople, founded a principality under the title of Grand-Duke (μέγας Δούξ), the seat of which was Attica and Boeotia. His family, however, became extinct, and by marriage the possession passed into the hands of the Briennes; this family possessed a considerable principality there, and governed unhappy Greece with the extreme severity of feudalism. The great company of the Catalani appeared in the 14th century, conquered the country, expelled the French dukes, and, like their predecessors, fortified the Acropolis of Athens. The many remains of buildings which do not bear the impress of antiquity, seem to belong to this period; it is surprising, however, that in Greece there are no buildings of the time after Justinian. There now followed the period when the Italians, the Neris and Acciajuolis, were in possession of the duchy; a descendant of the latter lived even recently as a common peasant in Attica. The Franks had completely become Greeks, but still remained Roman Catholics, and in possession of Athens, until it was conquered by Mahmood II. The feudal character which the city sometimes bears in