The invasions are like some immense tidal wave that sweeps all before it: Si totus Gallos sese effudisset in agros Oceanus, vastis plus superesset aquis.[1348] All strongholds have given out against the barbarian arms—‘ultima pertulimus’. The author of the _ad Uxorem_ writes in the same strain: Ferro peste fame vinclis algore calore, mille modis miseros mors rapit una homines ... pax abiit terris, ultima quaeque vides.[1349] What is the good of the winding, gushing river, the woods which outlive the ages, the flowery meads which the season renews? Ista manent, nostri sed non mansere parentes; exigui vitam temporis hospes ago.[1350] ‘Respice’, says Orientius, referring to the same invasions, Respice quam raptim totum mors presserit orbem, quantos vis belli perculerit populos, non densi nemoris, celsi non aspera montis flumina non rapidis fortia gurgitibus, non castella locis, non tutae moenibus urbes....[1351] Added to these troubles from without was the internal commotion caused by robber bands like the notorious Bagaudae, who, in spite of periodical repressions,[1352] continued to exist.[1353] So formidable were they that in 407 Sarus, the general of Honorius, was obliged to buy from them his passage into Italy with a rich portion of spoil.[1354] The oppression of officials swelled their ranks,[1355] and in the middle of the fifth century they established a commonwealth which took a prominent part in the fighting in Spain at that time. Thus they were a constant source of disturbance, and the prolongation of this unrest is mirrored in the pages of Sidonius. In a letter to Lupus,[1356] he tells of a woman who has been carried away by bandits, the local Vargi who were the spiritual descendants of the Bagaudae. The attacks of the Goths towards the end of the fifth century made travelling dangerous, and Sidonius postpones writing to Eutropius on this account.[1357] He sends his messenger only after he hears that ‘the treaty-breaking race’ (_foedifragam gentem_) has returned within its borders. We hear of a man who had fled with his family into the diocese of Bishop Censorius ‘depredationis Gothicae turbinem vitans’. Sidonius asks Censorius to treat him indulgently and to remit the glebe-dues in his case, so that he may have the whole harvest for himself.[1358] And so it went on. There were constant disputes,[1359] and whenever there was an invasion the Arvernians suffered: ‘huic semper irruptioni nos miseri Arverni ianua sumus.’[1360]