As though the unimportance of Rome were not thus sufficiently established, Constantine abandoned the decaying capital altogether, and built himself a new city, Constantinople, at the junction of Europe and Asia. This became the centre of the changing world. Built upon the site of an old Greek colony, it was almost wholly Greek, not only in the nationality of the people who flocked to it, but in the manners of the court which Constantine created around him, in the art of its decorators, in the language of its streets.[15] The Empire remained Roman only in name. The might of a thousand years had made that name a magic spell, had sunk its restraining influence deep in the minds of men. It was not lightly to be thrown aside. Julian, a nephew of Constantine, who after an interval succeeded him upon the throne, abandoned the adopted religion of his family, and tried to revive paganism.[16] Julian was a powerful and clever man; he seems also to have been an honest and an earnest one. But he could not turn back the current of the world. He could not make shallow speculation take the place of earnest faith. Altruism, the spirit of brotherhood, which was the animating force of Christianity, might and later somewhat did lose itself amid the sands of selfishness; but it could not be combated by one man with a chance preference for egotism. Julian turned to a worthier purpose. He died fighting the barbarians. These, held back for a time by Diocletian and Constantine, were recommencing their ravages with renewed force. And now a change comes over the character of the invasions. Hitherto they had been mere raids for plunder; but now a huge, far-reaching, racial movement was in progress. From the distant plains of Asia came the vanguard of the Huns, a race of horsemen, whose swift steeds enabled them to scatter or concentrate at will around slower-paced opponents.[17] The Huns swept over Southern Russia, then occupied by the Goths, the most civilized of the Teutonic tribes. The Goths, finding themselves helpless against the active and fierce marauders, moved onward in their turn. They crossed the Danube, not as a raiding troop, but as an entire nation, and, half begging, half demanding a place of refuge, they penetrated into the world of civilization. With them came fearful stories of the Huns; but these latter, sweeping off in another direction, failed for a while to follow up the fugitives.