For a whole hundred years now, that is from A.D. 200 to 300, this greatest story in the world is really made up of a succession of small stories, each almost exactly the same as the last. They are stories about the "barbarian," at some point or other of the boundaries of the Empire, trying to break through, here and there succeeding in making a breach in the wall, and penetrating into the Empire, but again and again being thrust back, so that the old boundaries, as established by Hadrian, were on the whole tolerably well maintained all through this hundred years. The first serious break in the wall was made by a tribe called the Franks, from the east side of the Rhine, breaking through the boundary between the Empire and Germany. There was at least one other tribe in alliance with the Franks in this invasion, but it is the Franks of whom we should, I think, take notice particularly, because here we find them for the first time in what the Romans called Gaul, and in what is now called, from these very Franks, or from their descendants, France. [Sidenote: The Gallic Empire] But they did not remain long in Gaul at that time. They were driven out by the legions. And the legions in that province had to do the work of driving them out without getting any help from Rome. The result of that was that these legions, finding that they had to rely on themselves, thought that they might as well have a government of their own. They {15} chose an "emperor" for themselves, a "Gallic Empire" was founded--the Empire of Gaul--and it was obeyed even across the Pyrenees, in Spain, and across the Channel, in Britain. This so-called Gallic Empire had an existence of about thirty years, after which it was overthrown and the Empire of Rome was re-established over Gaul. The story was almost exactly repeated in other parts of the Empire. The Goths, a tribe perhaps of the same race and origin as the Franks, and of similar habits, but living not so far towards the north, broke in across the Danube. They were a very formidable force, and overran the Balkans. They defeated a Roman army, under the Emperor Decius himself, and Decius was killed in the battle. We must not allow ourselves to be misled by the term "barbarian," applied by the Romans to all these peoples, and to think of them as mere savages. These Goths had possessions on the Black Sea and they are said to have sent out, during this century, a fleet estimated at 500 ships which made incursions along the coasts of Asia Minor and Greece as formidable as any that the Vikings, later on, made further north. They actually stormed and pillaged such cities as Corinth and Athens.