First and greatest come the _Goths_. It is not needful for our purpose to examine all that history or legend has to tell us as to the origin of the Goths, or all the theories which ingenious men have formed on the subject. ♦Defeat of the Goths by Claudius. A.D. 269.♦ It is enough for our purpose that the Goths began to show themselves as dangerous enemies of the Empire in the second half of the third century; but their continuous history does not begin till the second half of the fourth. ♦Gothic kingdom on the Danube.♦ We then find them forming a great kingdom in the lands north of the Danube. ♦Goths driven onwards by the Huns.♦ Presently a large body of them were driven to seek shelter within the bounds of the Eastern Empire from the pressure of the invading _Huns_. These last were a Turanian people who had been driven from their own older settlements by movements in the further East which do not concern us, but who become an important element in the history of the fifth century. They affected the Empire, partly by actual invasions, partly by driving other nations before them but they made no lasting settlements within it. Nor did the Goths themselves make any lasting settlement in the Eastern Empire. ♦They cross the Danube. A.D. 377.♦ While one part of the Gothic nation became subject to the Huns, another part crossed the Danube; but they crossed it by Imperial licence, and if they took to arms, it was only to punish the treachery of the Roman officers. Presently we find Gothic chiefs marching at pleasure through the dominions of the Eastern Cæsar; but they simply march and ravage; it is not till they have got within the boundary of the West that they found any lasting kingdoms. In fact, the Goths, and the Teutonic tribes generally, had no real mission in the East; to them the East was a mere highway to the West. ♦Career of Alaric. A.D. 394-410.♦ The movements of Alaric in Greece, Illyricum, and Italy, his sieges and his capture of Rome, are of the highest historical importance, but they do not touch geography. The Goths first win for themselves a local habitation and a place on the map when they left Italy to establish themselves in the further West. ♦Beginning of the West-Gothic kingdom under Athaulf. A.D. 412.♦