The army on the Danube chose one of their generals――Decius――emperor. The two rival armies, under their several sovereigns, soon met near Verona, and engaged in terrible mutual slaughter. Both sides were equally bad. God left them to scourge and torture and devour one another. It is thus that he often punishes wicked nations, by leaving them to destroy themselves. Philip’s soldiers were routed. They turned upon him, cut off his head, and joined the conqueror. Decius marched triumphantly to Rome, where the senate and people welcomed an emperor who could enforce his title with so many glittering swords. To the eye of reason, nothing can seem more absurd than the doctrine of hereditary descent of power. That a babe, a feeble girl, a semi-idiot, or a monster of depravity, should be invested with sovereign power over millions, merely from the accident of birth, appears preposterous. But, if there be neither intelligence nor virtue in a nation, the chance of birth may give as good a ruler as the chance of popular suffrage. Rome had become so dissolute, that had every name in the empire been cast into the wheel of a lottery, and the first one thrown out been accepted as emperor, the result could not have been more disastrous than that which ensued from the vote of the army and the senate. In wolfish bands, savage hordes from the forests of the north came pouring across the Danube, plundering, burning, and putting to the sword all before them. Rome, weakened by division, was poorly prepared to resist such a foe. Decius marched timidly to meet the inrolling flood of barbarians. With hyena yells they rushed upon him, scattering his forces as wolves scatter sheep. Scaling the walls of Philippopoli, they slaughtered in cold blood the whole population, amounting to a hundred thousand souls. This was the first successful irruption of the barbarians into the Roman empire. This momentous event took place in the year of our Lord 250. No tongue can tell the dismay which thrilled all hearts in Rome as the appalling tidings reached them that the barbarians had conquered and annihilated a Roman army, and were on the triumphant march to the capital. Decius was slain: his body, trampled into the mire of a morass, was never found.