Valens entered into an alliance with the Goths, hoping by their aid to resist the still more dreaded Huns. He allowed his barbarian allies to take possession of all the waste lands of Thrace. Availing themselves of this advantageous base of operations, the treacherous Goths ravaged the whole country to the shores of the Adriatic, menacing even Italy with their arms. They laid siege to both the cities of Adrianople and Constantinople. Terror reigned everywhere. Tears and blood, through man’s demoniac ferocity, deluged this whole world. In an awful battle before the walls of Adrianople, the army of Valens was cut to pieces. Valens himself perished upon the bloody field. How little can we imagine, seated by our peaceful firesides, the dimensions of that wail of misery ascending from a whole army perishing beneath the sabres and the battle-axes of merciless barbarians! This is indeed a lost world. Surely history proves that man is a depraved animal. How happy might this world have been had man been the friend, instead of the foe, of his brother-man! For twelve years Valentinian was engaged in almost an incessant battle. The Picts and Scots were rushing down upon Britain from the mountains of Caledonia. All along the Rhine and the Danube, tribes of uncouth names and habits were desolating, in plundering bands, every unprotected region. Worn down with care, toil, and sorrow, Valentinian fell a victim to a sudden attack of apoplexy in the year 375, in the fifty-fourth year of his age. Valentinian had a son, Gratian, who, at the time of his father’s death, was but seventeen years old. He succeeded his father on the throne of the Western empire, without inheriting either his virtues or his energy. Retiring to Paris, the boy-emperor surrendered himself to voluptuous indulgence. Discontent created an insurrection, which was led by Maximus, Governor of Britain. Gratian, abandoned by his troops, fled to Lyons, where he was overtaken and slain. A Christian general by the name of Theodosius had succeeded Valens in the East. Difficulties had arisen between Theodosius and Maximus. War ensued. Maximus was slain. Valentinian, a mere boy, younger brother of Gratian, was placed upon the throne of the Western empire. The poor child was almost immediately assassinated. Theodosius marched to the West to avenge his death, and assumed the government of the whole united empire of the East and of the West. But he was a sick man, and the hand of death was already upon him: in less than four months he breathed his last at Milan.