The Vandals, Sueves, and Alans, who entered Gaul at the end of A.D. 406, remained in the land, devastating, slaying, and burning until A.D. 409, in which year they crossed the Pyrenees, to find homes in Spain. The extent of their ravages is indicated by Jerome, in a letter of A.D. 411, in which he mentions the devastation of Aquitania, Lugdunensis, and Narbonensis, and the destruction of Mainz, Rheims, and Speyer.[385] It is also described by Salvian, writing at a much later date,[386] in the _De Gubernatione Dei_, who tells[387] how the Vandals, _gens ignavissima, de loco ad locum pergens de urbe in urbem transiens_ laid all things waste. _Arsit regio Belgarum deinde opes Aquitanorum luxuriantium et posthaec corpus omnium Galliarum._ But more valuable as genuine pictures by eye-witnesses, men who had themselves suffered with the sufferings of Gaul, are the _Commonitorium_ of Orientius, and an anonymous poem entitled _De Providentia Divina_. Both these poems can be approximately dated to A.D. 415-416, and they describe the condition of the country at the time, enabling us to realise the long misery and desolation produced by the scourge of the years A.D. 407-409 Nor had Gaul, at least southern Gaul, been allowed a respite of peace to recover from the effects of that scourge, for the provincials had hardly become conscious that the Vandals had passed into Spain when Athaulf and his Visigoths entered Gaul. Moreover, a large body of Alans had remained behind, instead of accompanying their fellows across the Pyrenees. We derive a vivid picture of the unsettled state of Aquitaine from the _Eucharisticon_ of Paulinus of Pella.[388] Some passages in Orientius, the _De Providentia Divina_, and another anonymous poem _Ad Uxorem_, of the same period, illustrate the condition of the Gallic provinces.[389] (1) Orientius (ed. Ellis, in the _Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum_), ii. 165 _sqq._:— Non castella locis, non tutae moenibus urbes, invia non pelago, tristia non heremo, non cava, non etiam nudis[390] sub rupibus antra ludere barbaricas praevaluere manus. (2) _De Providentia Dei_, in Migne, _Patr. Gr._ lxi. c. 617:— Si totus Gallos, etc. (3) _Ad Uxorem_, in Migne, _ib._ c. 611. Non idem status est agris, etc. It is possible, but I can find no direct evidence to show that the devastation had extended down the Loire. It might be considered whether the words of Orientius _invia non pelago_, which imply that the invaders attacked islands, allude to the islands of Noirmoutier, Rhé, etc.