not marry without his consent, and if slaves of neighbouring estates intermarried, their children were distributed between the owners of the several properties. The middle classes bore, as in Roman times, the burden of taxation, and were consequently bankrupt and ruined: the land was still in the hands of the few, and the large estates were indifferently cultivated by crowds of miserable slaves, whose dreary lives were brightened by no hope of improvement or dream of release before death. The very clergy, who preached about the brotherhood of Christians, now that they had become rich and owned great estates, joined in the traditional policy and treated their slaves and serfs as badly as any Roman noble. The rich were sunk in the same slough of sensuality that had proved the ruin of the Romans, and the vices of the Christian Goths rivalled, if they did not exceed, the polished wickedness of the pagans. "King Witiza," says the chronicler, anxious to find some reason for the overthrow of the Christians by the Saracens, "taught all Spain to sin." Spain, indeed, knew only too well how to sin before, and Witiza may have been no worse than his predecessors; but the Goths gave a fresh license to the general corruption. The vices of barbarians show often a close resemblance to those of decayed civilization, and in this instance the change of rulers brought no amelioration of morals.[1] Such was the condition of Spain when the Mussulman approached her borders. A corrupt aristocracy divided the land among themselves; the great estates were tilled by a wretched and hopeless race of serfs; the citizen classes were ruined. On the other side of the straits of Gibraltar were the soldiers of Islam, all hardy warriors, fired with the fervour of a new faith, bred to arms from their childhood, simple and rude in their life, and eager to plunder the rich lands of the infidels. Between two such peoples there could be no doubt as to the issue of the fight; but to remove the possibility of doubt, treachery came to the aid of the invaders. [Illustration: TOLEDO.]