With the fusion of races the identity of the Goths was speedily and completely lost. The military spirit to which they were indebted, not only for their civil and political organization, but also for their integrity as a people, and for their preservation as well, disappeared. In former times, and for ages after their occupation of the Spanish Peninsula, that spirit which was their most distinguishing trait, and the most prominent one which they possessed in common with the Germans, was, by degrees, imperceptibly weakened, and finally lost in the premature decadence of an entire nation. The servile spirit of the Roman colonist and slave, whose sense of independence had been crushed by centuries of oppression, now asserted its predominance over the bold and active sentiments of the hardy soldiers who had overrun and conquered Europe. Under the Visigothic polity there was no pay for military service, and the glory and adventure held out by a campaign, were not considered a sufficient recompense for its hardships. Formerly, the Goths paid their soldiers only in time of war, and, during peace, the army was supported by taxes. The Feudal System, originally derived from the _emphyteusis_, or perpetual lease, of the Roman law, with its rule exacting military service for the possession of a fief, had not yet been established. The unconquerable repugnance of the Visigoths to war caused them to avoid, under every imaginable pretext, extending their aid to their rulers in times of either conquest or invasion. They refused to protect the person of their monarch, or defend the frontiers of their country. The nobles and wealthy landowners persistently violated the law requiring them to bring into battle one tenth of their slaves, thoroughly armed and equipped. The ninth book of the Code contains stringent regulations against such delinquents as, under various pretences, sought to evade the service in the army, due from them and their dependents; and it was said that, at one time, half the able-bodied population of the Peninsula had, by reason of their refusal to obey those regulations, rendered themselves liable to the dreadful penalties which they imposed. In this fact alone is significantly disclosed, not only the thorough deterioration of the once valiant Gothic race, but one cause of the amazing and unprecedented success of the Saracen power. The Mohammedan squadrons, impelled by the mighty force of fanaticism, could not be withstood by a mob of ill-treated peasants and effeminate nobles, disunited by faction, without reverence for their king, or love for their native land; in whom the martial spirit of their ancestors had long been supplanted by the ignominious passions of cruelty and avarice; where their leaders served under fear of the confiscation of their property, and the rank and file were driven into action with the scourge.