The period between the departure of the Romans and the coming of the Normans was one of political chaos. Wales almost immediately became divided, rival kings and chieftains ruling over different parts of the country. To follow in any detail the petty strivings of these men would be pure waste of time. They fought for no principle; neither are there any signs of nobility of purpose or of a wide and enlightened patriotism. Only the faintest outline of the political history of Wales during the period need be given. Great as were the benefits conferred upon Britain by the Romans, in one respect their rule had been harmful--they had accustomed the subject people to rely upon them for the defence of the island. It was always the policy of Rome to draw soldiers from one province and to send them to garrison another province in some distant part of the far-flung {35} Empire. The martial ardour of the British youth was not quenched; but instead of serving in Britain and so learning to defend their own land, they were sent across the Pyrenees, to the Danube, and into Asia Minor. When the Empire itself began to be torn with political dissensions in the later years of the fourth century, adventurous Roman generals began to aspire to the higher positions. One of these, a Spanish soldier, Maximus by name (in Welsh legend Macsen Wledig), rose against the emperor Gratian. In Britain he collected a large army with which he defeated and slew Gratian. In A.D. 388, however, he was himself overthrown at Aquileia. The great soldier Stilicho was appealed to by the despairing Britons, harassed by foes on every side; but all the forces at his disposal were needed for the more urgent task of protecting the older and more valuable frontiers of the Empire.