The flowers of modern history Author:John Adams Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: them, and for being delivered over to rapacious governors, who plundered them without mercy. The only circumstance which could support them under these complicat... more »ed calamities, was the hope of seeing better days. CHAP. II. Of the Irruption of the Goths andVandah, and other Barbarians. THE Roman empire, now stretched out to such an extent, had lost its spring and force. It contained within itself the seeds of dissolution ; and the violent irruptions of the Goths and Vandals, and other Barbarians, hastened . its destruction. These fierce tribes, who came to take vengeance on the empire, either inhabited the various provinces of Germany, which had never been subdued by the Romans, or were scattered over the vast countries of the North of Europe, and north-west of Asia, which are now inhabited by the Danes, the Swedes, the Poles, the subjects of the Russian empire, and the Tartars. They were drawn from their native country by that restlessness which actuates the minds of the Barbarians, and makes them rove from home in quest of plunder and new settlements. The first invaders met with a powerful resistance from the superior discipline of theRoman legions; but this, instead of daunting men of a strong and impetuous temper, only roused them to vengeance. They return to their companions, acquaint them with the unknown conveniences and luxuries that abound in countries better cultivated, or blessed with a milder climate than their own ; they acquaint them with the battles they had fought, of the friends they had lost, and warm them with, resentment against their opponents. Great bodies of argued men, says an elegant historian, in describing this scene of desolation, with their wives and children, and slaves and flocks, issued forth, like regular colonies, in quest of new settlem...« less