Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

THE THIRD AGE OF THE MARTYR CHURCH. 313nations might for ever have been kept back bythe unity which religious conviction would havebestowed on civilisation, and the fresh and livingforce which it would have imparted to society notyet exhausted by despotic power. But with MarcusAurelius the empire turns definitively away.A new religious revolution under Odin in Scandi-navia had wakened up with redoubled force thedestroying energy of barbarism. * The Goths had-^-migrated from Sweden to the Black Sea; all thetribes in the interval had been displaced anddashed upon each other by this removal. Thewar of the Marcomans occupied during eighteenyears, from 162 to 180, the whole forces of theempire ; Rome was obliged even to arm its slaves,and Italy feared an invasion more terrible thanthat of the Cimbri, which it cost Marcus Aureliushis life to avert.Again, during the captivity of Valerian, anothergrand assault of the northern tribes takesplace. The Franks attack western, the Alamanseastern Gaul; they pass the Alps and advance toRavenna, while Alamans and Sarmatians throwthemselves upon Pannonia, and the Goths seizeupon Thrace and Greece. The emperors Claudius,Aurelian, and Probus are the saviours of Romefrom this new flood. Of the last of these it isrecorded that he dealt successively with Franks,Bmmindians, « Alamans, ^L_ _J^Jkl^UA,.l_J tVJL-LK^* Vandals, C t-L JL Vi-Clf J-O » the Bastarna*,and the whole barbarian brood : and sevent cities