He saw the terrible German king-maker Ricimer throne and unthrone a series of puppet emperors, he saw the last remnant of Gallic independence thrown away and himself become a barbarian subject, and he saw a few years before he died the fall of the empire in the west.
They cannot, Sidonius and his friends, ignore as Ausonius and his friends did, that something is happening to the empire.

The men of the fifth century are concerned at these disasters and they console themselves, each according to his kind.

There are some who think it cannot last.

After all, they say, the empire has been in a tight place before and has always got out of it in the end and risen supreme over its enemies.

Thus Sidonius himself, the very year after they sacked the city; Rome has endured as much before--there was Porsenna, there was Brennus, there was Hannibal....