Only that time Rome did not get over it.
Others tried to use the disasters to castigate the sins of society.

Thus Salvian of Marseilles who would no doubt have been called the gloomy dean if he had not been a bishop.

For him all that the decadent Roman civilization needs is to copy some of the virtues of these fresh young barbarian people.

There is the familiar figure of Orosius, defending the barbarians with the argument that when the Roman empire was founded it was founded in blood and conquest and can ill afford to throw stones at the barbarians; and after all the barbarians are not so bad.

'If the unhappy people they have despoiled will content themselves with the little that is left them, their conquerors will cherish them as friends and brothers.' Others, especially the more thoughtful churchmen are much concerned to explain why an empire which had flourished under paganism should be thus beset under Christianity.