_Vastum ubique silentium, secreti colles; fumantia procul tecta; nemo exploratoribus obvius_, is what Tacitus calls _facies victoriae_.

It is always so; but was here emphatically so.

From the north proceeded the swarms of Goths, Vandals, Huns, Ostrogoths, who ran towards the south, into Africa itself, which suffered as all to the north had done.

About this time, another torrent of barbarians, animated by the same fury, and encouraged by the same success, poured out of the south, and ravaged all to the northeast and west, to the remotest parts of Persia on one hand, and to the banks of the Loire or farther on the other; destroying all the proud and curious monuments of human art, that not even the memory might seem to survive of the former inhabitants.

What has been done since, and what will continue to be done while the same inducements to war continue, I shall not dwell upon.