But Rome was gone.

The mosaics, the coins which we dig up in our fields are no relics of our English fathers, but of a world which our fathers' sword swept utterly away.

Its law, its literature, its manners, its faith, went with it.

Nothing was a stronger proof of the completeness of this destruction of all Roman life than the religious change which passed over the land.

Alone among the German assailants of Rome the English stood aloof from the faith of the Empire they helped to overthrow.