THE  GERMANIC   INVASION                   13

of the empire, destroying the monuments, killing or
taking captive the peasants.

The Vandals left so clear a memory of their work
that the word Vandalism continues to signify the
passion for destruction. The J inns, a people of Tartar
horsemen, said that the grass never grew on the soil
touched by the hoofs of their horses. Many cities
were razed to the ground and were never rebuilt;
others fell to the rank of fortified villages* The the-
atres, the baths, the schools, all the Roman remains of
civilization gradually fell to ruin; in many of the vil-
lages the inhabitants took stones from them to build
ramparts. There were no longer any artists, there
were only artisans, and these in but small number and
incapable of performing any but the rudest tasks.
There were no public shows, no schools, no literature.
The inhabitants of the empire became like the bar-
barians. A monk who wrote the history of the Mero-
vingian kings says sadly, "The world is growing old,
keenness of intelligence is departing from us: there is
no one in our days who pretends to compare with the
orators of the past/'

New Peoples.—The imperial regime in Europe was
destroyed by the barbarians. After 476 there were no
more emperors in Rome. Each barbarian king became
master over the territory which his people occupied*1
The western empire broke up into several barbarian

* Along the whole frontier of the empire where the inhabitants
&ad disappeared, the country was repopulated by barbarians
who retained their Germanic customs and language-—the
Flemish in Belgium, the Franks on the left banks of the Rhine,
the Swabians in Switzerland, the Bavarians in Bavaria and
Austria, Between the Danube and the Balkans were settled
the Croats and Serbs, peoples of the Slavic race.