CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE CONVERSION OF THE BARBARIANS.
Introductory.—The most important event in the history of the tribes that took possession of the Roman empire in the West was their conversion to Christianity. Many of the barbarians were converted before or soon after their entrance into the empire; to this circumstance the Roman provinces owed their immunity from the excessive cruelties which pagan barbarians seldom fail to inflict upon a subjected enemy. Alaric left untouched the treasures of the churches of the Roman Christians, because his own faith was also Christian (see p. 342). For like reason the Vandal king Genseric yielded to the prayers of Pope Leo the Great, and promised to leave to the inhabitants of the Imperial City their lives (see p. 346). The more tolerable fate of Italy, Spain, and Gaul, as compared with the hard fate of Britain, is owing, in part at least, to the fact that the tribes which overran those countries had become, in the main, converts to Christianity before they crossed the boundaries of the empire, while the Saxons, when they entered Britain, were still untamed pagans.
Conversion of the Goths, Vandals, and Other Tribes.—The first converts to Christianity among the barbarians beyond the limits of the empire were won from among the Goths. Foremost of the apostles that arose among them was Ulfilas, who translated the Scriptures into the Gothic language, omitting from his version, however, "the Book of Kings," as he feared that the stirring recital of wars and battles in that portion of the Word might kindle into too fierce a flame the martial ardor of his new converts.
When the Visigoths, distressed by the Huns, besought the Eastern Emperor Valens for permission to cross the Danube, one of
