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BOOK IV. THE MIDDLE AGES CHAPTER XV I. INVASION OF THE EMPIRE BY BARBARIANS 284. The Menace of the Barbarians. We must now describe the way in which the western portions of the Roman Empire were invaded by barbarous peoples from the North, who broke up the old Roman government and established in its stead kingdoms under their own rulers. These Germans, or "barbarians" as the Romans called them, belonged to the same great group of peoples to which the Persians, Greeks, and Romans belonged the Indo- European race ( 50, 51). They had not advanced much in civil- ization since the Late Stone Age and were a constant menace to the highly civilized countries on the Mediterranean to the south of them. It will be recalled that the barbarians had raided the Empire from time to time. In the reign of Diocletian they were beginning to form permanent settlements within its borders ( 276). 285. The German Peoples. The Germans were a fair-haired, blue-eyed race of men of towering stature and terrible strength, as it seemed to the Romans. Hardened to wind and weather in their raw Northern climate, their native fearlessness and love of war and plunder often led them to wander about, followed by their wives and families in heavy wagons. Each village group was protected by its body of about a hundred warriors, the heads of the village families. In spite of lack of training, these fighting groups of a hundred men, bound by ties of blood and daily 181