three quartered in the island to something like their proper strength.  But a crisis was now at hand which broke down all ordinary rules.  Rome was threatened with such a danger as she had not known since Marius, five hundred years before, had destroyed the Cimbri and Teutones (B.C. 101).  A like horde of Teutonic invaders, nearly half a million strong, came pouring over the Alps, under “Radagaisus the Goth,” as contemporary historians call him, though his claim, to Gothic lineage is not undisputed.  And these were not, like Alaric and his Visigoths, who were to reap the fruits of this effort, semi-civilized Christians, but heathen savages of the most ferocious type.  Every nerve had to be strained to crush them; and Stilicho did crush them.  But it was at a fearful cost.  Every Roman soldier within reach had to be swept to the rescue, and thus the Rhine frontier was left defenceless against the barbarian hordes pressing upon it.  Vandals, Sueves, Alans, Franks, Burgundians, rushed tumultuously over the peaceful and fertile fields of Gaul, never to be driven forth again.

C. 3.—­Of the three British legions one only seems to have been thus withdrawn,—­the Twentieth, whose head-quarters had been so long at Chester, and whose more recent duty had been to garrison the outlying province of Valentia, which may now perhaps have been again abandoned.  It seems to have been actually on the march towards Italy[353] when there was drawn up that wonderful document which gives us our last and completest glimpse of Roman Britain—­the Notitia Dignitatum Utriusque Imperii.

C. 4.—­This invaluable work sets forth in detail the whole machinery of the Imperial Government, its official hierarchy, both civil and military, in every land, and a summary of the forces under the authority of each commander.  A reference in Claudian would seem to show that it was compiled by the industry of Celerinus, the Primicerius Notariorum or Head Clerk of the Treasury.  The poet tells us how this indefatigable statistician—­

“Cunctorum tabulas assignat honorum, Regnorum tractat numeros, constringit in unum Sparsas Imperii vires, cuneosque recenset Dispositos; quae Sarmaticis custodia ripis, Quae saevis objecta Getis, quae Saxona frenat Vel Scotum legio; quantae cinxere cohortes Oceanum, quanto pacatur milite Rhenus."[354]

["Each rank, each office in his lists he shows, Tells every subject realm, together draws The Empire’s scattered force, recounts the hosts In order meet;—­which Legion is on guard By Danube’s banks, which fronts the savage Goth, Which curbs the Saxon, which the Scot; what bands Begird the Ocean, what keep watch on Rhine.”]

To us the ‘Notitia’ is only known by the 16th-century copies of a 10th-century MS. which has now disappeared.[355] But these were made with exceptional care, and are as nearly as may be facsimiles of the original, even preserving its illuminated illustrations, including the distinctive insignia of every corps in the Roman Army.