weakness in Gaul, where a force of Vandals, Sueves, and Alans broke through the Rhine frontier in the winter of 406/7 and Constantius, a usurper from Britain, set up a short-lived empire based on Arles. By 418 the imperial government got the upper hand over the twin dangers of sedition and invasion by the increasingly familiar expedient of setting a thief to catch thieves. The promise of land and subsidies together with the threat of a food blockade enforced by Roman naval power induced the Visigoths into repelling the Alans and Vandals and settling in Aquitaine as Roman federati (allies).

The first half of the fifth century saw the settlement of Germanic peoples in most areas of the western Mediterranean, and in the main this process took place smoothly and peacefully. In Gaul the Visigoths and the Burgundians, who were settled first on the Rhine and later in Savoy, served as a bulwark against peasant rebels and other barbarians, took only a proportion of the land for themselves, and allowed the Romans to retain their institutions as nominal subjects of the emperor. Spain lapsed into a period of confusion and obscurity following the invasion of the Vandals and their Sueve and Alan allies. In 429 the Vandals moved on to Africa and Visigothic overlordship was eventually established over most of the country.

Africa is the province of the western Mediterranean whose fate approximates most closely to the popular view of catastrophic invasion. The Vandals, led by their remarkable king, Gaiseric, were quick to throw off the façade of allied status and seized Carthage and the other cities of what was once one of the richest of Rome's provinces. The Roman population was relentlessly taxed, the Catholic hierarchy was persecuted, and naval raids were launched against Roman targets throughout the Mediterranean.

Italy and the imperial court at Ravenna felt little direct effect from what appeared to be a phoney war against the barbarians. This immunity was the achievement of two capable commanders-in-chief, Constantius and Aëtius, 'the last of the Romans', who manipulated the invaders in order to shore up the tottering empire. Aëtius' balancing act failed when his

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