ward by the Huns, who attacked them from the East. At first they tried to conquer the Eastern
Empire, but were defeated; then they turned upon Italy. Since Diocletian, they had been employed
as Roman mercenaries; this had taught them more of the art of war than barbarians would
otherwise have known. Alaric, King of the Goths, sacked Rome in 410, but died the same year.
Odovaker, King of the Ostrogoths, put an end to the Western Empire in 476, and reigned until
493, when he was treacherously murdered by another Ostrogoth, Theodoric, who was King of
Italy until 526. Of him I shall have more to say shortly. He was important both in history and
legend; in the Niebelungenlied he appears as "Dietrich von Bern" ("Bern" being Verona).
Meanwhile the Vandals established themselves in Africa, the Visigoths in the south of France, and
the Franks in the north.
In the middle of the Germanic invasion came the inroads of the Huns under Attila. The Huns were
of Mongol race, and yet they were often allied with the Goths. At the crucial moment, however,
when they invaded Gaul in 451, they had quarrelled with the Goths; the Goths and Romans
together defeated them in that year at Chalons. Attila then turned against Italy, and thought of
marching on Rome, but Pope Leo dissuaded him, pointing out that Alaric had died after sacking
Rome. His forbearance, however, did him no service, for he died in the following year. After his
death the power of the Huns collapsed.
During this period of confusion the Church was troubled by a complicated controversy on the
Incarnation. The protagonists in the debates were two ecclesiastics, Cyril and Nestorius, of whom,
more or less by accident, the former was proclaimed a saint and the latter a heretic. Saint Cyril
was patriarch of Alexandria from about 412 till his death in 444; Nestorius was patriarch of
Constantinople. The question at issue was the relation of Christ's divinity to His humanity. Were
there two Persons, one human and one divine? This was the view held by Nestorius. If not, was
there only one nature, or were there two natures in one person, a human nature and a divine
nature? These questions roused, in the fifth century, an almost incredible degree of passion and
fury. "A secret and incurable discord was cherished between those who were most apprehensive of
confound-