136. Les Goths ravagerent tout depuis le Danube jusqu'au
Bosphore; exterminerent Valens et son armee; et ne
repasserent le Danube que pour abandonner l'affreuse
solitude qu'ils avoient faite (Oeuvres de Montesquieu, tom.
iii. p. 479; Considerations sur les Causes de la Grandeur et
de la Decadence des Romains, c. xvii.). The president
Montesquieu seems ignorant that the Goths, after the defeat
of Valens, never abandoned the Roman territory. It is now
thirty years, says Claudian (de Bello Getico, 166, etc.,
A.D. 404),
Ex quo jam patrios gens haec oblita Triones,
Atque Istrum transvecta semel, vestigia fixit
Threicio funesta solo___
The error is inexcusable; since it disguises the principal
and immediate cause of the fall of the Western empire of
Rome.