Examines the barbarians from Europe and beyond who harassed, eroded and eventually caused the disintegration of the Roman Empire, including the Huns, Mongolian horsemen who swept into Europe to form a short-lived empire from the Urals to the Rhine; the Visigoths, or western Goths, who sacked Rome in 410 and ruled Spain from Toledo until the Moorish conquest in 711; the Ostrogoths, or eastern Goths, who ruled Italy from 493 until the Emperor Justinian drove them out in 534; the Franks, a group of Germanic tribes who came to rule France under the Merovingians; and the Vandals, fierce Arian Christians who invaded Gaul and Spain around 400 and sacked Rome in 455.