Edward Gibbon Quote

The union of the Roman empire was dissolved; its genius was humbled in the dust; and armies of unknown barbarians, issuing from the frozen regions of the North, had established their victorious reign over the fairest provinces of Europe and Africa.

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. The 2. Ed. - London, W. Strahan 1776-1788 (ed. 1781)