Note 25 — Chapter II · THE VISIGOTHIC INVASION

Mœller (Histoire du Moyen Age, p. 58), estimates that the Goths who now entered Thrace numbered not fewer than 200,000 grown men, accompanied by their wives and children. The Italian Villari, in his Barbarian Invasions of Italy, Vol. I., p. 49, gives the same estimate. The tendency of contemporary chroniclers to exaggerate numbers has misled many older writers. Even Mœller's and Villari's estimate would mean a total of upwards of a million people. That there were so many may well be doubted. The Vandals played practically as important a part in the history of their times as did the Visigoths; yet it is known that when the Vandals passed through Spain, in the first half of the fifth century, they numbered not more than 20,000 fighting men, with their wives and children.