<P> Although these men differ in customs and language from those with whom they have taken refuge, and are unaccustomed too, if I may say so, to the nauseous odor of the bodies and clothing of the barbarians, yet they prefer the strange life they find there to the injustice rife among the Romans . So you find men passing over everywhere, now to the Goths, now to the Bagaudae, or whatever other barbarians have established their power anywhere...We call those men rebels and utterly abandoned, whom we ourselves have forced into crime . For by what other causes were they made Bagaudae save by our unjust acts, the wicked decisions of the magistrates, the proscription and extortion of those who have turned the public exactions to the increase of their private fortunes and made the tax indictions their opportunity for plunder? </P> <P> From Britannia comes an indication of the prosperity which freedom from taxes could bring . </P> <P> No sooner were the ravages of the enemy checked, than the island was deluged with a most extraordinary plenty of all things, greater than was before known, and with it grew up every kind of luxury and licentiousness . </P> <P> Nevertheless, effective imperial protection from barbarian ravages was eagerly sought . About this time authorities in Britannia asked Aetius for help: </P>

The fall of the roman empire in the west