Ted Poe: “this Hall that we work in every day is lined with 23 marble busts of great lawgivers that influenced American law. We…”

“this Hall that we work in every day is lined with 23 marble busts of great lawgivers that influenced American law. We have Hammurabi, Gaius, Justinian, Napoleon and, of course, Moses over here in the very center. But one of those people you won't see up there is Caesar Flavius Valens. Let me take you back 1,642 years, Mr. Speaker, and let's talk about a little bit of history. Caesar Valens controlled the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire at this time in the year 364 wasn't just Italy. It controlled all the area to the Balkans, the Mediterranean coastline, including North Africa, France, and even Spain and part of what is now England; and the Caesar of the Roman Empire at this time was Flavius Valens. He controlled basically the eastern part of the empire. And while he is Caesar, the barbarian nation of the Goths to his northeast started coming toward the Roman Empire. The reason was because the Huns, another barbarian group, had taken over the Goths' land and moved them toward the Roman Empire. So they migrated toward the Roman Empire, and at the time that this occurred, they came on the border. They were led by a person that was supposedly a friend of Rome, his name was Fritigern, King of the Goths, and he asked permission to come into Rome with some the Goths. Normally the Roman Government would not allow this, to have a state within a state; but, you see, Valens needed more people to be in his army and he needed more workers in the Empire of Rome.…”