Californians wanted many things, accumulation, social success, amusement, luxury, and a curious banking security, the new barbarians wanted only two things – land and food.
– John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 19. The "new barbarians" are the hundreds of thousands of dispossessed migrants flowing into California. There is a message and warning in this passage for landowners in California. The barbarian tribes of Europe were involved in multiple wars and clashes with the Roman Empire. The Visigoths under Alaric sacked Rome in 410, signaling the beginning of the end of the Western Roman Empire. Much of the conflict between the barbarians and Romans was driven by the hunger for land. Now the migrants who have invaded California have that same hunger.