 As for literacy in Sweden itself, the runic script was invented among the south Scandinavian elite in the second century, but all that has come down to the present from the Roman Period is curt inscriptions on artefacts, mainly of male names, demonstrating that the people of south Scandinavia spoke Proto-Norse at the time, a language ancestral to modern Swedish and others.The changes in material culture marking the start of the Migration Period appear to coincide with the arrival of the Huns on the continental stage.A brief tumultuous phase ensued during which the Western Roman Empire collapsed and the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) held the barbarians at bay only through enormous peace payments.