The court and the people were astonished by the strange intelligence,

that a virtuous hero, after so many favors, and so many services, had

renounced his allegiance, and invited the Barbarians to destroy the

province intrusted to his command. The friends of Boniface, who still

believed that his criminal behavior might be excused by some honorable

motive, solicited, during the absence of Ætius, a free conference with

the Count of Africa; and Darius, an officer of high distinction, was

named for the important embassy. In their first interview at Carthage,

the imaginary provocations were mutually explained; the opposite letters

of Ætius were produced and compared; and the fraud was easily detected.

Placidia and Boniface lamented their fatal error; and the count had

sufficient magnanimity to confide in the forgiveness of his sovereign,

or to expose his head to her future resentment. His repentance was

fervent and sincere; but he soon discovered that it was no longer in

his power to restore the edifice which he had shaken to its foundations.

Carthage and the Roman garrisons returned with their general to the

allegiance of Valentinian; but the rest of Africa was still distracted

with war and faction; and the inexorable king of the Vandals, disdaining

all terms of accommodation, sternly refused to relinquish the possession

of his prey. The band of veterans who marched under the standard of

Boniface, and his hasty levies of provincial troops, were defeated with

considerable loss; the victorious Barbarians insulted the open country;

and Carthage, Cirta, and Hippo Regius, were the only cities that

appeared to rise above the general inundation.

The long and narrow tract of the African coast was filled with frequent

monuments of Roman art and magnificence; and the respective degrees of

improvement might be accurately measured by the distance from Carthage

and the Mediterranean. A simple reflection will impress every thinking

mind with the clearest idea of fertility and cultivation: the country

was extremely populous; the inhabitants reserved a liberal subsistence

for their own use; and the annual exportation, particularly of wheat,

was so regular and plentiful, that Africa deserved the name of the

common granary of Rome and of mankind. On a sudden the seven fruitful

provinces, from Tangier to Tripoli, were overwhelmed by the invasion

of the Vandals; whose destructive rage has perhaps been exaggerated by

popular animosity, religious zeal, and extravagant declamation. War, in

its fairest form, implies a perpetual violation of humanity and justice;

and the hostilities of Barbarians are inflamed by the fierce and lawless

spirit which incessantly disturbs their peaceful and domestic society.

The Vandals, where they found resistance, seldom gave quarter; and the

deaths of their valiant countrymen were expiated by the ruin of the

cities under whose walls they had fallen. Careless of the distinctions

of age, or sex, or rank, they employed every species of indignity and

torture, to force from the captives a discovery of their hidden wealth.

The stern policy of Genseric justified his frequent examples of military

execution: he was not always the master of his own passions, or of

those of his followers; and the calamities of war were aggravated by the

licentiousness of the Moors, and the fanaticism of the Donatists. Yet

I shall not easily be persuaded, that it was the common practice of the

Vandals to extirpate the olives, and other fruit trees, of a country

where they intended to settle: nor can I believe that it was a usual

stratagem to slaughter great numbers of their prisoners before the

walls of a besieged city, for the sole purpose of infecting the air,

and producing a pestilence, of which they themselves must have been the

first victims.

The generous mind of Count Boniface was tortured by the exquisite

distress of beholding the ruin which he had occasioned, and whose rapid

progress he was unable to check. After the loss of a battle he retired

into Hippo Regius; where he was immediately besieged by an enemy, who

considered him as the real bulwark of Africa. The maritime colony

of Hippo, about two hundred miles westward of Carthage, had formerly

acquired the distinguishing epithet of Regius, from the residence of

Numidian kings; and some remains of trade and populousness still adhere

to the modern city, which is known in Europe by the corrupted name of

Bona. The military labors, and anxious reflections, of Count Boniface,

were alleviated by the edifying conversation of his friend St. Augustin;

till that bishop, the light and pillar of the Catholic church,

was gently released, in the third month of the siege, and in the

seventy-sixth year of his age, from the actual and the impending

calamities of his country. The youth of Augustin had been stained by the

vices and errors which he so ingenuously confesses; but from the moment

of his conversion to that of his death, the manners of the bishop of

Hippo were pure and austere: and the most conspicuous of his virtues was

an ardent zeal against heretics of every denomination; the Manichæans,

the Donatists, and the Pelagians, against whom he waged a perpetual

controversy. When the city, some months after his death, was burnt by

the Vandals, the library was fortunately saved, which contained his

voluminous writings; two hundred and thirty-two separate books or

treatises on theological subjects, besides a complete exposition of the

psalter and the gospel, and a copious magazine of epistles and homilies.

According to the judgment of the most impartial critics, the superficial

learning of Augustin was confined to the Latin language; and his style,

though sometimes animated by the eloquence of passion, is usually

clouded by false and affected rhetoric. But he possessed a strong,

capacious, argumentative mind; he boldly sounded the dark abyss of

grace, predestination, free will, and original sin; and the rigid system

of Christianity which he framed or restored, has been entertained, with

public applause, and secret reluctance, by the Latin church.

Chapter XXXIII: Conquest Of Africa By The Vandals.—Part II.

By the skill of Boniface, and perhaps by the ignorance of the Vandals,

the siege of Hippo was protracted above fourteen months: the sea was

continually open; and when the adjacent country had been exhausted by

irregular rapine, the besiegers themselves were compelled by famine to

relinquish their enterprise. The importance and danger of Africa were

deeply felt by the regent of the West. Placidia implored the assistance

of her eastern ally; and the Italian fleet and army were reënforced by

Asper, who sailed from Constantinople with a powerful armament. As

soon as the force of the two empires was united under the command of

Boniface, he boldly marched against the Vandals; and the loss of a

second battle irretrievably decided the fate of Africa. He embarked with

the precipitation of despair; and the people of Hippo were permitted,

with their families and effects, to occupy the vacant place of the

soldiers, the greatest part of whom were either slain or made prisoners

by the Vandals. The count, whose fatal credulity had wounded the vitals

of the republic, might enter the palace of Ravenna with some anxiety,

which was soon removed by the smiles of Placidia. Boniface accepted with

gratitude the rank of patrician, and the dignity of master-general of

the Roman armies; but he must have blushed at the sight of those medals,

in which he was represented with the name and attributes of victory.

The discovery of his fraud, the displeasure of the empress, and the

distinguished favor of his rival, exasperated the haughty and perfidious

soul of Ætius. He hastily returned from Gaul to Italy, with a retinue,

or rather with an army, of Barbarian followers; and such was the

weakness of the government, that the two generals decided their private

quarrel in a bloody battle. Boniface was successful; but he received in

the conflict a mortal wound from the spear of his adversary, of which he

expired within a few days, in such Christian and charitable sentiments,

that he exhorted his wife, a rich heiress of Spain, to accept Ætius for

her second husband. But Ætius could not derive any immediate advantage

from the generosity of his dying enemy: he was proclaimed a rebel by

the justice of Placidia; and though he attempted to defend some strong

fortresses, erected on his patrimonial estate, the Imperial power soon

compelled him to retire into Pannonia, to the tents of his faithful

Huns. The republic was deprived, by their mutual discord, of the service

of her two most illustrious champions.

It might naturally be expected, after the retreat of Boniface, that

the Vandals would achieve, without resistance or delay, the conquest of

Africa. Eight years, however, elapsed, from the evacuation of Hippo to

the reduction of Carthage. In the midst of that interval, the ambitious

Genseric, in the full tide of apparent prosperity, negotiated a treaty

of peace, by which he gave his son Hunneric for a hostage; and consented

to leave the Western emperor in the undisturbed possession of the three

Mauritanias. This moderation, which cannot be imputed to the justice,

must be ascribed to the policy, of the conqueror. His throne was

encompassed with domestic enemies, who accused the baseness of his

birth, and asserted the legitimate claims of his nephews, the sons of

Gonderic. Those nephews, indeed, he sacrificed to his safety; and their

mother, the widow of the deceased king, was precipitated, by his

order, into the river Ampsaga. But the public discontent burst forth in

dangerous and frequent conspiracies; and the warlike tyrant is supposed

to have shed more Vandal blood by the hand of the executioner, than in

the field of battle. The convulsions of Africa, which had favored his

attack, opposed the firm establishment of his power; and the various

seditions of the Moors and Germans, the Donatists and Catholics,

continually disturbed, or threatened, the unsettled reign of the

conqueror. As he advanced towards Carthage, he was forced to withdraw

his troops from the Western provinces; the sea-coast was exposed to the

naval enterprises of the Romans of Spain and Italy; and, in the heart

of Numidia, the strong inland city of Corta still persisted in obstinate

independence. These difficulties were gradually subdued by the spirit,

the perseverance, and the cruelty of Genseric; who alternately applied

the arts of peace and war to the establishment of his African kingdom.

He subscribed a solemn treaty, with the hope of deriving some advantage

from the term of its continuance, and the moment of its violation. The

vigilance of his enemies was relaxed by the protestations of friendship,

which concealed his hostile approach; and Carthage was at length

surprised by the Vandals, five hundred and eighty-five years after the

destruction of the city and republic by the younger Scipio.

A new city had arisen from its ruins, with the title of a colony; and

though Carthage might yield to the royal prerogatives of Constantinople,

and perhaps to the trade of Alexandria, or the splendor of Antioch, she

still maintained the second rank in the West; as the Rome (if we may

use the style of contemporaries) of the African world. That wealthy and

opulent metropolis displayed, in a dependent condition, the image of a

flourishing republic. Carthage contained the manufactures, the arms,

and the treasures of the six provinces. A regular subordination of

civil honors gradually ascended from the procurators of the streets and

quarters of the city, to the tribunal of the supreme magistrate, who,

with the title of proconsul, represented the state and dignity of a

consul of ancient Rome. Schools and gymnasia were instituted for the

education of the African youth; and the liberal arts and manners,

grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy, were publicly taught in the Greek and

Latin languages. The buildings of Carthage were uniform and magnificent;

a shady grove was planted in the midst of the capital; the new port, a

secure and capacious harbor, was subservient to the commercial industry

of citizens and strangers; and the splendid games of the circus and

theatre were exhibited almost in the presence of the Barbarians. The

reputation of the Carthaginians was not equal to that of their country,

and the reproach of Punic faith still adhered to their subtle and

faithless character. The habits of trade, and the abuse of luxury, had

corrupted their manners; but their impious contempt of monks, and the

shameless practice of unnatural lusts, are the two abominations which

excite the pious vehemence of Salvian, the preacher of the age. The king

of the Vandals severely reformed the vices of a voluptuous people; and

the ancient, noble, ingenuous freedom of Carthage (these expressions of

Victor are not without energy) was reduced by Genseric into a state of

ignominious servitude. After he had permitted his licentious troops to

satiate their rage and avarice, he instituted a more regular system

of rapine and oppression. An edict was promulgated, which enjoined all

persons, without fraud or delay, to deliver their gold, silver, jewels,

and valuable furniture or apparel, to the royal officers; and the

attempt to secrete any part of their patrimony was inexorably punished

with death and torture, as an act of treason against the state. The

lands of the proconsular province, which formed the immediate district

of Carthage, were accurately measured, and divided among the Barbarians;

and the conqueror reserved for his peculiar domain the fertile territory

of Byzacium, and the adjacent parts of Numidia and Getulia.

It was natural enough that Genseric should hate those whom he had

injured: the nobility and senators of Carthage were exposed to his

jealousy and resentment; and all those who refused the ignominious

terms, which their honor and religion forbade them to accept, were

compelled by the Arian tyrant to embrace the condition of perpetual

banishment. Rome, Italy, and the provinces of the East, were filled

with a crowd of exiles, of fugitives, and of ingenuous captives,

who solicited the public compassion; and the benevolent epistles of

Theodoret still preserve the names and misfortunes of Cælestian and

Maria. The Syrian bishop deplores the misfortunes of Cælestian, who,

from the state of a noble and opulent senator of Carthage, was reduced,

with his wife and family, and servants, to beg his bread in a foreign

country; but he applauds the resignation of the Christian exile, and the

philosophic temper, which, under the pressure of such calamities,

could enjoy more real happiness than was the ordinary lot of wealth

and prosperity. The story of Maria, the daughter of the magnificent

Eudæmon, is singular and interesting. In the sack of Carthage, she was

purchased from the Vandals by some merchants of Syria, who afterwards

sold her as a slave in their native country. A female attendant,

transported in the same ship, and sold in the same family, still

continued to respect a mistress whom fortune had reduced to the common

level of servitude; and the daughter of Eudæmon received from her

grateful affection the domestic services which she had once required

from her obedience. This remarkable behavior divulged the real condition

of Maria, who, in the absence of the bishop of Cyrrhus, was redeemed

from slavery by the generosity of some soldiers of the garrison. The

liberality of Theodoret provided for her decent maintenance; and she

passed ten months among the deaconesses of the church; till she was

unexpectedly informed, that her father, who had escaped from the ruin of

Carthage, exercised an honorable office in one of the Western provinces.

Her filial impatience was seconded by the pious bishop: Theodoret, in a

letter still extant, recommends Maria to the bishop of Ægæ, a maritime

city of Cilicia, which was frequented, during the annual fair, by the

vessels of the West; most earnestly requesting, that his colleague would

use the maiden with a tenderness suitable to her birth; and that he

would intrust her to the care of such faithful merchants, as would

esteem it a sufficient gain, if they restored a daughter, lost beyond

all human hope, to the arms of her afflicted parent.

Among the insipid legends of ecclesiastical history, I am tempted to

distinguish the memorable fable of the Seven Sleepers; whose imaginary

date corresponds with the reign of the younger Theodosius, and the

conquest of Africa by the Vandals. When the emperor Decius persecuted

the Christians, seven noble youths of Ephesus concealed themselves in

a spacious cavern in the side of an adjacent mountain; where they were

doomed to perish by the tyrant, who gave orders that the entrance should

be firmly secured by the a pile of huge stones. They immediately fell

into a deep slumber, which was miraculously prolonged without injuring

the powers of life, during a period of one hundred and eighty-seven

years. At the end of that time, the slaves of Adolius, to whom the

inheritance of the mountain had descended, removed the stones to supply

materials for some rustic edifice: the light of the sun darted into the

cavern, and the Seven Sleepers were permitted to awake. After a slumber,

as they thought of a few hours, they were pressed by the calls of

hunger; and resolved that Jamblichus, one of their number, should

secretly return to the city to purchase bread for the use of his

companions. The youth (if we may still employ that appellation) could no

longer recognize the once familiar aspect of his native country; and his

surprise was increased by the appearance of a large cross, triumphantly

erected over the principal gate of Ephesus. His singular dress, and

obsolete language, confounded the baker, to whom he offered an ancient

medal of Decius as the current coin of the empire; and Jamblichus, on

the suspicion of a secret treasure, was dragged before the judge. Their

mutual inquiries produced the amazing discovery, that two centuries were

almost elapsed since Jamblichus and his friends had escaped from

the rage of a Pagan tyrant. The bishop of Ephesus, the clergy, the

magistrates, the people, and, as it is said, the emperor Theodosius

himself, hastened to visit the cavern of the Seven Sleepers; who

bestowed their benediction, related their story, and at the same

instant peaceably expired. The origin of this marvellous fable cannot

be ascribed to the pious fraud and credulity of the modern Greeks,

since the authentic tradition may be traced within half a century of the

supposed miracle. James of Sarug, a Syrian bishop, who was born only two

years after the death of the younger Theodosius, has devoted one of

his two hundred and thirty homilies to the praise of the young men

of Ephesus. Their legend, before the end of the sixth century, was

translated from the Syriac into the Latin language, by the care of

Gregory of Tours. The hostile communions of the East preserve their

memory with equal reverence; and their names are honorably inscribed

in the Roman, the Abyssinian, and the Russian calendar. Nor has their

reputation been confined to the Christian world. This popular tale,

which Mahomet might learn when he drove his camels to the fairs of

Syria, is introduced as a divine revelation, into the Koran. The story

of the Seven Sleepers has been adopted and adorned by the nations, from

Bengal to Africa, who profess the Mahometan religion; and some vestiges

of a similar tradition have been discovered in the remote extremities of

Scandinavia. This easy and universal belief, so expressive of the sense

of mankind, may be ascribed to the genuine merit of the fable itself. We

imperceptibly advance from youth to age, without observing the

gradual, but incessant, change of human affairs; and even in our larger

experience of history, the imagination is accustomed, by a perpetual

series of causes and effects, to unite the most distant revolutions.

But if the interval between two memorable æras could be instantly

annihilated; if it were possible, after a momentary slumber of two

hundred years, to display the new world to the eyes of a spectator, who

still retained a lively and recent impression of the old, his

surprise and his reflections would furnish the pleasing subject of

a philosophical romance. The scene could not be more advantageously

placed, than in the two centuries which elapsed between the reigns of

Decius and of Theodosius the Younger. During this period, the seat of

government had been transported from Rome to a new city on the banks

of the Thracian Bosphorus; and the abuse of military spirit had been

suppressed by an artificial system of tame and ceremonious servitude.

The throne of the persecuting Decius was filled by a succession of

Christian and orthodox princes, who had extirpated the fabulous gods of

antiquity: and the public devotion of the age was impatient to exalt the

saints and martyrs of the Catholic church, on the altars of Diana and

Hercules. The union of the Roman empire was dissolved; its genius was

humbled in the dust; and armies of unknown Barbarians, issuing from the

frozen regions of the North, had established their victorious reign over

the fairest provinces of Europe and Africa.

Chapter XXXIV: Attila.—Part I.

The Character, Conquests, And Court Of Attila, King Of The

Huns.—Death Of Theodosius The Younger.—Elevation Of

Marcian To The Empire Of The East.

The Western world was oppressed by the Goths and Vandals, who fled

before the Huns; but the achievements of the Huns themselves were not

adequate to their power and prosperity. Their victorious hordes had

spread from the Volga to the Danube; but the public force was exhausted

by the discord of independent chieftains; their valor was idly consumed

in obscure and predatory excursions; and they often degraded their

national dignity, by condescending, for the hopes of spoil, to enlist

under the banners of their fugitive enemies. In the reign of Attila, the

Huns again became the terror of the world; and I shall now describe

the character and actions of that formidable Barbarian; who alternately

insulted and invaded the East and the West, and urged the rapid downfall

of the Roman empire.

In the tide of emigration which impetuously rolled from the confines

of China to those of Germany, the most powerful and populous tribes may

commonly be found on the verge of the Roman provinces. The accumulated

weight was sustained for a while by artificial barriers; and the easy

condescension of the emperors invited, without satisfying, the insolent

demands of the Barbarians, who had acquired an eager appetite for the

luxuries of civilized life. The Hungarians, who ambitiously insert the

name of Attila among their native kings, may affirm with truth that the

hordes, which were subject to his uncle Roas, or Rugilas, had formed

their encampments within the limits of modern Hungary, in a fertile

country, which liberally supplied the wants of a nation of hunters and

shepherds. In this advantageous situation, Rugilas, and his valiant

brothers, who continually added to their power and reputation, commanded

the alternative of peace or war with the two empires. His alliance with

the Romans of the West was cemented by his personal friendship for the

great Ætius; who was always secure of finding, in the Barbarian camp, a

hospitable reception and a powerful support. At his solicitation, and

in the name of John the usurper, sixty thousand Huns advanced to the

confines of Italy; their march and their retreat were alike expensive to

the state; and the grateful policy of Ætius abandoned the possession of

Pannonia to his faithful confederates. The Romans of the East were

not less apprehensive of the arms of Rugilas, which threatened the

provinces, or even the capital. Some ecclesiastical historians have

destroyed the Barbarians with lightning and pestilence; but Theodosius

was reduced to the more humble expedient of stipulating an annual

payment of three hundred and fifty pounds of gold, and of disguising

this dishonorable tribute by the title of general, which the king of

the Huns condescended to accept. The public tranquillity was frequently

interrupted by the fierce impatience of the Barbarians, and the

perfidious intrigues of the Byzantine court. Four dependent nations,

among whom we may distinguish the Barbarians, disclaimed the sovereignty

of the Huns; and their revolt was encouraged and protected by a Roman

alliance; till the just claims, and formidable power, of Rugilas, were

effectually urged by the voice of Eslaw his ambassador. Peace was the

unanimous wish of the senate: their decree was ratified by the emperor;

and two ambassadors were named, Plinthas, a general of Scythian

extraction, but of consular rank; and the quæstor Epigenes, a wise

and experienced statesman, who was recommended to that office by his

ambitious colleague.

The death of Rugilas suspended the progress of the treaty. His two

nephews, Attila and Bleda, who succeeded to the throne of their

uncle, consented to a personal interview with the ambassadors of

Constantinople; but as they proudly refused to dismount, the business

was transacted on horseback, in a spacious plain near the city of

Margus, in the Upper Mæsia. The kings of the Huns assumed the solid

benefits, as well as the vain honors, of the negotiation. They dictated

the conditions of peace, and each condition was an insult on the majesty

of the empire. Besides the freedom of a safe and plentiful market on the

banks of the Danube, they required that the annual contribution should

be augmented from three hundred and fifty to seven hundred pounds of

gold; that a fine or ransom of eight pieces of gold should be paid for

every Roman captive who had escaped from his Barbarian master; that the

emperor should renounce all treaties and engagements with the enemies of

the Huns; and that all the fugitives who had taken refuge in the court

or provinces of Theodosius, should be delivered to the justice of

their offended sovereign. This justice was rigorously inflicted on

some unfortunate youths of a royal race. They were crucified on the

territories of the empire, by the command of Attila: and as soon as the

king of the Huns had impressed the Romans with the terror of his name,

he indulged them in a short and arbitrary respite, whilst he subdued the

rebellious or independent nations of Scythia and Germany.

Attila, the son of Mundzuk, deduced his noble, perhaps his regal,

descent from the ancient Huns, who had formerly contended with the

monarchs of China. His features, according to the observation of

a Gothic historian, bore the stamp of his national origin; and the

portrait of Attila exhibits the genuine deformity of a modern Calmuk; a

large head, a swarthy complexion, small, deep-seated eyes, a flat nose,

a few hairs in the place of a beard, broad shoulders, and a short square

body, of nervous strength, though of a disproportioned form. The haughty

step and demeanor of the king of the Huns expressed the consciousness

of his superiority above the rest of mankind; and he had a custom of

fiercely rolling his eyes, as if he wished to enjoy the terror which

he inspired. Yet this savage hero was not inaccessible to pity; his

suppliant enemies might confide in the assurance of peace or pardon; and

Attila was considered by his subjects as a just and indulgent master. He

delighted in war; but, after he had ascended the throne in a mature age,

his head, rather than his hand, achieved the conquest of the North; and

the fame of an adventurous soldier was usefully exchanged for that of

a prudent and successful general. The effects of personal valor are so

inconsiderable, except in poetry or romance, that victory, even among

Barbarians, must depend on the degree of skill with which the passions

of the multitude are combined and guided for the service of a single

man. The Scythian conquerors, Attila and Zingis, surpassed their rude

countrymen in art rather than in courage; and it may be observed that

the monarchies, both of the Huns and of the Moguls, were erected by

their founders on the basis of popular superstition The miraculous

conception, which fraud and credulity ascribed to the virgin-mother

of Zingis, raised him above the level of human nature; and the naked

prophet, who in the name of the Deity invested him with the empire of

the earth, pointed the valor of the Moguls with irresistible enthusiasm.

The religious arts of Attila were not less skillfully adapted to

the character of his age and country. It was natural enough that the

Scythians should adore, with peculiar devotion, the god of war; but as

they were incapable of forming either an abstract idea, or a corporeal

representation, they worshipped their tutelar deity under the symbol

of an iron cimeter. One of the shepherds of the Huns perceived, that a

heifer, who was grazing, had wounded herself in the foot, and curiously

followed the track of the blood, till he discovered, among the long

grass, the point of an ancient sword, which he dug out of the ground

and presented to Attila. That magnanimous, or rather that artful,

prince accepted, with pious gratitude, this celestial favor; and, as

the rightful possessor of the sword of Mars, asserted his divine and

indefeasible claim to the dominion of the earth. If the rites of Scythia

were practised on this solemn occasion, a lofty altar, or rather pile

of fagots, three hundred yards in length and in breadth, was raised in a

spacious plain; and the sword of Mars was placed erect on the summit of

this rustic altar, which was annually consecrated by the blood of sheep,

horses, and of the hundredth captive. Whether human sacrifices formed

any part of the worship of Attila, or whether he propitiated the god

of war with the victims which he continually offered in the field of

battle, the favorite of Mars soon acquired a sacred character, which

rendered his conquests more easy and more permanent; and the Barbarian

princes confessed, in the language of devotion or flattery, that they

could not presume to gaze, with a steady eye, on the divine majesty of

the king of the Huns. His brother Bleda, who reigned over a considerable

part of the nation, was compelled to resign his sceptre and his life.

Yet even this cruel act was attributed to a supernatural impulse; and

the vigor with which Attila wielded the sword of Mars, convinced the

world that it had been reserved alone for his invincible arm. But the

extent of his empire affords the only remaining evidence of the number

and importance of his victories; and the Scythian monarch, however

ignorant of the value of science and philosophy, might perhaps lament

that his illiterate subjects were destitute of the art which could

perpetuate the memory of his exploits.

If a line of separation were drawn between the civilized and the savage

climates of the globe; between the inhabitants of cities, who cultivated

the earth, and the hunters and shepherds, who dwelt in tents, Attila

might aspire to the title of supreme and sole monarch of the Barbarians.

He alone, among the conquerors of ancient and modern times, united

the two mighty kingdoms of Germany and Scythia; and those vague

appellations, when they are applied to his reign, may be understood with

an ample latitude. Thuringia, which stretched beyond its actual limits

as far as the Danube, was in the number of his provinces; he interposed,

with the weight of a powerful neighbor, in the domestic affairs of the

Franks; and one of his lieutenants chastised, and almost exterminated,

the Burgundians of the Rhine. He subdued the islands of the ocean, the

kingdoms of Scandinavia, encompassed and divided by the waters of the

Baltic; and the Huns might derive a tribute of furs from that northern

region, which has been protected from all other conquerors by the

severity of the climate, and the courage of the natives. Towards the

East, it is difficult to circumscribe the dominion of Attila over the

Scythian deserts; yet we may be assured, that he reigned on the banks of

the Volga; that the king of the Huns was dreaded, not only as a warrior,

but as a magician; that he insulted and vanquished the khan of the

formidable Geougen; and that he sent ambassadors to negotiate an equal

alliance with the empire of China. In the proud review of the nations

who acknowledged the sovereignty of Attila, and who never entertained,

during his lifetime, the thought of a revolt, the Gepidæ and the

Ostrogoths were distinguished by their numbers, their bravery, and

the personal merits of their chiefs. The renowned Ardaric, king of the

Gepidæ, was the faithful and sagacious counsellor of the monarch, who

esteemed his intrepid genius, whilst he loved the mild and discreet

virtues of the noble Walamir, king of the Ostrogoths. The crowd of

vulgar kings, the leaders of so many martial tribes, who served under

the standard of Attila, were ranged in the submissive order of guards

and domestics round the person of their master. They watched his nod;

they trembled at his frown; and at the first signal of his will, they

executed, without murmur or hesitation, his stern and absolute commands.

In time of peace, the dependent princes, with their national troops,

attended the royal camp in regular succession; but when Attila collected

his military force, he was able to bring into the field an army of five,

or, according to another account, of seven hundred thousand Barbarians.

The ambassadors of the Huns might awaken the attention of Theodosius,

by reminding him that they were his neighbors both in Europe and Asia;

since they touched the Danube on one hand, and reached, with the other,

as far as the Tanais. In the reign of his father Arcadius, a band of

adventurous Huns had ravaged the provinces of the East; from whence they

brought away rich spoils and innumerable captives. They advanced, by a

secret path, along the shores of the Caspian Sea; traversed the snowy

mountains of Armenia; passed the Tigris, the Euphrates, and the Halys;

recruited their weary cavalry with the generous breed of Cappadocian

horses; occupied the hilly country of Cilicia, and disturbed the festal

songs and dances of the citizens of Antioch. Egypt trembled at their

approach; and the monks and pilgrims of the Holy Land prepared to

escaped their fury by a speedy embarkation. The memory of this invasion

was still recent in the minds of the Orientals. The subjects of Attila

might execute, with superior forces, the design which these adventurers

had so boldly attempted; and it soon became the subject of anxious

conjecture, whether the tempest would fall on the dominions of Rome, or

of Persia. Some of the great vassals of the king of the Huns, who were

themselves in the rank of powerful princes, had been sent to ratify

an alliance and society of arms with the emperor, or rather with the

general of the West. They related, during their residence at Rome, the

circumstances of an expedition, which they had lately made into the

East. After passing a desert and a morass, supposed by the Romans to be

the Lake Mæotis, they penetrated through the mountains, and arrived,

at the end of fifteen days' march, on the confines of Media; where

they advanced as far as the unknown cities of Basic and Cursic. They

encountered the Persian army in the plains of Media and the air,

according to their own expression, was darkened by a cloud of arrows.

But the Huns were obliged to retire before the numbers of the enemy.

Their laborious retreat was effected by a different road; they lost the

greatest part of their booty; and at length returned to the royal camp,

with some knowledge of the country, and an impatient desire of revenge.

In the free conversation of the Imperial ambassadors, who discussed,

at the court of Attila, the character and designs of their formidable

enemy, the ministers of Constantinople expressed their hope, that his

strength might be diverted and employed in a long and doubtful contest

with the princes of the house of Sassan. The more sagacious Italians

admonished their Eastern brethren of the folly and danger of such a

hope; and convinced them, that the Medes and Persians were incapable

of resisting the arms of the Huns; and that the easy and important

acquisition would exalt the pride, as well as power, of the conqueror.

Instead of contenting himself with a moderate contribution, and a

military title, which equalled him only to the generals of Theodosius,

Attila would proceed to impose a disgraceful and intolerable yoke on

the necks of the prostrate and captive Romans, who would then be

encompassed, on all sides, by the empire of the Huns.

While the powers of Europe and Asia were solicitous to avert the

impending danger, the alliance of Attila maintained the Vandals in

the possession of Africa. An enterprise had been concerted between the

courts of Ravenna and Constantinople, for the recovery of that valuable

province; and the ports of Sicily were already filled with the military

and naval forces of Theodosius. But the subtle Genseric, who spread his

negotiations round the world, prevented their designs, by exciting the

king of the Huns to invade the Eastern empire; and a trifling incident

soon became the motive, or pretence, of a destructive war. Under the

faith of the treaty of Margus, a free market was held on the Northern

side of the Danube, which was protected by a Roman fortress surnamed

Constantia. A troop of Barbarians violated the commercial security;

killed, or dispersed, the unsuspecting traders; and levelled the

fortress with the ground. The Huns justified this outrage as an act

of reprisal; alleged, that the bishop of Margus had entered their

territories, to discover and steal a secret treasure of their kings;

and sternly demanded the guilty prelate, the sacrilegious spoil, and

the fugitive subjects, who had escaped from the justice of Attila. The

refusal of the Byzantine court was the signal of war; and the Mæsians

at first applauded the generous firmness of their sovereign. But they

were soon intimidated by the destruction of Viminiacum and the adjacent

towns; and the people was persuaded to adopt the convenient maxim,

that a private citizen, however innocent or respectable, may be justly

sacrificed to the safety of his country. The bishop of Margus, who did

not possess the spirit of a martyr, resolved to prevent the designs

which he suspected. He boldly treated with the princes of the Huns:

secured, by solemn oaths, his pardon and reward; posted a numerous

detachment of Barbarians, in silent ambush, on the banks of the Danube;

and, at the appointed hour, opened, with his own hand, the gates of his

episcopal city. This advantage, which had been obtained by treachery,

served as a prelude to more honorable and decisive victories. The

Illyrian frontier was covered by a line of castles and fortresses; and

though the greatest part of them consisted only of a single tower,

with a small garrison, they were commonly sufficient to repel, or to

intercept, the inroads of an enemy, who was ignorant of the art, and

impatient of the delay, of a regular siege. But these slight obstacles

were instantly swept away by the inundation of the Huns. They destroyed,

with fire and sword, the populous cities of Sirmium and Singidunum,

of Ratiaria and Marcianopolis, of Naissus and Sardica; where every

circumstance of the discipline of the people, and the construction

of the buildings, had been gradually adapted to the sole purpose of

defence. The whole breadth of Europe, as it extends above five hundred

miles from the Euxine to the Hadriatic, was at once invaded, and

occupied, and desolated, by the myriads of Barbarians whom Attila led

into the field. The public danger and distress could not, however,

provoke Theodosius to interrupt his amusements and devotion, or to

appear in person at the head of the Roman legions. But the troops, which

had been sent against Genseric, were hastily recalled from Sicily; the

garrisons, on the side of Persia, were exhausted; and a military force

was collected in Europe, formidable by their arms and numbers, if the

generals had understood the science of command, and the soldiers the

duty of obedience. The armies of the Eastern empire were vanquished in

three successive engagements; and the progress of Attila may be traced

by the fields of battle. The two former, on the banks of the Utus, and

under the walls of Marcianopolis, were fought in the extensive plains

between the Danube and Mount Hæmus. As the Romans were pressed by a

victorious enemy, they gradually, and unskilfully, retired towards the

Chersonesus of Thrace; and that narrow peninsula, the last extremity

of the land, was marked by their third, and irreparable, defeat. By the

destruction of this army, Attila acquired the indisputable possession

of the field. From the Hellespont to Thermopylæ, and the suburbs of

Constantinople, he ravaged, without resistance, and without mercy,

the provinces of Thrace and Macedonia. Heraclea and Hadrianople might,

perhaps, escape this dreadful irruption of the Huns; but the words, the

most expressive of total extirpation and erasure, are applied to the

calamities which they inflicted on seventy cities of the Eastern empire.

Theodosius, his court, and the unwarlike people, were protected by the

walls of Constantinople; but those walls had been shaken by a recent

earthquake, and the fall of fifty-eight towers had opened a large and

tremendous breach. The damage indeed was speedily repaired; but this

accident was aggravated by a superstitious fear, that Heaven itself

had delivered the Imperial city to the shepherds of Scythia, who were

strangers to the laws, the language, and the religion, of the Romans.

In all their invasions of the civilized empires of the South, the

Scythian shepherds have been uniformly actuated by a savage and

destructive spirit. The laws of war, that restrain the exercise of

national rapine and murder, are founded on two principles of substantial

interest: the knowledge of the permanent benefits which may be obtained

by a moderate use of conquest; and a just apprehension, lest the

desolation which we inflict on the enemy's country may be retaliated on

our own. But these considerations of hope and fear are almost unknown

in the pastoral state of nations. The Huns of Attila may, without

injustice, be compared to the Moguls and Tartars, before their primitive

manners were changed by religion and luxury; and the evidence of

Oriental history may reflect some light on the short and imperfect

annals of Rome. After the Moguls had subdued the northern provinces

of China, it was seriously proposed, not in the hour of victory

and passion, but in calm deliberate council, to exterminate all the

inhabitants of that populous country, that the vacant land might be

converted to the pasture of cattle. The firmness of a Chinese mandarin,

who insinuated some principles of rational policy into the mind of

Zingis, diverted him from the execution of this horrid design. But in

the cities of Asia, which yielded to the Moguls, the inhuman abuse of

the rights of war was exercised with a regular form of discipline, which

may, with equal reason, though not with equal authority, be imputed

to the victorious Huns. The inhabitants, who had submitted to their

discretion, were ordered to evacuate their houses, and to assemble

in some plain adjacent to the city; where a division was made of the

vanquished into three parts. The first class consisted of the soldiers

of the garrison, and of the young men capable of bearing arms; and their

fate was instantly decided: they were either enlisted among the Moguls,

or they were massacred on the spot by the troops, who, with pointed

spears and bended bows, had formed a circle round the captive multitude.

The second class, composed of the young and beautiful women, of the

artificers of every rank and profession, and of the more wealthy or

honorable citizens, from whom a private ransom might be expected, was

distributed in equal or proportionable lots. The remainder, whose life

or death was alike useless to the conquerors, were permitted to return

to the city; which, in the mean while, had been stripped of its valuable

furniture; and a tax was imposed on those wretched inhabitants for the

indulgence of breathing their native air. Such was the behavior of the

Moguls, when they were not conscious of any extraordinary rigor. But the

most casual provocation, the slightest motive of caprice or convenience,

often provoked them to involve a whole people in an indiscriminate

massacre; and the ruin of some flourishing cities was executed with

such unrelenting perseverance, that, according to their own expression,

horses might run, without stumbling, over the ground where they had once

stood. The three great capitals of Khorasan, Maru, Neisabour, and Herat,

were destroyed by the armies of Zingis; and the exact account which

was taken of the slain amounted to four millions three hundred and

forty-seven thousand persons. Timur, or Tamerlane, was educated in a

less barbarous age, and in the profession of the Mahometan religion;

yet, if Attila equalled the hostile ravages of Tamerlane, either the

Tartar or the Hun might deserve the epithet of the Scourge of God.

Chapter XXXIV: Attila.—Part II.

It may be affirmed, with bolder assurance, that the Huns depopulated the

provinces of the empire, by the number of Roman subjects whom they

led away into captivity. In the hands of a wise legislator, such an

industrious colony might have contributed to diffuse through the deserts

of Scythia the rudiments of the useful and ornamental arts; but these

captives, who had been taken in war, were accidentally dispersed among

the hordes that obeyed the empire of Attila. The estimate of their

respective value was formed by the simple judgment of unenlightened and

unprejudiced Barbarians. Perhaps they might not understand the merit of

a theologian, profoundly skilled in the controversies of the Trinity and

the Incarnation; yet they respected the ministers of every religion and

the active zeal of the Christian missionaries, without approaching

the person or the palace of the monarch, successfully labored in the

propagation of the gospel. The pastoral tribes, who were ignorant of the

distinction of landed property, must have disregarded the use, as well

as the abuse, of civil jurisprudence; and the skill of an eloquent

lawyer could excite only their contempt or their abhorrence. The

perpetual intercourse of the Huns and the Goths had communicated the

familiar knowledge of the two national dialects; and the Barbarians were

ambitious of conversing in Latin, the military idiom even of the Eastern

empire. But they disdained the language and the sciences of the

Greeks; and the vain sophist, or grave philosopher, who had enjoyed

the flattering applause of the schools, was mortified to find that his

robust servant was a captive of more value and importance than himself.

The mechanic arts were encouraged and esteemed, as they tended to

satisfy the wants of the Huns. An architect in the service of Onegesius,

one of the favorites of Attila, was employed to construct a bath; but

this work was a rare example of private luxury; and the trades of the

smith, the carpenter, the armorer, were much more adapted to supply a

wandering people with the useful instruments of peace and war. But the

merit of the physician was received with universal favor and respect:

the Barbarians, who despised death, might be apprehensive of disease;

and the haughty conqueror trembled in the presence of a captive, to whom

he ascribed, perhaps, an imaginary power of prolonging or preserving his

life. The Huns might be provoked to insult the misery of their slaves,

over whom they exercised a despotic command; but their manners were

not susceptible of a refined system of oppression; and the efforts of

courage and diligence were often recompensed by the gift of freedom. The

historian Priscus, whose embassy is a source of curious instruction,

was accosted in the camp of Attila by a stranger, who saluted him in the

Greek language, but whose dress and figure displayed the appearance of a

wealthy Scythian. In the siege of Viminiacum, he had lost, according

to his own account, his fortune and liberty; he became the slave

of Onegesius; but his faithful services, against the Romans and the

Acatzires, had gradually raised him to the rank of the native Huns; to

whom he was attached by the domestic pledges of a new wife and several

children. The spoils of war had restored and improved his private

property; he was admitted to the table of his former lord; and the

apostate Greek blessed the hour of his captivity, since it had been

the introduction to a happy and independent state; which he held by the

honorable tenure of military service. This reflection naturally produced

a dispute on the advantages and defects of the Roman government, which

was severely arraigned by the apostate, and defended by Priscus in a

prolix and feeble declamation. The freedman of Onegesius exposed, in

true and lively colors, the vices of a declining empire, of which he

had so long been the victim; the cruel absurdity of the Roman princes,

unable to protect their subjects against the public enemy, unwilling to

trust them with arms for their own defence; the intolerable weight of

taxes, rendered still more oppressive by the intricate or arbitrary

modes of collection; the obscurity of numerous and contradictory laws;

the tedious and expensive forms of judicial proceedings; the partial

administration of justice; and the universal corruption, which increased

the influence of the rich, and aggravated the misfortunes of the poor.

A sentiment of patriotic sympathy was at length revived in the breast of

the fortunate exile; and he lamented, with a flood of tears, the guilt

or weakness of those magistrates who had perverted the wisest and most

salutary institutions.

The timid or selfish policy of the Western Romans had abandoned

the Eastern empire to the Huns. The loss of armies, and the want of

discipline or virtue, were not supplied by the personal character of the

monarch. Theodosius might still affect the style, as well as the title,

of Invincible Augustus; but he was reduced to solicit the clemency of

Attila, who imperiously dictated these harsh and humiliating conditions

of peace. I. The emperor of the East resigned, by an express or tacit

convention, an extensive and important territory, which stretched along

the southern banks of the Danube, from Singidunum, or Belgrade, as far

as Novæ, in the diocese of Thrace. The breadth was defined by the vague

computation of fifteen days' journey; but, from the proposal of Attila

to remove the situation of the national market, it soon appeared, that

he comprehended the ruined city of Naissus within the limits of his

dominions. II. The king of the Huns required and obtained, that his

tribute or subsidy should be augmented from seven hundred pounds of gold

to the annual sum of two thousand one hundred; and he stipulated

the immediate payment of six thousand pounds of gold, to defray the

expenses, or to expiate the guilt, of the war. One might imagine, that

such a demand, which scarcely equalled the measure of private wealth,

would have been readily discharged by the opulent empire of the East;

and the public distress affords a remarkable proof of the impoverished,

or at least of the disorderly, state of the finances. A large proportion

of the taxes extorted from the people was detained and intercepted

in their passage, though the foulest channels, to the treasury of

Constantinople. The revenue was dissipated by Theodosius and his

favorites in wasteful and profuse luxury; which was disguised by the

names of Imperial magnificence, or Christian charity. The immediate

supplies had been exhausted by the unforeseen necessity of military

preparations. A personal contribution, rigorously, but capriciously,

imposed on the members of the senatorian order, was the only expedient

that could disarm, without loss of time, the impatient avarice of

Attila; and the poverty of the nobles compelled them to adopt the

scandalous resource of exposing to public auction the jewels of their

wives, and the hereditary ornaments of their palaces. III. The king

of the Huns appears to have established, as a principle of national

jurisprudence, that he could never lose the property, which he had

once acquired, in the persons who had yielded either a voluntary,

or reluctant, submission to his authority. From this principle he

concluded, and the conclusions of Attila were irrevocable laws, that

the Huns, who had been taken prisoner in war, should be released without

delay, and without ransom; that every Roman captive, who had presumed

to escape, should purchase his right to freedom at the price of twelve

pieces of gold; and that all the Barbarians, who had deserted the

standard of Attila, should be restored, without any promise or

stipulation of pardon. In the execution of this cruel and ignominious

treaty, the Imperial officers were forced to massacre several loyal and

noble deserters, who refused to devote themselves to certain death;

and the Romans forfeited all reasonable claims to the friendship of any

Scythian people, by this public confession, that they were destitute

either of faith, or power, to protect the suppliant, who had embraced

the throne of Theodosius.

The firmness of a single town, so obscure, that, except on this

occasion, it has never been mentioned by any historian or geographer,

exposed the disgrace of the emperor and empire. Azimus, or Azimuntium, a

small city of Thrace on the Illyrian borders, had been distinguished by

the martial spirit of its youth, the skill and reputation of the leaders

whom they had chosen, and their daring exploits against the innumerable

host of the Barbarians. Instead of tamely expecting their approach, the

Azimuntines attacked, in frequent and successful sallies, the troops

of the Huns, who gradually declined the dangerous neighborhood, rescued

from their hands the spoil and the captives, and recruited their

domestic force by the voluntary association of fugitives and deserters.

After the conclusion of the treaty, Attila still menaced the empire with

implacable war, unless the Azimuntines were persuaded, or compelled,

to comply with the conditions which their sovereign had accepted. The

ministers of Theodosius confessed with shame, and with truth, that they

no longer possessed any authority over a society of men, who so

bravely asserted their natural independence; and the king of the Huns

condescended to negotiate an equal exchange with the citizens of Azimus.

They demanded the restitution of some shepherds, who, with their cattle,

had been accidentally surprised. A strict, though fruitless, inquiry was

allowed: but the Huns were obliged to swear, that they did not detain

any prisoners belonging to the city, before they could recover two

surviving countrymen, whom the Azimuntines had reserved as pledges for

the safety of their lost companions. Attila, on his side, was satisfied,

and deceived, by their solemn asseveration, that the rest of the

captives had been put to the sword; and that it was their constant

practice, immediately to dismiss the Romans and the deserters, who had

obtained the security of the public faith. This prudent and officious

dissimulation may be condemned, or excused, by the casuists, as they

incline to the rigid decree of St. Augustin, or to the milder sentiment

of St. Jerom and St. Chrysostom: but every soldier, every statesman,

must acknowledge, that, if the race of the Azimuntines had been

encouraged and multiplied, the Barbarians would have ceased to trample

on the majesty of the empire.

It would have been strange, indeed, if Theodosius had purchased, by the

loss of honor, a secure and solid tranquillity, or if his tameness had

not invited the repetition of injuries. The Byzantine court was insulted

by five or six successive embassies; and the ministers of Attila were

uniformly instructed to press the tardy or imperfect execution of the

last treaty; to produce the names of fugitives and deserters, who were

still protected by the empire; and to declare, with seeming moderation,

that, unless their sovereign obtained complete and immediate

satisfaction, it would be impossible for him, were it even his wish, to

check the resentment of his warlike tribes. Besides the motives of pride

and interest, which might prompt the king of the Huns to continue this

train of negotiation, he was influenced by the less honorable view of

enriching his favorites at the expense of his enemies. The Imperial

treasury was exhausted, to procure the friendly offices of the

ambassadors and their principal attendants, whose favorable report might

conduce to the maintenance of peace. The Barbarian monarch was flattered

by the liberal reception of his ministers; he computed, with pleasure,

the value and splendor of their gifts, rigorously exacted the

performance of every promise which would contribute to their private

emolument, and treated as an important business of state the marriage of

his secretary Constantius. That Gallic adventurer, who was recommended

by Ætius to the king of the Huns, had engaged his service to the

ministers of Constantinople, for the stipulated reward of a wealthy and

noble wife; and the daughter of Count Saturninus was chosen to discharge

the obligations of her country. The reluctance of the victim, some

domestic troubles, and the unjust confiscation of her fortune, cooled

the ardor of her interested lover; but he still demanded, in the name

of Attila, an equivalent alliance; and, after many ambiguous delays and

excuses, the Byzantine court was compelled to sacrifice to this insolent

stranger the widow of Armatius, whose birth, opulence, and beauty,

placed her in the most illustrious rank of the Roman matrons. For these

importunate and oppressive embassies, Attila claimed a suitable return:

he weighed, with suspicious pride, the character and station of the

Imperial envoys; but he condescended to promise that he would advance as

far as Sardica to receive any ministers who had been invested with the

consular dignity. The council of Theodosius eluded this proposal, by

representing the desolate and ruined condition of Sardica, and even

ventured to insinuate that every officer of the army or household was

qualified to treat with the most powerful princes of Scythia. Maximin,

a respectable courtier, whose abilities had been long exercised in civil

and military employments, accepted, with reluctance, the troublesome,

and perhaps dangerous, commission of reconciling the angry spirit of

the king of the Huns. His friend, the historian Priscus, embraced the

opportunity of observing the Barbarian hero in the peaceful and domestic

scenes of life: but the secret of the embassy, a fatal and guilty

secret, was intrusted only to the interpreter Vigilius. The two last

ambassadors of the Huns, Orestes, a noble subject of the Pannonian

province, and Edecon, a valiant chieftain of the tribe of the Scyrri,

returned at the same time from Constantinople to the royal camp. Their

obscure names were afterwards illustrated by the extraordinary fortune

and the contrast of their sons: the two servants of Attila became

the fathers of the last Roman emperor of the West, and of the first

Barbarian king of Italy.

The ambassadors, who were followed by a numerous train of men and

horses, made their first halt at Sardica, at the distance of three

hundred and fifty miles, or thirteen days' journey, from Constantinople.

As the remains of Sardica were still included within the limits of

the empire, it was incumbent on the Romans to exercise the duties of

hospitality. They provided, with the assistance of the provincials, a

sufficient number of sheep and oxen, and invited the Huns to a splendid,

or at least, a plentiful supper. But the harmony of the entertainment

was soon disturbed by mutual prejudice and indiscretion. The greatness

of the emperor and the empire was warmly maintained by their ministers;

the Huns, with equal ardor, asserted the superiority of their victorious

monarch: the dispute was inflamed by the rash and unseasonable flattery

of Vigilius, who passionately rejected the comparison of a mere mortal

with the divine Theodosius; and it was with extreme difficulty that

Maximin and Priscus were able to divert the conversation, or to soothe

the angry minds, of the Barbarians. When they rose from table, the

Imperial ambassador presented Edecon and Orestes with rich gifts of silk

robes and Indian pearls, which they thankfully accepted. Yet Orestes

could not forbear insinuating that he had not always been treated with

such respect and liberality: and the offensive distinction which

was implied, between his civil office and the hereditary rank of his

colleague seems to have made Edecon a doubtful friend, and Orestes an

irreconcilable enemy. After this entertainment, they travelled about one

hundred miles from Sardica to Naissus. That flourishing city, which has

given birth to the great Constantine, was levelled with the ground: the

inhabitants were destroyed or dispersed; and the appearance of some

sick persons, who were still permitted to exist among the ruins of

the churches, served only to increase the horror of the prospect. The

surface of the country was covered with the bones of the slain; and the

ambassadors, who directed their course to the north-west, were obliged

to pass the hills of modern Servia, before they descended into the flat

and marshy grounds which are terminated by the Danube. The Huns were

masters of the great river: their navigation was performed in large

canoes, hollowed out of the trunk of a single tree; the ministers of

Theodosius were safely landed on the opposite bank; and their Barbarian

associates immediately hastened to the camp of Attila, which was equally

prepared for the amusements of hunting or of war. No sooner had Maximin

advanced about two miles from the Danube, than he began to experience

the fastidious insolence of the conqueror. He was sternly forbid to

pitch his tents in a pleasant valley, lest he should infringe the

distant awe that was due to the royal mansion. The ministers of Attila

pressed them to communicate the business, and the instructions, which he

reserved for the ear of their sovereign. When Maximin temperately urged

the contrary practice of nations, he was still more confounded to find

that the resolutions of the Sacred Consistory, those secrets (says

Priscus) which should not be revealed to the gods themselves, had been

treacherously disclosed to the public enemy. On his refusal to comply

with such ignominious terms, the Imperial envoy was commanded instantly

to depart; the order was recalled; it was again repeated; and the Huns

renewed their ineffectual attempts to subdue the patient firmness

of Maximin. At length, by the intercession of Scotta, the brother of

Onegesius, whose friendship had been purchased by a liberal gift, he was

admitted to the royal presence; but, in stead of obtaining a decisive

answer, he was compelled to undertake a remote journey towards the

north, that Attila might enjoy the proud satisfaction of receiving, in

the same camp, the ambassadors of the Eastern and Western empires. His

journey was regulated by the guides, who obliged him to halt, to hasten

his march, or to deviate from the common road, as it best suited

the convenience of the king. The Romans, who traversed the plains of

Hungary, suppose that they passed several navigable rivers, either

in canoes or portable boats; but there is reason to suspect that the

winding stream of the Teyss, or Tibiscus, might present itself in

different places under different names. From the contiguous villages

they received a plentiful and regular supply of provisions; mead instead

of wine, millet in the place of bread, and a certain liquor named camus,

which according to the report of Priscus, was distilled from barley.

Such fare might appear coarse and indelicate to men who had tasted the

luxury of Constantinople; but, in their accidental distress, they were

relieved by the gentleness and hospitality of the same Barbarians, so

terrible and so merciless in war. The ambassadors had encamped on the

edge of a large morass. A violent tempest of wind and rain, of thunder

and lightning, overturned their tents, immersed their baggage and

furniture in the water, and scattered their retinue, who wandered in the

darkness of the night, uncertain of their road, and apprehensive of some

unknown danger, till they awakened by their cries the inhabitants of

a neighboring village, the property of the widow of Bleda. A bright

illumination, and, in a few moments, a comfortable fire of reeds, was

kindled by their officious benevolence; the wants, and even the desires,

of the Romans were liberally satisfied; and they seem to have been

embarrassed by the singular politeness of Bleda's widow, who added to

her other favors the gift, or at least the loan, of a sufficient number

of beautiful and obsequious damsels. The sunshine of the succeeding

day was dedicated to repose, to collect and dry the baggage, and to

the refreshment of the men and horses: but, in the evening, before they

pursued their journey, the ambassadors expressed their gratitude to the

bounteous lady of the village, by a very acceptable present of silver

cups, red fleeces, dried fruits, and Indian pepper. Soon after this

adventure, they rejoined the march of Attila, from whom they had been

separated about six days, and slowly proceeded to the capital of an

empire, which did not contain, in the space of several thousand miles, a

single city.

As far as we may ascertain the vague and obscure geography of Priscus,

this capital appears to have been seated between the Danube, the Teyss,

and the Carpathian hills, in the plains of Upper Hungary, and most

probably in the neighborhood of Jezberin, Agria, or Tokay. In its origin

it could be no more than an accidental camp, which, by the long and

frequent residence of Attila, had insensibly swelled into a huge

village, for the reception of his court, of the troops who followed his

person, and of the various multitude of idle or industrious slaves and

retainers. The baths, constructed by Onegesius, were the only edifice of

stone; the materials had been transported from Pannonia; and since the

adjacent country was destitute even of large timber, it may be presumed,

that the meaner habitations of the royal village consisted of straw, or

mud, or of canvass. The wooden houses of the more illustrious Huns were

built and adorned with rude magnificence, according to the rank,

the fortune, or the taste of the proprietors. They seem to have been

distributed with some degree of order and symmetry; and each spot became

more honorable as it approached the person of the sovereign. The palace

of Attila, which surpassed all other houses in his dominions, was built

entirely of wood, and covered an ample space of ground. The outward

enclosure was a lofty wall, or palisade, of smooth square timber,

intersected with high towers, but intended rather for ornament than

defence. This wall, which seems to have encircled the declivity of a

hill, comprehended a great variety of wooden edifices, adapted to the

uses of royalty. A separate house was assigned to each of the numerous

wives of Attila; and, instead of the rigid and illiberal confinement

imposed by Asiatic jealousy they politely admitted the Roman ambassadors

to their presence, their table, and even to the freedom of an innocent

embrace. When Maximin offered his presents to Cerca, the principal

queen, he admired the singular architecture on her mansion, the height

of the round columns, the size and beauty of the wood, which was

curiously shaped or turned or polished or carved; and his attentive eye

was able to discover some taste in the ornaments and some regularity in

the proportions. After passing through the guards, who watched before

the gate, the ambassadors were introduced into the private apartment of

Cerca. The wife of Attila received their visit sitting, or rather lying,

on a soft couch; the floor was covered with a carpet; the domestics

formed a circle round the queen; and her damsels, seated on the ground,

were employed in working the variegated embroidery which adorned the

dress of the Barbaric warriors. The Huns were ambitious of displaying

those riches which were the fruit and evidence of their victories: the

trappings of their horses, their swords, and even their shoes, were

studded with gold and precious stones; and their tables were profusely

spread with plates, and goblets, and vases of gold and silver, which

had been fashioned by the labor of Grecian artists. The monarch alone

assumed the superior pride of still adhering to the simplicity of his

Scythian ancestors. The dress of Attila, his arms, and the furniture

of his horse, were plain, without ornament, and of a single color. The

royal table was served in wooden cups and platters; flesh was his only

food; and the conqueror of the North never tasted the luxury of bread.

When Attila first gave audience to the Roman ambassadors on the banks

of the Danube, his tent was encompassed with a formidable guard. The

monarch himself was seated in a wooden chair. His stern countenance,

angry gestures, and impatient tone, astonished the firmness of Maximin;

but Vigilius had more reason to tremble, since he distinctly understood

the menace, that if Attila did not respect the law of nations, he would

nail the deceitful interpreter to the cross, and leave his body to the

vultures. The Barbarian condescended, by producing an accurate list,

to expose the bold falsehood of Vigilius, who had affirmed that no more

than seventeen deserters could be found. But he arrogantly declared,

that he apprehended only the disgrace of contending with his fugitive

slaves; since he despised their impotent efforts to defend the provinces

which Theodosius had intrusted to their arms: "For what fortress,"

(added Attila,) "what city, in the wide extent of the Roman empire, can

hope to exist, secure and impregnable, if it is our pleasure that

it should be erased from the earth?" He dismissed, however, the

interpreter, who returned to Constantinople with his peremptory demand

of more complete restitution, and a more splendid embassy. His anger

gradually subsided, and his domestic satisfaction in a marriage which

he celebrated on the road with the daughter of Eslam, might perhaps

contribute to mollify the native fierceness of his temper. The entrance

of Attila into the royal village was marked by a very singular ceremony.

A numerous troop of women came out to meet their hero and their king.

They marched before him, distributed into long and regular files; the

intervals between the files were filled by white veils of thin linen,

which the women on either side bore aloft in their hands, and which

formed a canopy for a chorus of young virgins, who chanted hymns and

songs in the Scythian language. The wife of his favorite Onegesius,

with a train of female attendants, saluted Attila at the door of her own

house, on his way to the palace; and offered, according to the custom of

the country, her respectful homage, by entreating him to taste the

wine and meat which she had prepared for his reception. As soon as

the monarch had graciously accepted her hospitable gift, his domestics

lifted a small silver table to a convenient height, as he sat on

horseback; and Attila, when he had touched the goblet with his lips,

again saluted the wife of Onegesius, and continued his march. During

his residence at the seat of empire, his hours were not wasted in the

recluse idleness of a seraglio; and the king of the Huns could maintain

his superior dignity, without concealing his person from the public

view. He frequently assembled his council, and gave audience to the

ambassadors of the nations; and his people might appeal to the supreme

tribunal, which he held at stated times, and, according to the Eastern

custom, before the principal gate of his wooden palace. The Romans, both

of the East and of the West, were twice invited to the banquets, where

Attila feasted with the princes and nobles of Scythia. Maximin and his

colleagues were stopped on the threshold, till they had made a devout

libation to the health and prosperity of the king of the Huns; and were

conducted, after this ceremony, to their respective seats in a spacious

hall. The royal table and couch, covered with carpets and fine linen,

was raised by several steps in the midst of the hall; and a son, an

uncle, or perhaps a favorite king, were admitted to share the simple

and homely repast of Attila. Two lines of small tables, each of which

contained three or four guests, were ranged in order on either hand;

the right was esteemed the most honorable, but the Romans ingenuously

confess, that they were placed on the left; and that Beric, an

unknown chieftain, most probably of the Gothic race, preceded the

representatives of Theodosius and Valentinian. The Barbarian monarch

received from his cup-bearer a goblet filled with wine, and courteously

drank to the health of the most distinguished guest; who rose from his

seat, and expressed, in the same manner, his loyal and respectful vows.

This ceremony was successively performed for all, or at least for the

illustrious persons of the assembly; and a considerable time must have

been consumed, since it was thrice repeated as each course or service

was placed on the table. But the wine still remained after the meat had

been removed; and the Huns continued to indulge their intemperance long

after the sober and decent ambassadors of the two empires had withdrawn

themselves from the nocturnal banquet. Yet before they retired, they

enjoyed a singular opportunity of observing the manners of the nation

in their convivial amusements. Two Scythians stood before the couch of

Attila, and recited the verses which they had composed, to celebrate his

valor and his victories. A profound silence prevailed in the hall; and

the attention of the guests was captivated by the vocal harmony, which

revived and perpetuated the memory of their own exploits; a martial

ardor flashed from the eyes of the warriors, who were impatient for

battle; and the tears of the old men expressed their generous despair,

that they could no longer partake the danger and glory of the field.

This entertainment, which might be considered as a school of military

virtue, was succeeded by a farce, that debased the dignity of human

nature. A Moorish and a Scythian buffoon successively excited the mirth

of the rude spectators, by their deformed figure, ridiculous dress,

antic gestures, absurd speeches, and the strange, unintelligible

confusion of the Latin, the Gothic, and the Hunnic languages; and the

hall resounded with loud and licentious peals of laughter. In the midst

of this intemperate riot, Attila alone, without a change of countenance,

maintained his steadfast and inflexible gravity; which was never

relaxed, except on the entrance of Irnac, the youngest of his sons: he

embraced the boy with a smile of paternal tenderness, gently pinched him

by the cheek, and betrayed a partial affection, which was justified by

the assurance of his prophets, that Irnac would be the future support of

his family and empire. Two days afterwards, the ambassadors received a

second invitation; and they had reason to praise the politeness, as

well as the hospitality, of Attila. The king of the Huns held a long and

familiar conversation with Maximin; but his civility was interrupted

by rude expressions and haughty reproaches; and he was provoked, by a

motive of interest, to support, with unbecoming zeal, the private claims

of his secretary Constantius. "The emperor" (said Attila) "has long

promised him a rich wife: Constantius must not be disappointed; nor

should a Roman emperor deserve the name of liar." On the third day, the

ambassadors were dismissed; the freedom of several captives was granted,

for a moderate ransom, to their pressing entreaties; and, besides the

royal presents, they were permitted to accept from each of the Scythian

nobles the honorable and useful gift of a horse. Maximin returned,

by the same road, to Constantinople; and though he was involved in

an accidental dispute with Beric, the new ambassador of Attila, he

flattered himself that he had contributed, by the laborious journey, to

confirm the peace and alliance of the two nations.

Chapter XXXIV: Attila.—Part III.

But the Roman ambassador was ignorant of the treacherous design, which

had been concealed under the mask of the public faith. The surprise

and satisfaction of Edecon, when he contemplated the splendor of

Constantinople, had encouraged the interpreter Vigilius to procure for

him a secret interview with the eunuch Chrysaphius, who governed the

emperor and the empire. After some previous conversation, and a mutual

oath of secrecy, the eunuch, who had not, from his own feelings or

experience, imbibed any exalted notions of ministerial virtue, ventured

to propose the death of Attila, as an important service, by which Edecon

might deserve a liberal share of the wealth and luxury which he

admired. The ambassador of the Huns listened to the tempting offer; and

professed, with apparent zeal, his ability, as well as readiness, to

execute the bloody deed; the design was communicated to the master of

the offices, and the devout Theodosius consented to the assassination of

his invincible enemy. But this perfidious conspiracy was defeated by

the dissimulation, or the repentance, of Edecon; and though he might

exaggerate his inward abhorrence for the treason, which he seemed to

approve, he dexterously assumed the merit of an early and voluntary

confession. If we now review the embassy of Maximin, and the behavior

of Attila, we must applaud the Barbarian, who respected the laws of

hospitality, and generously entertained and dismissed the minister of a

prince who had conspired against his life. But the rashness of Vigilius

will appear still more extraordinary, since he returned, conscious of

his guilt and danger, to the royal camp, accompanied by his son, and

carrying with him a weighty purse of gold, which the favorite eunuch had

furnished, to satisfy the demands of Edecon, and to corrupt the fidelity

of the guards. The interpreter was instantly seized, and dragged before

the tribunal of Attila, where he asserted his innocence with specious

firmness, till the threat of inflicting instant death on his son

extorted from him a sincere discovery of the criminal transaction. Under

the name of ransom, or confiscation, the rapacious king of the Huns

accepted two hundred pounds of gold for the life of a traitor, whom he

disdained to punish. He pointed his just indignation against a nobler

object. His ambassadors, Eslaw and Orestes, were immediately despatched

to Constantinople, with a peremptory instruction, which it was much

safer for them to execute than to disobey. They boldly entered the

Imperial presence, with the fatal purse hanging down from the neck of

Orestes; who interrogated the eunuch Chrysaphius, as he stood beside the

throne, whether he recognized the evidence of his guilt. But the office

of reproof was reserved for the superior dignity of his colleague Eslaw,

who gravely addressed the emperor of the East in the following words:

"Theodosius is the son of an illustrious and respectable parent: Attila

likewise is descended from a noble race; and he has supported, by his

actions, the dignity which he inherited from his father Mundzuk. But

Theodosius has forfeited his paternal honors, and, by consenting to

pay tribute has degraded himself to the condition of a slave. It is

therefore just, that he should reverence the man whom fortune and merit

have placed above him; instead of attempting, like a wicked slave,

clandestinely to conspire against his master." The son of Arcadius, who

was accustomed only to the voice of flattery, heard with astonishment

the severe language of truth: he blushed and trembled; nor did he

presume directly to refuse the head of Chrysaphius, which Eslaw and

Orestes were instructed to demand. A solemn embassy, armed with full

powers and magnificent gifts, was hastily sent to deprecate the wrath

of Attila; and his pride was gratified by the choice of Nomius and

Anatolius, two ministers of consular or patrician rank, of whom the one

was great treasurer, and the other was master-general of the armies of

the East. He condescended to meet these ambassadors on the banks of

the River Drenco; and though he at first affected a stern and haughty

demeanor, his anger was insensibly mollified by their eloquence and

liberality. He condescended to pardon the emperor, the eunuch, and

the interpreter; bound himself by an oath to observe the conditions of

peace; released a great number of captives; abandoned the fugitives and

deserters to their fate; and resigned a large territory, to the south

of the Danube, which he had already exhausted of its wealth and

inhabitants. But this treaty was purchased at an expense which might

have supported a vigorous and successful war; and the subjects of

Theodosius were compelled to redeem the safety of a worthless favorite

by oppressive taxes, which they would more cheerfully have paid for his

destruction.

The emperor Theodosius did not long survive the most humiliating

circumstance of an inglorious life. As he was riding, or hunting, in the

neighborhood of Constantinople, he was thrown from his horse into the

River Lycus: the spine of the back was injured by the fall; and he

expired some days afterwards, in the fiftieth year of his age, and the

forty-third of his reign. His sister Pulcheria, whose authority had been

controlled both in civil and ecclesiastical affairs by the pernicious

influence of the eunuchs, was unanimously proclaimed Empress of the

East; and the Romans, for the first time, submitted to a female reign.

No sooner had Pulcheria ascended the throne, than she indulged her own

and the public resentment, by an act of popular justice. Without any

legal trial, the eunuch Chrysaphius was executed before the gates of the

city; and the immense riches which had been accumulated by the rapacious

favorite, served only to hasten and to justify his punishment. Amidst

the general acclamations of the clergy and people, the empress did not

forget the prejudice and disadvantage to which her sex was exposed;

and she wisely resolved to prevent their murmurs by the choice of

a colleague, who would always respect the superior rank and virgin

chastity of his wife. She gave her hand to Marcian, a senator, about

sixty years of age; and the nominal husband of Pulcheria was solemnly

invested with the Imperial purple. The zeal which he displayed for the

orthodox creed, as it was established by the council of Chalcedon, would

alone have inspired the grateful eloquence of the Catholics. But the

behavior of Marcian in a private life, and afterwards on the throne,

may support a more rational belief, that he was qualified to restore and

invigorate an empire, which had been almost dissolved by the successive

weakness of two hereditary monarchs. He was born in Thrace, and educated

to the profession of arms; but Marcian's youth had been severely

exercised by poverty and misfortune, since his only resource, when he

first arrived at Constantinople, consisted in two hundred pieces of

gold, which he had borrowed of a friend. He passed nineteen years in the

domestic and military service of Aspar, and his son Ardaburius; followed

those powerful generals to the Persian and African wars; and obtained,

by their influence, the honorable rank of tribune and senator. His

mild disposition, and useful talents, without alarming the jealousy,

recommended Marcian to the esteem and favor of his patrons; he had

seen, perhaps he had felt, the abuses of a venal and oppressive

administration; and his own example gave weight and energy to the laws,

which he promulgated for the reformation of manners.

Chapter XXXV: Invasion By Attila.—Part I.

Invasion Of Gaul By Attila.—He Is Repulsed By Ætius And The

Visigoths.—Attila Invades And Evacuates Italy.—The Deaths

Of Attila, Ætius, And Valentinian The Third.

It was the opinion of Marcian, that war should be avoided, as long as

it is possible to preserve a secure and honorable peace; but it was

likewise his opinion, that peace cannot be honorable or secure, if

the sovereign betrays a pusillanimous aversion to war. This temperate

courage dictated his reply to the demands of Attila, who insolently

pressed the payment of the annual tribute. The emperor signified to the

Barbarians, that they must no longer insult the majesty of Rome by the

mention of a tribute; that he was disposed to reward, with becoming

liberality, the faithful friendship of his allies; but that, if they

presumed to violate the public peace, they should feel that he possessed

troops, and arms, and resolution, to repel their attacks. The same

language, even in the camp of the Huns, was used by his ambassador

Apollonius, whose bold refusal to deliver the presents, till he had been

admitted to a personal interview, displayed a sense of dignity, and a

contempt of danger, which Attila was not prepared to expect from the

degenerate Romans. He threatened to chastise the rash successor

of Theodosius; but he hesitated whether he should first direct his

invincible arms against the Eastern or the Western empire. While mankind

awaited his decision with awful suspense, he sent an equal defiance to

the courts of Ravenna and Constantinople; and his ministers saluted the

two emperors with the same haughty declaration. "Attila, my lord,

and thy lord, commands thee to provide a palace for his immediate

reception." But as the Barbarian despised, or affected to despise, the

Romans of the East, whom he had so often vanquished, he soon declared

his resolution of suspending the easy conquest, till he had achieved a

more glorious and important enterprise. In the memorable invasions of

Gaul and Italy, the Huns were naturally attracted by the wealth

and fertility of those provinces; but the particular motives and

provocations of Attila can only be explained by the state of the Western

empire under the reign of Valentinian, or, to speak more correctly,

under the administration of Ætius.

After the death of his rival Boniface, Ætius had prudently retired to

the tents of the Huns; and he was indebted to their alliance for his

safety and his restoration. Instead of the suppliant language of a

guilty exile, he solicited his pardon at the head of sixty thousand

Barbarians; and the empress Placidia confessed, by a feeble resistance,

that the condescension, which might have been ascribed to clemency,

was the effect of weakness or fear. She delivered herself, her son

Valentinian, and the Western empire, into the hands of an insolent

subject; nor could Placidia protect the son-in-law of Boniface, the

virtuous and faithful Sebastian, from the implacable persecution which

urged him from one kingdom to another, till he miserably perished in

the service of the Vandals. The fortunate Ætius, who was immediately

promoted to the rank of patrician, and thrice invested with the honors

of the consulship, assumed, with the title of master of the cavalry and

infantry, the whole military power of the state; and he is sometimes

styled, by contemporary writers, the duke, or general, of the Romans of

the West. His prudence, rather than his virtue, engaged him to leave the

grandson of Theodosius in the possession of the purple; and Valentinian

was permitted to enjoy the peace and luxury of Italy, while the

patrician appeared in the glorious light of a hero and a patriot, who

supported near twenty years the ruins of the Western empire. The Gothic

historian ingenuously confesses, that Ætius was born for the salvation

of the Roman republic; and the following portrait, though it is drawn in

the fairest colors, must be allowed to contain a much larger proportion

of truth than of flattery. "His mother was a wealthy and noble Italian,

and his father Gaudentius, who held a distinguished rank in the province

of Scythia, gradually rose from the station of a military domestic, to

the dignity of master of the cavalry. Their son, who was enrolled almost

in his infancy in the guards, was given as a hostage, first to Alaric,

and afterwards to the Huns; and he successively obtained the civil and

military honors of the palace, for which he was equally qualified by

superior merit. The graceful figure of Ætius was not above the middle

stature; but his manly limbs were admirably formed for strength, beauty,

and agility; and he excelled in the martial exercises of managing a

horse, drawing the bow, and darting the javelin. He could patiently

endure the want of food, or of sleep; and his mind and body were alike

capable of the most laborious efforts. He possessed the genuine courage

that can despise not only dangers, but injuries: and it was impossible

either to corrupt, or deceive, or intimidate the firm integrity of

his soul." The Barbarians, who had seated themselves in the Western

provinces, were insensibly taught to respect the faith and valor of the

patrician Ætius. He soothed their passions, consulted their prejudices,

balanced their interests, and checked their ambition. A seasonable

treaty, which he concluded with Genseric, protected Italy from the

depredations of the Vandals; the independent Britons implored and

acknowledged his salutary aid; the Imperial authority was restored and

maintained in Gaul and Spain; and he compelled the Franks and the Suevi,

whom he had vanquished in the field, to become the useful confederates

of the republic.

From a principle of interest, as well as gratitude, Ætius assiduously

cultivated the alliance of the Huns. While he resided in their tents as

a hostage, or an exile, he had familiarly conversed with Attila himself,

the nephew of his benefactor; and the two famous antagonists appeared

to have been connected by a personal and military friendship, which

they afterwards confirmed by mutual gifts, frequent embassies, and the

education of Carpilio, the son of Ætius, in the camp of Attila. By

the specious professions of gratitude and voluntary attachment, the

patrician might disguise his apprehensions of the Scythian conqueror,

who pressed the two empires with his innumerable armies. His demands

were obeyed or eluded. When he claimed the spoils of a vanquished city,

some vases of gold, which had been fraudulently embezzled, the civil and

military governors of Noricum were immediately despatched to satisfy his

complaints: and it is evident, from their conversation with Maximin and

Priscus, in the royal village, that the valor and prudence of Ætius had

not saved the Western Romans from the common ignominy of tribute. Yet

his dexterous policy prolonged the advantages of a salutary peace; and a

numerous army of Huns and Alani, whom he had attached to his person, was

employed in the defence of Gaul. Two colonies of these Barbarians were

judiciously fixed in the territories of Valens and Orleans; and their

active cavalry secured the important passages of the Rhone and of

the Loire. These savage allies were not indeed less formidable to the

subjects than to the enemies of Rome. Their original settlement was

enforced with the licentious violence of conquest; and the province

through which they marched was exposed to all the calamities of a

hostile invasion. Strangers to the emperor or the republic, the Alani of

Gaul was devoted to the ambition of Ætius, and though he might suspect,

that, in a contest with Attila himself, they would revolt to the

standard of their national king, the patrician labored to restrain,

rather than to excite, their zeal and resentment against the Goths, the

Burgundians, and the Franks.

The kingdom established by the Visigoths in the southern provinces of

Gaul, had gradually acquired strength and maturity; and the conduct

of those ambitious Barbarians, either in peace or war, engaged the

perpetual vigilance of Ætius. After the death of Wallia, the Gothic

sceptre devolved to Theodoric, the son of the great Alaric; and his

prosperous reign of more than thirty years, over a turbulent people, may

be allowed to prove, that his prudence was supported by uncommon vigor,

both of mind and body. Impatient of his narrow limits, Theodoric aspired

to the possession of Arles, the wealthy seat of government and commerce;

but the city was saved by the timely approach of Ætius; and the

Gothic king, who had raised the siege with some loss and disgrace, was

persuaded, for an adequate subsidy, to divert the martial valor of his

subjects in a Spanish war. Yet Theodoric still watched, and eagerly

seized, the favorable moment of renewing his hostile attempts. The

Goths besieged Narbonne, while the Belgic provinces were invaded by the

Burgundians; and the public safety was threatened on every side by the

apparent union of the enemies of Rome. On every side, the activity

of Ætius, and his Scythian cavalry, opposed a firm and successful

resistance. Twenty thousand Burgundians were slain in battle; and the

remains of the nation humbly accepted a dependent seat in the mountains

of Savoy. The walls of Narbonne had been shaken by the battering

engines, and the inhabitants had endured the last extremities of famine,

when Count Litorius, approaching in silence, and directing each

horseman to carry behind him two sacks of flour, cut his way through the

intrenchments of the besiegers. The siege was immediately raised; and

the more decisive victory, which is ascribed to the personal conduct of

Ætius himself, was marked with the blood of eight thousand Goths. But

in the absence of the patrician, who was hastily summoned to Italy

by some public or private interest, Count Litorius succeeded to the

command; and his presumption soon discovered that far different talents

are required to lead a wing of cavalry, or to direct the operations of

an important war. At the head of an army of Huns, he rashly advanced to

the gates of Thoulouse, full of careless contempt for an enemy whom his

misfortunes had rendered prudent, and his situation made desperate.

The predictions of the augurs had inspired Litorius with the profane

confidence that he should enter the Gothic capital in triumph; and the

trust which he reposed in his Pagan allies, encouraged him to reject the

fair conditions of peace, which were repeatedly proposed by the bishops

in the name of Theodoric. The king of the Goths exhibited in his

distress the edifying contrast of Christian piety and moderation; nor

did he lay aside his sackcloth and ashes till he was prepared to arm

for the combat. His soldiers, animated with martial and religious

enthusiasm, assaulted the camp of Litorius. The conflict was obstinate;

the slaughter was mutual. The Roman general, after a total defeat,

which could be imputed only to his unskilful rashness, was actually

led through the streets of Thoulouse, not in his own, but in a hostile

triumph; and the misery which he experienced, in a long and ignominious

captivity, excited the compassion of the Barbarians themselves. Such a

loss, in a country whose spirit and finances were long since exhausted,

could not easily be repaired; and the Goths, assuming, in their turn,

the sentiments of ambition and revenge, would have planted their

victorious standards on the banks of the Rhone, if the presence of

Ætius had not restored strength and discipline to the Romans. The two

armies expected the signal of a decisive action; but the generals,

who were conscious of each other's force, and doubtful of their own

superiority, prudently sheathed their swords in the field of battle; and

their reconciliation was permanent and sincere. Theodoric, king of

the Visigoths, appears to have deserved the love of his subjects, the

confidence of his allies, and the esteem of mankind. His throne was

surrounded by six valiant sons, who were educated with equal care in

the exercises of the Barbarian camp, and in those of the Gallic schools:

from the study of the Roman jurisprudence, they acquired the theory,

at least, of law and justice; and the harmonious sense of Virgil

contributed to soften the asperity of their native manners. The two

daughters of the Gothic king were given in marriage to the eldest sons

of the kings of the Suevi and of the Vandals, who reigned in Spain and

Africa: but these illustrious alliances were pregnant with guilt

and discord. The queen of the Suevi bewailed the death of a husband

inhumanly massacred by her brother. The princess of the Vandals was

the victim of a jealous tyrant, whom she called her father. The cruel

Genseric suspected that his son's wife had conspired to poison him; the

supposed crime was punished by the amputation of her nose and ears;

and the unhappy daughter of Theodoric was ignominiously returned to the

court of Thoulouse in that deformed and mutilated condition. This horrid

act, which must seem incredible to a civilized age drew tears from every

spectator; but Theodoric was urged, by the feelings of a parent and a

king, to revenge such irreparable injuries. The Imperial ministers, who

always cherished the discord of the Barbarians, would have supplied the

Goths with arms, and ships, and treasures, for the African war; and

the cruelty of Genseric might have been fatal to himself, if the artful

Vandal had not armed, in his cause, the formidable power of the Huns.

His rich gifts and pressing solicitations inflamed the ambition of

Attila; and the designs of Ætius and Theodoric were prevented by the

invasion of Gaul.

The Franks, whose monarchy was still confined to the neighborhood of the

Lower Rhine, had wisely established the right of hereditary succession

in the noble family of the Merovingians. These princes were elevated on

a buckler, the symbol of military command; and the royal fashion of

long hair was the ensign of their birth and dignity. Their flaxen locks,

which they combed and dressed with singular care, hung down in flowing

ringlets on their back and shoulders; while the rest of the nation were

obliged, either by law or custom, to shave the hinder part of their

head, to comb their hair over the forehead, and to content themselves

with the ornament of two small whiskers. The lofty stature of the

Franks, and their blue eyes, denoted a Germanic origin; their close

apparel accurately expressed the figure of their limbs; a weighty sword

was suspended from a broad belt; their bodies were protected by a large

shield; and these warlike Barbarians were trained, from their earliest

youth, to run, to leap, to swim; to dart the javelin, or battle-axe,

with unerring aim; to advance, without hesitation, against a superior

enemy; and to maintain, either in life or death, the invincible

reputation of their ancestors. Clodion, the first of their long-haired

kings, whose name and actions are mentioned in authentic history, held

his residence at Dispargum, a village or fortress, whose place may be

assigned between Louvain and Brussels. From the report of his spies,

the king of the Franks was informed, that the defenceless state of the

second Belgic must yield, on the slightest attack, to the valor of his

subjects. He boldly penetrated through the thickets and morasses of the

Carbonarian forest; occupied Tournay and Cambray, the only cities which

existed in the fifth century, and extended his conquests as far as the

River Somme, over a desolate country, whose cultivation and populousness

are the effects of more recent industry. While Clodion lay encamped

in the plains of Artois, and celebrated, with vain and ostentatious

security, the marriage, perhaps, of his son, the nuptial feast was

interrupted by the unexpected and unwelcome presence of Ætius, who had

passed the Somme at the head of his light cavalry. The tables, which had

been spread under the shelter of a hill, along the banks of a pleasant

stream, were rudely overturned; the Franks were oppressed before they

could recover their arms, or their ranks; and their unavailing valor was

fatal only to themselves. The loaded wagons, which had followed their

march, afforded a rich booty; and the virgin-bride, with her female

attendants, submitted to the new lovers, who were imposed on them by the

chance of war. This advance, which had been obtained by the skill and

activity of Ætius, might reflect some disgrace on the military prudence

of Clodion; but the king of the Franks soon regained his strength and

reputation, and still maintained the possession of his Gallic kingdom

from the Rhine to the Somme. Under his reign, and most probably from the

enterprising spirit of his subjects, his three capitals, Mentz, Treves,

and Cologne, experienced the effects of hostile cruelty and avarice. The

distress of Cologne was prolonged by the perpetual dominion of the same

Barbarians, who evacuated the ruins of Treves; and Treves, which in

the space of forty years had been four times besieged and pillaged, was

disposed to lose the memory of her afflictions in the vain amusements of

the Circus. The death of Clodion, after a reign of twenty years, exposed

his kingdom to the discord and ambition of his two sons. Meroveus,

the younger, was persuaded to implore the protection of Rome; he was

received at the Imperial court, as the ally of Valentinian, and the

adopted son of the patrician Ætius; and dismissed to his native

country, with splendid gifts, and the strongest assurances of friendship

and support. During his absence, his elder brother had solicited, with

equal ardor, the formidable aid of Attila; and the king of the Huns

embraced an alliance, which facilitated the passage of the Rhine, and

justified, by a specious and honorable pretence, the invasion of Gaul.

Chapter XXXV: Invasion By Attila.—Part II.

When Attila declared his resolution of supporting the cause of his

allies, the Vandals and the Franks, at the same time, and almost in the

spirit of romantic chivalry, the savage monarch professed himself

the lover and the champion of the princess Honoria. The sister of

Valentinian was educated in the palace of Ravenna; and as her marriage

might be productive of some danger to the state, she was raised, by the

title of Augusta, above the hopes of the most presumptuous subject. But

the fair Honoria had no sooner attained the sixteenth year of her age,

than she detested the importunate greatness which must forever exclude

her from the comforts of honorable love; in the midst of vain and

unsatisfactory pomp, Honoria sighed, yielded to the impulse of nature,

and threw herself into the arms of her chamberlain Eugenius. Her guilt

and shame (such is the absurd language of imperious man) were soon

betrayed by the appearances of pregnancy; but the disgrace of the royal

family was published to the world by the imprudence of the empress

Placidia who dismissed her daughter, after a strict and shameful

confinement, to a remote exile at Constantinople. The unhappy princess

passed twelve or fourteen years in the irksome society of the sisters

of Theodosius, and their chosen virgins; to whose crown Honoria could

no longer aspire, and whose monastic assiduity of prayer, fasting, and

vigils, she reluctantly imitated. Her impatience of long and hopeless

celibacy urged her to embrace a strange and desperate resolution. The

name of Attila was familiar and formidable at Constantinople; and his

frequent embassies entertained a perpetual intercourse between his camp

and the Imperial palace. In the pursuit of love, or rather of revenge,

the daughter of Placidia sacrificed every duty and every prejudice; and

offered to deliver her person into the arms of a Barbarian, of whose

language she was ignorant, whose figure was scarcely human, and whose

religion and manners she abhorred. By the ministry of a faithful eunuch,

she transmitted to Attila a ring, the pledge of her affection; and

earnestly conjured him to claim her as a lawful spouse, to whom he had

been secretly betrothed. These indecent advances were received, however,

with coldness and disdain; and the king of the Huns continued to

multiply the number of his wives, till his love was awakened by the

more forcible passions of ambition and avarice. The invasion of Gaul

was preceded, and justified, by a formal demand of the princess Honoria,

with a just and equal share of the Imperial patrimony. His predecessors,

the ancient Tanjous, had often addressed, in the same hostile and

peremptory manner, the daughters of China; and the pretensions of Attila

were not less offensive to the majesty of Rome. A firm, but temperate,

refusal was communicated to his ambassadors. The right of female

succession, though it might derive a specious argument from the recent

examples of Placidia and Pulcheria, was strenuously denied; and the

indissoluble engagements of Honoria were opposed to the claims of her

Scythian lover. On the discovery of her connection with the king of the

Huns, the guilty princess had been sent away, as an object of horror,

from Constantinople to Italy: her life was spared; but the ceremony of

her marriage was performed with some obscure and nominal husband,

before she was immured in a perpetual prison, to bewail those crimes and

misfortunes, which Honoria might have escaped, had she not been born the

daughter of an emperor.

A native of Gaul, and a contemporary, the learned and eloquent Sidonius,

who was afterwards bishop of Clermont, had made a promise to one of his

friends, that he would compose a regular history of the war of Attila.

If the modesty of Sidonius had not discouraged him from the prosecution

of this interesting work, the historian would have related, with the

simplicity of truth, those memorable events, to which the poet, in vague

and doubtful metaphors, has concisely alluded. The kings and nations of

Germany and Scythia, from the Volga perhaps to the Danube, obeyed the

warlike summons of Attila. From the royal village, in the plains of

Hungary his standard moved towards the West; and after a march of seven

or eight hundred miles, he reached the conflux of the Rhine and the

Neckar, where he was joined by the Franks, who adhered to his ally, the

elder of the sons of Clodion. A troop of light Barbarians, who roamed in

quest of plunder, might choose the winter for the convenience of passing

the river on the ice; but the innumerable cavalry of the Huns required

such plenty of forage and provisions, as could be procured only in a

milder season; the Hercynian forest supplied materials for a bridge of

boats; and the hostile myriads were poured, with resistless violence,

into the Belgic provinces. The consternation of Gaul was universal; and

the various fortunes of its cities have been adorned by tradition with

martyrdoms and miracles. Troyes was saved by the merits of St. Lupus;

St. Servatius was removed from the world, that he might not behold the

ruin of Tongres; and the prayers of St. Genevieve diverted the march of

Attila from the neighborhood of Paris. But as the greatest part of the

Gallic cities were alike destitute of saints and soldiers, they were

besieged and stormed by the Huns; who practised, in the example of Metz,

their customary maxims of war. They involved, in a promiscuous massacre,

the priests who served at the altar, and the infants, who, in the hour

of danger, had been providently baptized by the bishop; the flourishing

city was delivered to the flames, and a solitary chapel of St. Stephen

marked the place where it formerly stood. From the Rhine and the

Moselle, Attila advanced into the heart of Gaul; crossed the Seine at

Auxerre; and, after a long and laborious march, fixed his camp under

the walls of Orleans. He was desirous of securing his conquests by the

possession of an advantageous post, which commanded the passage of the

Loire; and he depended on the secret invitation of Sangiban, king of

the Alani, who had promised to betray the city, and to revolt from the

service of the empire. But this treacherous conspiracy was detected and

disappointed: Orleans had been strengthened with recent fortifications;

and the assaults of the Huns were vigorously repelled by the faithful

valor of the soldiers, or citizens, who defended the place. The pastoral

diligence of Anianus, a bishop of primitive sanctity and consummate

prudence, exhausted every art of religious policy to support their

courage, till the arrival of the expected succors. After an obstinate

siege, the walls were shaken by the battering rams; the Huns had already

occupied the suburbs; and the people, who were incapable of bearing

arms, lay prostrate in prayer. Anianus, who anxiously counted the days

and hours, despatched a trusty messenger to observe, from the rampart,

the face of the distant country. He returned twice, without any

intelligence that could inspire hope or comfort; but, in his third

report, he mentioned a small cloud, which he had faintly descried at the

extremity of the horizon. "It is the aid of God!" exclaimed the bishop,

in a tone of pious confidence; and the whole multitude repeated after

him, "It is the aid of God." The remote object, on which every eye

was fixed, became each moment larger, and more distinct; the Roman and

Gothic banners were gradually perceived; and a favorable wind blowing

aside the dust, discovered, in deep array, the impatient squadrons of

Ætius and Theodoric, who pressed forwards to the relief of Orleans.

The facility with which Attila had penetrated into the heart of Gaul,

may be ascribed to his insidious policy, as well as to the terror of his

arms. His public declarations were skilfully mitigated by his private

assurances; he alternately soothed and threatened the Romans and the

Goths; and the courts of Ravenna and Thoulouse, mutually suspicious of

each other's intentions, beheld, with supine indifference, the approach

of their common enemy. Ætius was the sole guardian of the public

safety; but his wisest measures were embarrassed by a faction, which,

since the death of Placidia, infested the Imperial palace: the youth

of Italy trembled at the sound of the trumpet; and the Barbarians, who,

from fear or affection, were inclined to the cause of Attila, awaited

with doubtful and venal faith, the event of the war. The patrician

passed the Alps at the head of some troops, whose strength and numbers

scarcely deserved the name of an army. But on his arrival at Arles,

or Lyons, he was confounded by the intelligence, that the Visigoths,

refusing to embrace the defence of Gaul, had determined to expect,

within their own territories, the formidable invader, whom they

professed to despise. The senator Avitus, who, after the honorable

exercise of the Prætorian præfecture, had retired to his estate

in Auvergne, was persuaded to accept the important embassy, which he

executed with ability and success. He represented to Theodoric, that an

ambitious conqueror, who aspired to the dominion of the earth, could be

resisted only by the firm and unanimous alliance of the powers whom he

labored to oppress. The lively eloquence of Avitus inflamed the Gothic

warriors, by the description of the injuries which their ancestors had

suffered from the Huns; whose implacable fury still pursued them from

the Danube to the foot of the Pyrenees. He strenuously urged, that it

was the duty of every Christian to save, from sacrilegious violation,

the churches of God, and the relics of the saints: that it was the

interest of every Barbarian, who had acquired a settlement in Gaul,

to defend the fields and vineyards, which were cultivated for his use,

against the desolation of the Scythian shepherds. Theodoric yielded to

the evidence of truth; adopted the measure at once the most prudent and

the most honorable; and declared, that, as the faithful ally of Ætius

and the Romans, he was ready to expose his life and kingdom for the

common safety of Gaul. The Visigoths, who, at that time, were in the

mature vigor of their fame and power, obeyed with alacrity the signal of

war; prepared their arms and horses, and assembled under the standard of

their aged king, who was resolved, with his two eldest sons, Torismond

and Theodoric, to command in person his numerous and valiant people. The

example of the Goths determined several tribes or nations, that

seemed to fluctuate between the Huns and the Romans. The indefatigable

diligence of the patrician gradually collected the troops of Gaul and

Germany, who had formerly acknowledged themselves the subjects, or

soldiers, of the republic, but who now claimed the rewards of voluntary

service, and the rank of independent allies; the Læti, the Armoricans,

the Breones the Saxons, the Burgundians, the Sarmatians, or Alani, the

Ripuarians, and the Franks who followed Meroveus as their lawful prince.

Such was the various army, which, under the conduct of Ætius and

Theodoric, advanced, by rapid marches to relieve Orleans, and to give

battle to the innumerable host of Attila.

On their approach the king of the Huns immediately raised the siege, and

sounded a retreat to recall the foremost of his troops from the pillage

of a city which they had already entered. The valor of Attila was always

guided by his prudence; and as he foresaw the fatal consequences of a

defeat in the heart of Gaul, he repassed the Seine, and expected the

enemy in the plains of Châlons, whose smooth and level surface

was adapted to the operations of his Scythian cavalry. But in this

tumultuary retreat, the vanguard of the Romans and their allies

continually pressed, and sometimes engaged, the troops whom Attila had

posted in the rear; the hostile columns, in the darkness of the night

and the perplexity of the roads, might encounter each other without

design; and the bloody conflict of the Franks and Gepidæ, in which

fifteen thousand Barbarians were slain, was a prelude to a more general

and decisive action. The Catalaunian fields spread themselves round

Châlons, and extend, according to the vague measurement of Jornandes,

to the length of one hundred and fifty, and the breadth of one hundred

miles, over the whole province, which is entitled to the appellation of

a champaign country. This spacious plain was distinguished, however,

by some inequalities of ground; and the importance of a height, which

commanded the camp of Attila, was understood and disputed by the two

generals. The young and valiant Torismond first occupied the summit; the

Goths rushed with irresistible weight on the Huns, who labored to ascend

from the opposite side: and the possession of this advantageous post

inspired both the troops and their leaders with a fair assurance of

victory. The anxiety of Attila prompted him to consult his priests and

haruspices. It was reported, that, after scrutinizing the entrails

of victims, and scraping their bones, they revealed, in mysterious

language, his own defeat, with the death of his principal adversary;

and that the Barbarians, by accepting the equivalent, expressed his

involuntary esteem for the superior merit of Ætius. But the unusual

despondency, which seemed to prevail among the Huns, engaged Attila

to use the expedient, so familiar to the generals of antiquity, of

animating his troops by a military oration; and his language was that

of a king, who had often fought and conquered at their head. He pressed

them to consider their past glory, their actual danger, and their

future hopes. The same fortune, which opened the deserts and morasses of

Scythia to their unarmed valor, which had laid so many warlike nations

prostrate at their feet, had reserved the joys of this memorable field

for the consummation of their victories. The cautious steps of their

enemies, their strict alliance, and their advantageous posts, he

artfully represented as the effects, not of prudence, but of fear. The

Visigoths alone were the strength and nerves of the opposite army; and

the Huns might securely trample on the degenerate Romans, whose close

and compact order betrayed their apprehensions, and who were equally

incapable of supporting the dangers or the fatigues of a day of battle.

The doctrine of predestination, so favorable to martial virtue, was

carefully inculcated by the king of the Huns; who assured his subjects,

that the warriors, protected by Heaven, were safe and invulnerable

amidst the darts of the enemy; but that the unerring Fates would strike

their victims in the bosom of inglorious peace. "I myself," continued

Attila, "will throw the first javelin, and the wretch who refuses to

imitate the example of his sovereign, is devoted to inevitable death."

The spirit of the Barbarians was rekindled by the presence, the voice,

and the example of their intrepid leader; and Attila, yielding to their

impatience, immediately formed his order of battle. At the head of his

brave and faithful Huns, he occupied in person the centre of the

line. The nations subject to his empire, the Rugians, the Heruli, the

Thuringians, the Franks, the Burgundians, were extended on either hand,

over the ample space of the Catalaunian fields; the right wing was

commanded by Ardaric, king of the Gepidæ; and the three valiant

brothers, who reigned over the Ostrogoths, were posted on the left

to oppose the kindred tribes of the Visigoths. The disposition of the

allies was regulated by a different principle. Sangiban, the faithless

king of the Alani, was placed in the centre, where his motions might be

strictly watched, and that the treachery might be instantly punished.

Ætius assumed the command of the left, and Theodoric of the right wing;

while Torismond still continued to occupy the heights which appear to

have stretched on the flank, and perhaps the rear, of the Scythian army.

The nations from the Volga to the Atlantic were assembled on the plain

of Châlons; but many of these nations had been divided by faction, or

conquest, or emigration; and the appearance of similar arms and ensigns,

which threatened each other, presented the image of a civil war.