Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 3
by Edward Gibbon
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman
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[Footnote 5: The original writers are not agreed (see Muratori,
Annali d'Italia tom. iv. p. 139) whether Valentinian received the
Imperial diadem at Rome or Ravenna. In this uncertainty, I am
willing to believe, that some respect was shown to the senate.]
[Footnote 6: The count de Buat (Hist. des Peup es de l'Europe,
tom. vii. p. 292 - 300) has established the reality, explained
the motives, and traced the consequences, of this remarkable
cession.]

[Footnote 7: See the first Novel of Theodosius, by which he
ratifies and communicates (A.D. 438) the Theodosian Code. About
forty years before that time, the unity of legislation had been
proved by an exception. The Jews, who were numerous in the
cities of Apulia and Calabria, produced a law of the East to
justify their exemption from municipal offices, (Cod. Theod. l.
xvi. tit. viii. leg. 13;) and the Western emperor was obliged to
invalidate, by a special edict, the law, quam constat meis
partibus esse damnosam. Cod. Theod. l. xi. tit. i. leg. 158.]
     Valentinian, when he received the title of Augustus, was no
more than six years of age; and his long minority was intrusted
to the guardian care of a mother, who might assert a female claim
to the succession of the Western empire. Placidia envied, but
she could not equal, the reputation and virtues of the wife and
sister of Theodosius, the elegant genius of Eudocia, the wise and
successful policy of Pulcheria. The mother of Valentinian was
jealous of the power which she was incapable of exercising; ^8
she reigned twenty-five years, in the name of her son; and the
character of that unworthy emperor gradually countenanced the
suspicion that Placidia had enervated his youth by a dissolute
education, and studiously diverted his attention from every manly
and honorable pursuit. Amidst the decay of military spirit, her
armies were commanded by two generals, Aetius ^9 and Boniface,
^10 who may be deservedly named as the last of the Romans. Their
union might have supported a sinking empire; their discord was
the fatal and immediate cause of the loss of Africa. The invasion
and defeat of Attila have immortalized the fame of Aetius; and
though time has thrown a shade over the exploits of his rival,
the defence of Marseilles, and the deliverance of Africa, attest
the military talents of Count Boniface. In the field of battle,
in partial encounters, in single combats, he was still the terror
of the Barbarians: the clergy, and particularly his friend
Augustin, were edified by the Christian piety which had once
tempted him to retire from the world; the people applauded his
spotless integrity; the army dreaded his equal and inexorable
justice, which may be displayed in a very singular example. A
peasant, who complained of the criminal intimacy between his wife
and a Gothic soldier, was directed to attend his tribunal the
following day: in the evening the count, who had diligently
informed himself of the time and place of the assignation,
mounted his horse, rode ten miles into the country, surprised the
guilty couple, punished the soldier with instant death, and
silenced the complaints of the husband by presenting him, the
next morning, with the head of the adulterer. The abilities of
Aetius and Boniface might have been usefully employed against the
public enemies, in separate and important commands; but the
experience of their past conduct should have decided the real
favor and confidence of the empress Placidia. In the melancholy
season of her exile and distress, Boniface alone had maintained
her cause with unshaken fidelity: and the troops and treasures of
Africa had essentially contributed to extinguish the rebellion.
The same rebellion had been supported by the zeal and activity of
Aetius, who brought an army of sixty thousand Huns from the
Danube to the confines of Italy, for the service of the usurper.
The untimely death of John compelled him to accept an
advantageous treaty; but he still continued, the subject and the
soldier of Valentinian, to entertain a secret, perhaps a
treasonable, correspondence with his Barbarian allies, whose
retreat had been purchased by liberal gifts, and more liberal
promises. But Aetius possessed an advantage of singular moment
in a female reign; he was present: he besieged, with artful and
assiduous flattery, the palace of Ravenna; disguised his dark
designs with the mask of loyalty and friendship; and at length
deceived both his mistress and his absent rival, by a subtle
conspiracy, which a weak woman and a brave man could not easily
suspect. He had secretly persuaded ^11 Placidia to recall
Boniface from the government of Africa; he secretly advised
Boniface to disobey the Imperial summons: to the one, he
represented the order as a sentence of death; to the other, he
stated the refusal as a signal of revolt; and when the credulous
and unsuspectful count had armed the province in his defence,
Aetius applauded his sagacity in foreseeing the rebellion, which
his own perfidy had excited. A temperate inquiry into the real
motives of Boniface would have restored a faithful servant to his
duty and to the republic; but the arts of Aetius still continued
to betray and to inflame, and the count was urged, by
persecution, to embrace the most desperate counsels. The success
with which he eluded or repelled the first attacks, could not
inspire a vain confidence, that at the head of some loose,
disorderly Africans, he should be able to withstand the regular
forces of the West, commanded by a rival, whose military
character it was impossible for him to despise. After some
hesitation, the last struggles of prudence and loyalty, Boniface
despatched a trusty friend to the court, or rather to the camp,
of Gonderic, king of the Vandals, with the proposal of a strict
alliance, and the offer of an advantageous and perpetual
settlement.
[Footnote 8: Cassiodorus (Variar. l. xi. Epist. i. p. 238) has
compared the regencies of Placidia and Amalasuntha. He arraigns
the weakness of the mother of Valentinian, and praises the
virtues of his royal mistress. On this occasion, flattery seems
to have spoken the language of truth.]
[Footnote 9: Philostorgius, l. xii. c. 12, and Godefroy's
Dissertat. p. 493, &c.; and Renatus Frigeridus, apud Gregor.
Turon. l. ii. c. 8, in tom. ii. p. 163. The father of Aetius was
Gaudentius, an illustrious citizen of the province of Scythia,
and master-general of the cavalry; his mother was a rich and
noble Italian. From his earliest youth, Aetius, as a soldier and
a hostage, had conversed with the Barbarians.]

[Footnote 10: For the character of Boniface, see Olympiodorus,
apud Phot. p. 196; and St. Augustin apud Tillemont, Memoires
Eccles. tom. xiii. p. 712 - 715, 886. The bishop of Hippo at
length deplored the fall of his friend, who, after a solemn vow
of chastity, had married a second wife of the Arian sect, and who
was suspected of keeping several concubines in his house.]
[Footnote 11: Procopius (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 3, 4, p. 182 -
186) relates the fraud of Aetius, the revolt of Boniface, and the
loss of Africa. This anecdote, which is supported by some
collateral testimony, (see Ruinart, Hist. Persecut. Vandal. p.
420, 421,) seems agreeable to the practice of ancient and modern
courts, and would be naturally revealed by the repentance of
Boniface.]
     After the retreat of the Goths, the authority of Honorius
had obtained a precarious establishment in Spain; except only in
the province of Gallicia, where the Suevi and the Vandals had
fortified their camps, in mutual discord and hostile
independence. The Vandals prevailed; and their adversaries were
besieged in the Nervasian hills, between Leon and Oviedo, till
the approach of Count Asterius compelled, or rather provoked, the
victorious Barbarians to remove the scene of the war to the
plains of Boetica. The rapid progress of the Vandals soon
acquired a more effectual opposition; and the master-general
Castinus marched against them with a numerous army of Romans and
Goths. Vanquished in battle by an inferior army, Castinus fled
with dishonor to Tarragona; and this memorable defeat, which has
been represented as the punishment, was most probably the effect,
of his rash presumption. ^12 Seville and Carthagena became the
reward, or rather the prey, of the ferocious conquerors; and the
vessels which they found in the harbor of Carthagena might easily
transport them to the Isles of Majorca and Minorca, where the
Spanish fugitives, as in a secure recess, had vainly concealed
their families and their fortunes. The experience of navigation,
and perhaps the prospect of Africa, encouraged the Vandals to
accept the invitation which they received from Count Boniface;
and the death of Gonderic served only to forward and animate the
bold enterprise. In the room of a prince not conspicuous for any
superior powers of the mind or body, they acquired his bastard
brother, the terrible Genseric; ^13 a name, which, in the
destruction of the Roman empire, has deserved an equal rank with
the names of Alaric and Attila. The king of the Vandals is
described to have been of a middle stature, with a lameness in
one leg, which he had contracted by an accidental fall from his
horse. His slow and cautious speech seldom declared the deep
purposes of his soul; he disdained to imitate the luxury of the
vanquished; but he indulged the sterner passions of anger and
revenge. The ambition of Genseric was without bounds and without
scruples; and the warrior could dexterously employ the dark
engines of policy to solicit the allies who might be useful to
his success, or to scatter among his enemies the seeds of hatred
and contention. Almost in the moment of his departure he was
informed that Hermanric, king of the Suevi, had presumed to
ravage the Spanish territories, which he was resolved to abandon.

Impatient of the insult, Genseric pursued the hasty retreat of
the Suevi as far as Merida; precipitated the king and his army
into the River Anas, and calmly returned to the sea-shore to
embark his victorious troops. The vessels which transported the
Vandals over the modern Straits of Gibraltar, a channel only
twelve miles in breadth, were furnished by the Spaniards, who
anxiously wished their departure; and by the African general, who
had implored their formidable assistance. ^14

[Footnote 12: See the Chronicles of Prosper and Idatius. Salvian
(de Gubernat. Dei, l. vii. p. 246, Paris, 1608) ascribes the
victory of the Vandals to their superior piety. They fasted,
they prayed, they carried a Bible in the front of the Host, with
the design, perhaps, of reproaching the perfidy and sacrilege of
their enemies.]

[Footnote 13: Gizericus (his name is variously expressed) statura
mediocris et equi casu claudicans, animo profundus, sermone
rarus, luxuriae contemptor, ira turbidus, habendi cupidus, ad
solicitandas gentes providentissimus, semina contentionum jacere,
odia miscere paratus. Jornandes, de Rebus Geticis, c. 33, p. 657.

This portrait, which is drawn with some skill, and a strong
likeness, must have been copied from the Gothic history of
Cassiodorus.]
[Footnote 14: See the Chronicle of Idatius. That bishop, a
Spaniard and a contemporary, places the passage of the Vandals in
the month of May, of the year of Abraham, (which commences in
October,) 2444. This date, which coincides with A.D. 429, is
confirmed by Isidore, another Spanish bishop, and is justly
preferred to the opinion of those writers who have marked for
that event one of the two preceding years. See Pagi Critica,
tom. ii. p. 205, &c.]
     Our fancy, so long accustomed to exaggerate and multiply the
martial swarms of Barbarians that seemed to issue from the North,
will perhaps be surprised by the account of the army which
Genseric mustered on the coast of Mauritania. The Vandals, who
in twenty years had penetrated from the Elbe to Mount Atlas, were
united under the command of their warlike king; and he reigned
with equal authority over the Alani, who had passed, within the
term of human life, from the cold of Scythia to the excessive
heat of an African climate. The hopes of the bold enterprise had
excited many brave adventurers of the Gothic nation; and many
desperate provincials were tempted to repair their fortunes by
the same means which had occasioned their ruin. Yet this various
multitude amounted only to fifty thousand effective men; and
though Genseric artfully magnified his apparent strength, by
appointing eighty chinarchs, or commanders of thousands, the
fallacious increase of old men, of children, and of slaves, would
scarcely have swelled his army to the number of four-score
thousand persons. ^15 But his own dexterity, and the discontents
of Africa, soon fortified the Vandal powers, by the accession of
numerous and active allies. The parts of Mauritania which border
on the Great Desert and the Atlantic Ocean, were filled with a
fierce and untractable race of men, whose savage temper had been
exasperated, rather than reclaimed, by their dread of the Roman
arms. The wandering Moors, ^16 as they gradually ventured to
approach the seashore, and the camp of the Vandals, must have
viewed with terror and astonishment the dress, the armor, the
martial pride and discipline of the unknown strangers who had
landed on their coast; and the fair complexions of the blue-eyed
warriors of Germany formed a very singular contrast with the
swarthy or olive hue which is derived from the neighborhood of
the torrid zone. After the first difficulties had in some
measure been removed, which arose from the mutual ignorance of
their respective language, the Moors, regardless of any future
consequence, embraced the alliance of the enemies of Rome; and a
crowd of naked savages rushed from the woods and valleys of Mount
Atlas, to satiate their revenge on the polished tyrants, who had
injuriously expelled them from the native sovereignty of the
land.
[Footnote 15: Compare Procopius (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 5, p.
190) and Victor Vitensis, (de Persecutione Vandal. l. i. c. 1, p.
3, edit. Ruinart.) We are assured by Idatius, that Genseric
evacuated Spain, cum Vandalis omnibus eorumque familiis; and
Possidius (in Vit. Augustin. c. 28, apud Ruinart, p. 427)
describes his army as manus ingens immanium gentium Vandalorum et
Alanorum, commixtam secum babens Gothorum gentem, aliarumque
diversarum personas.]

[Footnote 16: For the manners of the Moors, see Procopius, (de
Bell. Vandal. l. ii. c. 6, p. 249;) for their figure and
complexion, M. de Buffon, (Histoire Naturelle, tom. iii. p. 430.)
Procopius says in general, that the Moors had joined the Vandals
before the death of Valentinian, (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 5, p.
190;) and it is probable that the independent tribes did not
embrace any uniform system of policy.]

     The persecution of the Donatists ^17 was an event not less
favorable to the designs of Genseric. Seventeen years before he
landed in Africa, a public conference was held at Carthage, by
the order of the magistrate. The Catholics were satisfied, that,
after the invincible reasons which they had alleged, the
obstinacy of the schismatics must be inexcusable and voluntary;
and the emperor Honorius was persuaded to inflict the most
rigorous penalties on a faction which had so long abused his
patience and clemency. Three hundred bishops, ^18 with many
thousands of the inferior clergy, were torn from their churches,
stripped of their ecclesiastical possessions, banished to the
islands, and proscribed by the laws, if they presumed to conceal
themselves in the provinces of Africa. Their numerous
congregations, both in cities and in the country, were deprived
of the rights of citizens, and of the exercise of religious
worship. A regular scale of fines, from ten to two hundred
pounds of silver, was curiously ascertained, according to the
distinction of rank and fortune, to punish the crime of assisting
at a schismatic conventicle; and if the fine had been levied five
times, without subduing the obstinacy of the offender, his future
punishment was referred to the discretion of the Imperial court.
^19 By these severities, which obtained the warmest approbation
of St. Augustin, ^20 great numbers of Donatists were reconciled
to the Catholic Church; but the fanatics, who still persevered in
their opposition, were provoked to madness and despair; the
distracted country was filled with tumult and bloodshed; the
armed troops of Circumcellions alternately pointed their rage
against themselves, or against their adversaries; and the
calendar of martyrs received on both sides a considerable
augmentation. ^21 Under these circumstances, Genseric, a
Christian, but an enemy of the orthodox communion, showed himself
to the Donatists as a powerful deliverer, from whom they might
reasonably expect the repeal of the odious and oppressive edicts
of the Roman emperors. ^22 The conquest of Africa was facilitated
by the active zeal, or the secret favor, of a domestic faction;
the wanton outrages against the churches and the clergy of which
the Vandals are accused, may be fairly imputed to the fanaticism
of their allies; and the intolerant spirit which disgraced the
triumph of Christianity, contributed to the loss of the most
important province of the West. ^23

[Footnote 17: See Tillemont, Memoires Eccles. tom. xiii. p. 516 -
558; and the whole series of the persecution, in the original
monuments, published by Dupin at the end of Optatus, p. 323 -
515.]

[Footnote 18: The Donatist Bishops, at the conference of
Carthage, amounted to 279; and they asserted that their whole
number was not less than 400. The Catholics had 286 present, 120
absent, besides sixty four vacant bishoprics.]
[Footnote 19: The fifth title of the sixteenth book of the
Theodosian Code exhibits a series of the Imperial laws against
the Donatists, from the year 400 to the year 428. Of these the
54th law, promulgated by Honorius, A.D. 414, is the most severe
and effectual.]

[Footnote 20: St. Augustin altered his opinion with regard tosthe
proper treatment of heretics. His pathetic declaration of pity
and indulgence for the Manichaeans, has been inserted by Mr.
Locke (vol. iii. p. 469) among the choice specimens of his
common-place book. Another philosopher, the celebrated Bayle,
(tom. ii. p. 445 - 496,) has refuted, with superfluous diligence
and ingenuity, the arguments by which the bishop of Hippo
justified, in his old age, the persecution of the Donatists.]
[Footnote 21: See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. xiii. p. 586 -
592, 806. The Donatists boasted of thousands of these voluntary
martyrs. Augustin asserts, and probably with truth, that these
numbers were much exaggerated; but he sternly maintains, that it
was better that some should burn themselves in this world, than
that all should burn in hell flames.]

[Footnote 22: According to St. Augustin and Theodoret, the
Donatists were inclined to the principles, or at least to the
party, of the Arians, which Genseric supported. Tillemont, Mem.
Eccles. tom. vi. p. 68.]
[Footnote 23: See Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 428, No. 7, A.D.
439, No. 35. The cardinal, though more inclined to seek the cause
of great events in heaven than on the earth, has observed the
apparent connection of the Vandals and the Donatists. Under the
reign of the Barbarians, the schismatics of Africa enjoyed an
obscure peace of one hundred years; at the end of which we may
again trace them by the fight of the Imperial persecutions. See
Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 192. &c.]

     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 Aetius, a free conference with the Count of
Africa; and Darius, an officer of high distinction, was named for
the important embassy. ^24 In their first interview at Carthage,
the imaginary provocations were mutually explained; the opposite
letters of Aetius 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.

[Footnote 24: In a confidential letter to Count Boniface, St.
Augustin, without examining the grounds of the quarrel, piously
exhorts him to discharge the duties of a Christian and a subject:
to extricate himself without delay from his dangerous and guilty
situation; and even, if he could obtain the consent of his wife,
to embrace a life of celibacy and penance, (Tillemont, Mem.
Eccles. tom. xiii. p. 890.) The bishop was intimately connected
with Darius, the minister of peace, (Id. tom. xiii. p. 928.)]
     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. ^25
[Footnote 25: The original complaints of the desolation of Africa
are contained 1. In a letter from Capreolus, bishop of Carthage,
to excuse his absence from the council of Ephesus, (ap. Ruinart,
p. 427.) 2. In the life of St. Augustin, by his friend and
colleague Possidius, (ap. Ruinart, p. 427.) 3. In the history of
the Vandalic persecution, by Victor Vitensis, (l. i. c. 1, 2, 3,
edit. Ruinart.) The last picture, which was drawn sixty years
after the event, is more expressive of the author's passions than
of the truth of facts.]

     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, ^26 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; ^27 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
Manichaeans, 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. ^28 According to the
judgment of the most impartial critics, the superficial learning
of Augustin was confined to the Latin language; ^29 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,
^30 has been entertained, with public applause, and secret
reluctance, by the Latin church. ^31
[Footnote 26: See Cellarius, Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii. part ii.
p. 112. Leo African. in Ramusio, tom. i. fol. 70. L'Afrique de
Marmol, tom. ii. p. 434, 437. Shaw's Travels, p. 46, 47. The
old Hippo Regius was finally destroyed by the Arabs in the
seventh century; but a new town, at the distance of two miles,
was built with the materials; and it contained, in the sixteenth
century, about three hundred families of industrious, but
turbulent manufacturers. The adjacent territory is renowned for
a pure air, a fertile soil, and plenty of exquisite fruits.]
[Footnote 27: The life of St. Augustin, by Tillemont, fills a
quarto volume (Mem. Eccles. tom. xiii.) of more than one thousand
pages; and the diligence of that learned Jansenist was excited,
on this occasion, by factious and devout zeal for the founder of
his sect.]

[Footnote 28: Such, at least, is the account of Victor Vitensis,
(de Persecut. Vandal. l. i. c. 3;) though Gennadius seems to
doubt whether any person had read, or even collected, all the
works of St. Augustin, (see Hieronym. Opera, tom. i. p. 319, in
Catalog. Scriptor. Eccles.) They have been repeatedly printed;
and Dupin (Bibliotheque Eccles. tom. iii. p. 158 - 257) has given
a large and satisfactory abstract of them as they stand in the
last edition of the Benedictines. My personal acquaintance with
the bishop of Hippo does not extend beyond the Confessions, and
the City of God.]

[Footnote 29: In his early youth (Confess. i. 14) St. Augustin
disliked and neglected the study of Greek; and he frankly owns
that he read the Platonists in a Latin version, (Confes. vii. 9.)
Some modern critics have thought, that his ignorance of Greek
disqualified him from expounding the Scriptures; and Cicero or
Quintilian would have required the knowledge of that language in
a professor of rhetoric.]

[Footnote 30: These questions were seldom agitated, from the time
of St. Paul to that of St. Augustin. I am informed that the
Greek fathers maintain the natural sentiments of the
Semi-Pelagians; and that the orthodoxy of St. Augustin was
derived from the Manichaean school.]

[Footnote 31: The church of Rome has canonized Augustin, and
reprobated Calvin. Yet as the real difference between them is
invisible even to a theological microscope, the Molinists are
oppressed by the authority of the saint, and the Jansenists are
disgraced by their resemblance to the heretic. In the mean while,
the Protestant Arminians stand aloof, and deride the mutual
perplexity of the disputants, (see a curious Review of the
Controversy, by Le Clerc, Bibliotheque Universelle, (tom. xiv. p.
144 - 398.) Perhaps a reasoner still more independent may smile
in his turn, when he peruses an Arminian Commentary on the
Epistle to the Romans.]

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 reenforced
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. ^32 The discovery of his
fraud, the displeasure of the empress, and the distinguished
favor of his rival, exasperated the haughty and perfidious soul
of Aetius. 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 Aetius for
her second husband. But Aetius 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. ^33

[Footnote 32: Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 67. On one side, the head
of Valentinian; on the reverse, Boniface, with a scourge in one
hand, and a palm in the other, standing in a triumphal car, which
is drawn by four horses, or, in another medal, by four stags; an
unlucky emblem! I should doubt whether another example can be
found of the head of a subject on the reverse of an Imperial
medal. See Science des Medailles, by the Pere Jobert, tom. i. p.
132 - 150, edit. of 1739, by the haron de la Bastie.

     Note: Lord Mahon, Life of Belisarius, p. 133, mentions one
of Belisarius on the authority of Cedrenus - M.]

[Footnote 33: Procopius (de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 3, p. 185)
continues the history of Boniface no further than his return to
Italy. His death is mentioned by Prosper and Marcellinus; the
expression of the latter, that Aetius, the day before, had
provided himself with a longer spear, implies something like a
regular duel.]

     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. ^34 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. ^35 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. ^36 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. ^37
[Footnote 34: See Procopius, de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 4, p. 186.
Valentinian published several humane laws, to relieve the
distress of his Numidian and Mauritanian subjects; he discharged
them, in a great measure, from the payment of their debts,
reduced their tribute to one eighth, and gave them a right of
appeal from their provincial magistrates to the praefect of Rome.

Cod. Theod. tom. vi. Novell. p. 11, 12.]

[Footnote 35: Victor Vitensis, de Persecut. Vandal. l. ii. c. 5,
p. 26. The cruelties of Genseric towards his subjects are
strongly expressed in Prosper's Chronicle, A.D. 442.]

[Footnote 36: Possidius, in Vit. Augustin. c. 28, apud Ruinart,
p. 428.]
[Footnote 37: See the Chronicles of Idatius, Isidore, Prosper,
and Marcellinus. They mark the same year, but different days,
for the surprisal of Carthage.]

     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 ^38
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 indus try 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. ^39 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. ^40 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. ^41
[Footnote 38: The picture of Carthage; as it flourished in the
fourth and fifth centuries, is taken from the Expositio totius
Mundi, p. 17, 18, in the third volume of Hudson's Minor
Geographers, from Ausonius de Claris Urbibus, p. 228, 229; and
principally from Salvian, de Gubernatione Dei, l. vii. p. 257,
258.]

[Footnote 39: The anonymous author of the Expositio totius Mundi
compares in his barbarous Latin, the country and the inhabitants;
and, after stigmatizing their want of faith, he coolly concludes,
Difficile autem inter eos invenitur bonus, tamen in multis pauci
boni esse possunt P. 18.]

[Footnote 40: He declares, that the peculiar vices of each
country were collected in the sink of Carthage, (l. vii. p. 257.)
In the indulgence of vice, the Africans applauded their manly
virtue. Et illi se magis virilis fortitudinis esse crederent,
qui maxime vires foeminei usus probositate fregissent, (p. 268.)
The streets of Carthage were polluted by effeminate wretches, who
publicly assumed the countenance, the dress, and the character of
women, (p. 264.) If a monk appeared in the city, the holy man was
pursued with impious scorn and ridicule; de testantibus ridentium
cachinnis, (p. 289.)]

[Footnote 41: Compare Procopius de Bell. Vandal. l. i. c. 5, p.
189, 190, and Victor Vitensis, de Persecut Vandal. l. i. c. 4.]
     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 Theod oret still
preserve the names and misfortunes of Caelestian and Maria. ^42
The Syrian bishop deplores the misfortunes of Caelestian, 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 Eudaemon, 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 Eudaemon 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 oy 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 Aegae, 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.
[Footnote 42: Ruinart (p. 441 - 457) has collected from
Theodoret, and other authors, the misfortunes, real and fabulous,
of the inhabitants of Carthage.]
     Among the insipid legends of ecclesiastical history, I am
tempted to distinguish the memorable fable of the Seven Sleepers;
^43 whose imaginary date corresponds with the reign of the
younger Theodosius, and the conquest of Africa by the Vandals.
^44 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. ^45 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. ^46 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. ^47 The story of the Seven
Sleepers has been adopted and adorned by the nations, from Bengal
to Africa, who profess the Mahometan religion; ^48 and some
vestiges of a similar tradition have been discovered in the
remote extremities of Scandinavia. ^49 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 aeras 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.

[Footnote 43: The choice of fabulous circumstances is of small
importance; yet I have confined myself to the narrative which was
translated from the Syriac by the care of Gregory of Tours, (de
Gloria Martyrum, l. i. c. 95, in Max. Bibliotheca Patrum, tom.
xi. p. 856,) to the Greek acts of their martyrdom (apud Photium,
p. 1400, 1401) and to the Annals of the Patriarch Eutychius,
(tom. i. p. 391, 531, 532, 535, Vers. Pocock.)]

[Footnote 44: Two Syriac writers, as they are quoted by
Assemanni, (Bibliot. Oriental. tom. i. p. 336, 338,) place the
resurrection of the Seven Sleepers in the year 736 (A.D. 425) or
748, (A.D. 437,) of the aera of the Seleucides. Their Greek acts,
which Photius had read, assign the date of the thirty-eighth year
of the reign of Theodosius, which may coincide either with A.D.
439, or 446. The period which had elapsed since the persecution
of Decius is easily ascertained; and nothing less than the
ignorance of Mahomet, or the legendaries, could suppose an
internal of three or four hundred years.]
[Footnote 45: James, one of the orthodox fathers of the Syrian
church, was born A.D. 452; he began to compose his sermons A.D.
474; he was made bishop of Batnae, in the district of Sarug, and
province of Mesopotamia, A.D. 519, and died A.D. 521.
(Assemanni, tom. i. p. 288, 289.) For the homily de Pueris
Ephesinis, see p. 335 - 339: though I could wish that Assemanni
had translated the text of James of Sarug, instead of answering
the objections of Baronius.]
[Footnote 46: See the Acta Sanctorum of the Bollandists, Mensis
Julii, tom. vi. p. 375 - 397. This immense calendar of Saints,
in one hundred and twenty-six years, (1644 - 1770,) and in fifty
volumes in folio, has advanced no further than the 7th day of
October. The suppression of the Jesuits has most probably
checked an undertaking, which, through the medium of fable and
superstition, communicates much historical and philosophical
instruction.]
[Footnote 47: See Maracci Alcoran. Sura xviii. tom. ii. p. 420 -
427, and tom. i. part iv. p. 103. With such an ample privilege,
Mahomet has not shown much taste or ingenuity. He has invented
the dog (Al Rakim) the Seven Sleepers; the respect of the sun,
who altered his course twice a day, that he might not shine into
the cavern; and the care of God himself, who preserved their
bodies from putrefaction, by turning them to the right and left.]

[Footnote 48: See D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 139; and
Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alexandrin. p. 39, 40.]

[Footnote 49: Paul, the deacon of Aquileia, (de Gestis
Langobardorum, l. i. c. 4, p. 745, 746, edit. Grot.,) who lived
towards the end of the eight century, has placed in a cavern,
under a rock, on the shore of the ocean, the Seven Sleepers of
the North, whose long repose was respected by the Barbarians.
Their dress declared them to be Romans and the deacon
conjectures, that they were reserved by Providence as the future
apostles of those unbelieving countries.]

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, ^1 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.

[Footnote 1: The authentic materials for the history of Attila,
may be found in Jornandes (de Rebus Geticis, c. 34-50, p.
668-688, edit. Grot.) and Priscus (Excerpta de Legationibus, p.
33-76, Paris, 1648.) I have not seen the Lives of Attila,
composed by Juvencus Caelius Calanus Dalmatinus, in the twelfth
century, or by Nicholas Olahus, archbishop of Gran, in the
sixteenth. See Mascou's History of the Germans, ix., and Maffei
Osservazioni Litterarie, tom. i. p. 88, 89. Whatever the modern
Hungarians have added must be fabulous; and they do not seem to
have excelled in the art of fiction. They suppose, that when
Attila invaded Gaul and Italy, married innumerable wives, &c., he
was one hundred and twenty years of age. Thewrocz Chron. c. i. p.
22, in Script. Hunger. tom. i. p. 76.]

     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, ^2 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
Aetius; 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 Aetius 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; ^3
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 quaestor Epigenes, a wise and experienced statesman, who
was recommended to that office by his ambitious colleague.
[Footnote 2: Hungary has been successively occupied by three
Scythian colonies. 1. The Huns of Attila; 2. The Abares, in the
sixth century; and, 3. The Turks or Magiars, A.D. 889; the
immediate and genuine ancestors of the modern Hungarians, whose
connection with the two former is extremely faint and remote.
The Prodromus and Notitia of Matthew Belius appear to contain a
rich fund of information concerning ancient and modern Hungary. I
have seen the extracts in Bibli otheque Ancienne et Moderne, tom.
xxii. p. 1 - 51, and Bibliotheque Raisonnee, tom. xvi. p. 127 -
175.

     Note: Mailath (in his Geschichte der Magyaren) considers the
question of the origin of the Magyars as still undecided. The
old Hungarian chronicles unanimously derived them from the Huns
of Attila See note, vol. iv. pp. 341, 342. The later opinion,
adopted by Schlozer, Belnay, and Dankowsky, ascribes them, from
their language, to the Finnish race. Fessler, in his history of
Hungary, agrees with Gibbon in supposing them Turks. Mailath has
inserted an ingenious dissertation of Fejer, which attempts to
connect them with the Parthians. Vol. i. Ammerkungen p. 50 - M.]

[Footnote 3: Socrates, l. vii. c. 43. Theodoret, l. v. c. 36.
Tillemont, who always depends on the faith of his ecclesiastical
authors, strenuously contends (Hist. des Emp. tom. vi. p. 136,
607) that the wars and personages were not the same.]

     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 Maesia. 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. ^4

[Footnote 4: See Priscus, p. 47, 48, and Hist. de Peuples de
l'Europe, tom. v. i. c. xii, xiii, xiv, xv.]

     Attila, the son of Mundzuk, deduced his noble, perhaps his
regal, descent ^5 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; ^6 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. ^7 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. ^8 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. ^9 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. ^10 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 rended 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. ^11 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. ^12 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.

[Footnote 5: Priscus, p. 39. The modern Hungarians have deduced
his genealogy, which ascends, in the thirty-fifth degree, to Ham,
the son of Noah; yet they are ignorant of his father's real name.

(De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 297.)]

[Footnote 6: Compare Jornandes (c. 35, p. 661) with Buffon, Hist.
Naturelle, tom. iii. p. 380. The former had a right to observe,
originis suae sigua restituens. The character and portrait of
Attila are probably transcribed from Cassiodorus.]

[Footnote 7: Abulpharag. Pocock, p. 281. Genealogical History of
the Tartars, by Abulghazi Bahader Khan, part iii c. 15, part iv
c. 3. Vie de Gengiscan, par Petit de la Croix, l. 1, c. 1, 6.
The relations of the missionaries, who visited Tartary in the
thirteenth century, (see the seventh volume of the Histoire des
Voyages,) express the popular language and opinions; Zingis is
styled the son of God, &c. &c.]

[Footnote 8: Nec templum apud eos visitur, aut delubrum, ne
tugurium quidem culmo tectum cerni usquam potest; sed gladius
Barbarico ritu humi figitur nudus, eumque ut Martem regionum quas
circumcircant praesulem verecundius colunt. Ammian. Marcellin.
xxxi. 2, and the learned Notes of Lindenbrogius and Valesius.]
[Footnote 9: Priscus relates this remarkable story, both in his
own text (p. 65) and in the quotation made by Jornandes, (c. 35,
p. 662.) He might have explained the tradition, or fable, which
characterized this famous sword, and the name, as well as
attributes, of the Scythian deity, whom he has translated into
the Mars of the Greeks and Romans.]

[Footnote 10: Herodot. l. iv. c. 62. For the sake of economy, I
have calculated by the smallest stadium. In the human
sacrifices, they cut off the shoulder and arm of the victim,
which they threw up into the air, and drew omens and presages
from the manner of their falling on the pile]
[Footnote 11: Priscus, p. 65. A more civilized hero, Augustus
himself, was pleased, if the person on whom he fixed his eyes
seemed unable to support their divine lustre. Sueton. in August.
c. 79.]

[Footnote 12: The Count de Buat (Hist. des Peuples de l'Europe,
tom. vii. p. 428, 429) attempts to clear Attila from the murder
of his brother; and is almost inclined to reject the concurrent
testimony of Jornandes, and the contemporary Chronicles.]

     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. ^13 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; ^14 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 Gepidae and the Ostrogoths
were distinguished by their numbers, their bravery, and the
personal merits of their chiefs. The renowned Ardaric, king of
the Gepidae, 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. ^15

[Footnote 13: Fortissimarum gentium dominus, qui inaudita ante se
potentia colus Scythica et Germanica regna possedit. Jornandes,
c. 49, p. 684. Priscus, p. 64, 65. M. de Guignes, by his
knowledge of the Chinese, has acquired (tom. ii. p. 295 - 301) an
adequate idea of the empire of Attila.]
[Footnote 14: See Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 296. The Geougen
believed that the Huns could excite, at pleasure, storms of wind
and rain. This phenomenon was produced by the stone Gezi; to
whose magic power the loss of a battle was ascribed by the
Mahometan Tartars of the fourteenth century. See Cherefeddin Ali,
Hist. de Timur Bec, tom. i. p. 82, 83.]

[Footnote 15: Jornandes, c. 35, p. 661, c. 37, p. 667. See
Tillemont, Hist. dea Empereurs, tom. vi. p. 129, 138. Corneille
has represented the pride of Attila to his subject kings, and his
tragedy opens with these two ridiculous lines: -

Ils ne sont pas venus, nos deux rois! qu'on leur die Qu'ils se
font trop attendre, et qu'Attila s'ennuie.

The two kings of the Gepidae and the Ostrogoths are profound
politicians and sentimental lovers, and the whole piece exhibits
the defects without the genius, of the poet.]

     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. ^16 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 Maeotis, 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. ^17
[Footnote 16: -     alii per Caspia claustra
                    Armeniasque nives, inopino tramite ducti     

              Invadunt Orientis opes: jam pascua fumant         

         Cappadocum, volucrumque parens Argaeus equorum.        

          Jam rubet altus Halys, nec se defendit iniquo         

         Monte Cilix; Syriae tractus vestantur amoeni            

       Assuetumque choris, et laeta plebe canorum,               

    Proterit imbellem sonipes hostilis Orontem.
                    Claudian, in Rufin. l. ii. 28 - 35.

See likewise, in Eutrop. l. i. 243 - 251, and the strong
description of Jerom, who wrote from his feelings, tom. i. p. 26,
ad Heliodor. p. 200 ad Ocean. Philostorgius (l. ix. c. 8)
mentions this irruption.]

[Footnote *: Gibbon has made a curious mistake; Basic and Cursic
were the names of the commanders of the Huns. Priscus, edit.
Bonn, p. 200. - M.]
[Footnote 17: See the original conversation in Priscus, p. 64,
65.]
     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. ^18
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
Maesians 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. ^19 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 Haemus. 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 Thermopylae, 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. ^20 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. ^21

[Footnote 18: Priscus, p. 331. His history contained a copious
and elegant account of the war, (Evagrius, l. i. c. 17;) but the
extracts which relate to the embassies are the only parts that
have reached our times. The original work was accessible,
however, to the writers from whom we borrow our imperfect
knowledge, Jornandes, Theophanes, Count Marcellinus, Prosper-
Tyro, and the author of the Alexandrian, or Paschal, Chronicle.
M. de Buat (Hist. des Peuples de l'Europe, tom. vii. c. xv.) has
examined the cause, the circumstances, and the duration of this
war; and will not allow it to extend beyond the year 44.]

[Footnote 19: Procopius, de Edificiis, l. 4, c. 5. These
fortresses were afterwards restored, strengthened, and enlarged
by the emperor Justinian, but they were soon destroyed by the
Abares, who succeeded to the power and possessions of the Huns.]
[Footnote 20: Septuaginta civitates (says Prosper-Tyro)
depredatione vastatoe. The language of Count Marcellinus is still
more forcible. Pene totam Europam, invasis excisisque
civitatibus atque castellis, conrasit.]
[Footnote 21: Tillemont (Hist des Empereurs, tom. vi. p. 106,
107) has paid great attention to this memorable earthquake; which
was felt as far from Constantinople as Antioch and Alexandria,
and is celebrated by all the ecclesiastical writers. In the
hands of a popular preacher, an earthquake is an engine of
admirable effect.]

     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, ^22 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.
^23 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. ^24 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, ^25 either the Tartar or the Hun
might deserve the epithet of the Scourge of God. ^26

[Footnote 22: He represented to the emperor of the Moguls that
the four provinces, (Petcheli, Chantong, Chansi, and
Leaotong,)which he already possessed, might annually produce,
under a mild administration, 500,000 ounces of silver, 400,000
measures of rice, and 800,000 pieces of silk. Gaubil, Hist. de la
Dynastie des Mongous, p. 58, 59. Yelut chousay (such was the
name of the mandarin) was a wise and virtuous minister, who saved
his country, and civilized the conquerors.

     Note: Compare the life of this remarkable man, translated
from the Chinese by M. Abel Remusat. Nouveaux Melanges
Asiatiques, t. ii. p. 64. - M]
[Footnote 23: Particular instances would be endless; but the
curious reader may consult the life of Gengiscan, by Petit de la
Croix, the Histoire des Mongous, and the fifteenth book of the
History of the Huns.]
[Footnote 24: At Maru, 1,300,000; at Herat, 1,600,000; at
Neisabour, 1,747,000. D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p.
380, 381. I use the orthography of D'Anville's maps. It must,
however, be allowed, that the Persians were disposed to
exaggerate their losses and the Moguls to magnify their
exploits.]

[Footnote 25: Cherefeddin Ali, his servile panegyrist, would
afford us many horrid examples. In his camp before Delhi, Timour
massacred 100,000 Indian prisoners, who had smiled when the army
of their countrymen appeared in sight, (Hist. de Timur Bec, tom.
iii. p. 90.) The people of Ispahan supplied 70,000 human skulls
for the structure of several lofty towers, (id. tom. i. p. 434.)
A similar tax was levied on the revolt of Bagdad, (tom. iii. p.
370;) and the exact account, which Cherefeddin was not able to
procure from the proper officers, is stated by another historian
(Ahmed Arabsiada, tom. ii. p. 175, vera Manger) at 90,000 heads.]

[Footnote 26: The ancients, Jornandes, Priscus, &c., are ignorant
of this epithet. The modern Hungarians have imagined, that it
was applied, by a hermit of Gaul, to Attila, who was pleased to
insert it among the titles of his royal dignity. Mascou, ix. 23,
and Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. vi. p. 143.]

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. ^27 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. ^28 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. ^29 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. ^30 The Huns might be provoked to insult the
misery of their slaves, over whom they exercised a despotic
command; ^31 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. ^32

[Footnote 27: The missionaries of St. Chrysostom had converted
great numbers of the Scythians, who dwelt beyond the Danube in
tents and wagons. Theodoret, l. v. c. 31. Photius, p. 1517. The
Mahometans, the Nestorians, and the Latin Christians, thought
themselves secure of gaining the sons and grandsons of Zingis,
who treated the rival missionaries with impartial favor.]
[Footnote 28: The Germans, who exterminated Varus and his
legions, had been particularly offended with the Roman laws and
lawyers. One of the Barbarians, after the effectual precautions
of cutting out the tongue of an advocate, and sewing up his
mouth, observed, with much satisfaction, that the viper could no
longer hiss. Florus, iv. 12.]

[Footnote 29: Priscus, p. 59. It should seem that the Huns
preferred the Gothic and Latin languages to their own; which was
probably a harsh and barren idiom.]

[Footnote 30: Philip de Comines, in his admirable picture of the
last moments of Lewis XI., (Memoires, l. vi. c. 12,) represents
the insolence of his physician, who, in five months, extorted
54,000 crowns, and a rich bishopric, from the stern, avaricious
tyrant.]

[Footnote 31: Priscus (p. 61) extols the equity of the Roman
laws, which protected the life of a slave. Occidere solent (says
Tacitus of the Germans) non disciplina et severitate, sed impetu
et ira, ut inimicum, nisi quod impune. De Moribus Germ. c. 25.
The Heruli, who were the subjects of Attila, claimed, and
exercised, the power of life and death over their slaves. See a
remarkable instance in the second book of Agathias]

[Footnote 32: See the whole conversation in Priscus, p. 59 - 62.]

     The timid or selfish policy of the Western Romans had
abandoned the Eastern empire to the Huns. ^33 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 Novae, 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. ^34 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. ^35

[Footnote 33: Nova iterum Orienti assurgit ruina ... quum nulla
ab Cocidentalibus ferrentur auxilia. Prosper Tyro composed his
Chronicle in the West; and his observation implies a censure.]
[Footnote *: Five in the last edition of Priscus. Niebuhr, Byz.
Hist. p 147 - M]

[Footnote 34: According to the description, or rather invective,
of Chrysostom, an auction of Byzantine luxury must have been very
productive. Every wealthy house possessed a semicircular table of
massy silver such as two men could scarcely lift, a vase of solid
gold of the weight of forty pounds, cups, dishes, of the same
metal, &c.]

[Footnote 35: The articles of the treaty, expressed without much
order or precision, may be found in Priscus, (p. 34, 35, 36, 37,
53, &c.) Count Marcellinus dispenses some comfort, by observing,
1. That Attila himself solicited the peace and presents, which he
had formerly refused; and, 2dly, That, about the same time, the
ambassadors of India presented a fine large tame tiger to the
emperor 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, ^36 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