The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

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. AD 376-–-433 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, [4110] 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.

[4110]: The authentic materials for the history of Attila may be found in Jornandes (De rebus Geticis, c. 34-–-50, pp. 660-–-688, edit. Grotius) and Priscus (Excerpta legationum, pp. 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 Ancient Germans IX 23, and Maffei, Osservazioni letterarie, tom. I, pp. 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, etc., he was 120 years of age. Johannes de Thurocz, Chronica Hungarorum, part I c. 22, in Scriptores rerum Hungaricarum, tom. I, p. 76. ↩︎