ely rolling his eyes, as if he wished to enjoy the terror which
he inspired.

This savage hero, who had subdued Germany and Scythia, and almost
exterminated the Burgundians of the Rhine, and had conquered
Scandinavia, was able to bring into the field 700,000 barbarians. An
unsuccessful raid into Persia induced him to turn his attention to the
eastern empire, and the enervated troops of Theodosius the Younger
dissolved before the fury of his onset. He ravaged up to the very gates
of Constantinople, and only a humiliating treaty preserved his dominion
to the "invincible Augustus" of the East.

After the death of Theodosius the Younger, and the accession of Marcian,
the husband of Pulcheria, Attila threatened, in 450, both empires. An
incursion of his hordes into Gaul was rendered abortive by the conduct
of the patrician, AEtius, who, uniting all the various troops of Gaul and
Germany, the Saxons, the Burgundians, the Franks, under their
Merovingian prince, and the Visigoths under their king, Theodoric, after
two important battles, induced the Huns to retreat from the field of
Chalons. Attila, diverted from his purpose, turned into Italy, and the
citizens of the various towns fled before the savage destroyer. Many
families of Aquileia, Padua, and the adjacent towns, found a safe refuge
in the neighbouring islands of the Adriatic, where their place of refuge
evolved, in time, into the famous Republic of Venice.

Valentinian fled from Ravenna to Rome, prepared to desert his people and
his empire. The fortitude of AEtius alone supported and preserved the
tottering state. Leo, Bishop of Rome, in his sacerdotal robes, dared to
demand the clemency of the savage king, and the intervention of St.
Peter and St. Paul is supposed to have induced Attila to retire beyond
the Danube, with the Princess Honoria as his bride. He did not long
survive this last campaign, and in 453 he died, and was buried amidst
all the savage pomp and grief of his subjects. His death resolved the
bonds that had united the various nations of which his subjects were
composed, and in a very few years domestic discord had extinguished the
empire of the Huns.

Genseric, king of the Vandals, sacked and pillaged the ancient capital
in June 455.

The vacant throne was filled by the nomination of Theodoric, king of the
Goths. The senate of Rome bitterly opposed the elevation of this
stranger, and though Avitus might have supported his title against the
votes o