broken asunder: and the report may be allowed to prove, how
seldom the image of that formidable Barbarian was absent from the mind
of a Roman emperor. [69]

[Footnote 67: Attila, ut Priscus historicus refert, extinctionis suae
tempore, puellam Ildico nomine, decoram, valde, sibi matrimonium post
innumerabiles uxores... socians. Jornandes, c. 49, p. 683, 684.

He afterwards adds, (c. 50, p. 686,) Filii Attilae, quorum per licentiam
libidinis poene populus fuit. Polygamy has been established among the
Tartars of every age. The rank of plebeian wives is regulated only by
their personal charms; and the faded matron prepares, without a murmur,
the bed which is destined for her blooming rival. But in royal families,
the daughters of Khans communicate to their sons a prior right. See
Genealogical History, p. 406, 407, 408.]

[Footnote 68: The report of her guilt reached Constantinople, where
it obtained a very different name; and Marcellinus observes, that the
tyrant of Europe was slain in the night by the hand, and the knife, of
a woman Corneille, who has adapted the genuine account to his tragedy,
describes the irruption of blood in forty bombast lines, and Attila
exclaims, with ridiculous fury,

S'il ne veut s'arreter, (his blood.)
(Dit-il) on me payera ce qui m'en va couter.]

[Footnote 69: The curious circumstances of the death and funeral of
Attila are related by Jornandes, (c. 49, p. 683, 684, 685,) and were
probably transcribed from Priscus.]

The revolution which subverted the empire of the Huns, established the
fame of Attila, whose genius alone had sustained the huge and disjointed
fabric. After his death, the boldest chieftains aspired to the rank of
kings; the most powerful kings refused to acknowledge a superior; and
the numerous sons, whom so many various mothers bore to the deceased
monarch, divided and disputed, like a private inheritance, the sovereign
command of the nations of Germany and Scythia. The bold Ardaric felt and
represented the disgrace of this servile partition; and his subjects,
the warlike Gepidae, with the Ostrogoths, under the conduct of three
valiant brothers, encouraged their allies to vindicate the rights of
freedom and royalty. In a bloody and decisive conflict on the banks of
the River Netad, in Pannonia, the lance of the Gepidae, the sword of the
Goths, the arrows of the Huns, the Suevic infantry, the light arms of
the Heruli, and the heavy weapons of the Alani, encounte