which did not contain, in the
space of several thousand miles, a single city.

[Footnote 4111: 70 stadia. Priscus, 173.--M.]

[Footnote 4112: He was forbidden to pitch his tents on an eminence
because Attila's were below on the plain. Ibid.--M.]

[Footnote 42: The Huns themselves still continued to despise the labors
of agriculture: they abused the privilege of a victorious nation; and
the Goths, their industrious subjects, who cultivated the earth, dreaded
their neighborhood, like that of so many ravenous wolves, (Priscus,
p. 45.) In the same manner the Sarts and Tadgics provide for their own
subsistence, and for that of the Usbec Tartars, their lazy and rapacious
sovereigns. See Genealogical History of the Tartars, p. 423 455, &c.]

As far as we may ascertain the vague and obscure geography of Priscus,
this capital appears to have been seated between the Danube, the Teyss,
and the Carpathian hills, in the plains of Upper Hungary, and most
probably in the neighborhood of Jezberin, Agria, or Tokay. [43] In its
origin it could be no more than an accidental camp, which, by the long
and frequent residence of Attila, had insensibly swelled into a huge
village, for the reception of his court, of the troops who followed his
person, and of the various multitude of idle or industrious slaves
and retainers. [44] The baths, constructed by Onegesius, were the only
edifice of stone; the materials had been transported from Pannonia; and
since the adjacent country was destitute even of large timber, it may be
presumed, that the meaner habitations of the royal village consisted of
straw, or mud, or of canvass. The wooden houses of the more illustrious
Huns were built and adorned with rude magnificence, according to the
rank, the fortune, or the taste of the proprietors. They seem to have
been distributed with some degree of order and symmetry; and each spot
became more honorable as it approached the person of the sovereign. The
palace of Attila, which surpassed all other houses in his dominions,
was built entirely of wood, and covered an ample space of ground.
The outward enclosure was a lofty wall, or palisade, of smooth square
timber, intersected with high towers, but intended rather for ornament
than defence. This wall, which seems to have encircled the declivity of
a hill, comprehended a great variety of wooden edifices, adapted to the
uses of royalty.

A separate house was assigned to each of the numerous wives of Attila;
an