ing to the vague measurement
of Jornandes, to the length of one hundred and fifty, and the breadth
of one hundred miles, over the whole province, which is entitled to
the appellation of a champaign country. [42] This spacious plain
was distinguished, however, by some inequalities of ground; and
the importance of a height, which commanded the camp of Attila, was
understood and disputed by the two generals. The young and valiant
Torismond first occupied the summit; the Goths rushed with irresistible
weight on the Huns, who labored to ascend from the opposite side: and
the possession of this advantageous post inspired both the troops and
their leaders with a fair assurance of victory. The anxiety of Attila
prompted him to consult his priests and haruspices. It was reported,
that, after scrutinizing the entrails of victims, and scraping their
bones, they revealed, in mysterious language, his own defeat, with the
death of his principal adversary; and that the Barbarians, by accepting
the equivalent, expressed his involuntary esteem for the superior merit
of Aetius. But the unusual despondency, which seemed to prevail among
the Huns, engaged Attila to use the expedient, so familiar to the
generals of antiquity, of animating his troops by a military oration;
and his language was that of a king, who had often fought and conquered
at their head. [43] He pressed them to consider their past glory, their
actual danger, and their future hopes. The same fortune, which opened
the deserts and morasses of Scythia to their unarmed valor, which had
laid so many warlike nations prostrate at their feet, had reserved the
joys of this memorable field for the consummation of their victories.
The cautious steps of their enemies, their strict alliance, and their
advantageous posts, he artfully represented as the effects, not of
prudence, but of fear. The Visigoths alone were the strength and
nerves of the opposite army; and the Huns might securely trample on
the degenerate Romans, whose close and compact order betrayed their
apprehensions, and who were equally incapable of supporting the dangers
or the fatigues of a day of battle. The doctrine of predestination, so
favorable to martia virtue, was carefully inculcated by the king of the
Huns; who assured his subjects, that the warriors, protected by Heaven,
were safe and invulnerable amidst the darts of the enemy; but that the
unerring Fates would strike their victims in the bosom of inglorious
pe