wn
from his horse; and the Gothic prince must have perished like his
father, if his youthful strength, and the intrepid zeal of his
companions, had not rescued him from this dangerous situation. In the
same manner, but on the left of the line, Aetius himself, separated
from his allies, ignorant of their victory, and anxious for their fate,
encountered and escaped the hostile troops that were scattered over the
plains of Chalons; and at length reached the camp of the Goths, which
he could only fortify with a slight rampart of shields, till the dawn
of day. The Imperial general was soon satisfied of the defeat of Attila,
who still remained inactive within his intrenchments; and when he
contemplated the bloody scene, he observed, with secret satisfaction,
that the loss had principally fallen on the Barbarians. The body of
Theodoric, pierced with honorable wounds, was discovered under a heap of
the slain: is subjects bewailed the death of their king and father; but
their tears were mingled with songs and acclamations, and his funeral
rites were performed in the face of a vanquished enemy. The Goths,
clashing their arms, elevated on a buckler his eldest son Torismond, to
whom they justly ascribed the glory of their success; and the new king
accepted the obligation of revenge as a sacred portion of his paternal
inheritance. Yet the Goths themselves were astonished by the fierce and
undaunted aspect of their formidable antagonist; and their historian has
compared Attila to a lion encompassed in his den, and threatening
his hunters with redoubled fury. The kings and nations who might have
deserted his standard in the hour of distress, were made sensible that
the displeasure of their monarch was the most imminent and inevitable
danger. All his instruments of martial music incessantly sounded a loud
and animating strain of defiance; and the foremost troops who advanced
to the assault were checked or destroyed by showers of arrows from every
side of the intrenchments. It was determined, in a general council
of war, to besiege the king of the Huns in his camp, to intercept his
provisions, and to reduce him to the alternative of a disgraceful
treaty or an unequal combat. But the impatience of the Barbarians soon
disdained these cautious and dilatory measures; and the mature policy
of Aetius was apprehensive that, after the extirpation of the Huns, the
republic would be oppressed by the pride and power of the Gothic nation.
The patric