dary line
between East and West had undoubtedly fluctuated a good deal in the
fourth and fifth centuries, and the fact that there were not, as viewed
by a Roman statesman, two Empires at all, but only one great
World-Empire, which for the sake of convenience was administered by two
Emperors, one dwelling at Ravenna or Milan and the other at
Constantinople, was probably the reason why that boundary was not
defined as strictly as it would have been between two independent
kingdoms. Moreover, through the greater part of the fifth century, when
Huns and Ostrogoths, Rugians and Gepidae were roaming over these
countries of the Middle Danube, any claim of either the Eastern or
Western Emperor to rule in these lands must have been so purely
theoretical that it probably seemed hardly worth while to spend time in
defining it. But now that the actual ruler of Italy, and that ruler a
strong and capable barbarian like Theodoric, was holding the great city
of Sirmium, and was sending his governors to civilise and subdue the
inhabitants of what is now called the "Austrian Military Frontier", the
Emperor who reigned at Constantinople was not unlikely to find his
neighbourhood unpleasant.

It was doubtless in consequence of the jealousy, arising from the
conquest of Sirmium, that war soon broke out between the two powers.
Upper Moesia (in modern geography Servia) was undoubtedly part of the
Eastern Empire, yet it is there that we next find the Gothic troops
engaged in war. (505) Mundo, the Hun, a descendant of Attila, was in
league with Theodoric, but at enmity with the Empire, and was wandering
with a band of freebooters through the half desolate lands south of the
Danube. Sabinian, the son of the general of the same name, who
twenty-six years before had fought with Theodoric in Macedonia, was
ordered by Anastasius to exterminate this disorderly Hun. With 10,000
men (among whom there were some Bulgarian _foederati_), and with a long
train of waggons containing great store of provisions, he marched from
the Balkans down the valley of the Morava. Mundo, in despair and already
thinking of surrender, called on his Ostrogothic ally for aid, and
Pitzias, marching rapidly with an army of 2,500 young and warlike Goths
(2,000 infantry and 500 cavalry), reached Horrea Margi,[107] the place
where Mundo was besieged, in time to prevent his surrender.
Notwithstanding the enthusiasm of the Gothic troops, the battle was most
stubbornly contested, es