mite the Visigoths! Seek swift victory in
that spot where the battle rages. For when the sinews
are cut the limbs soon relax, nor can a body stand when
you have taken away the bones. Let your courage rise
and your own fury burst forth! Now show your cunning,
Huns, now your deeds of arms! Let the wounded
exact in return the death of his foe; let the unwounded 206
revel in slaughter of the enemy. No spear shall harm
those who are sure to live; and those who are sure to die
Fate overtakes even in peace. And finally, why should
fortune have made the Huns victorious over so many
nations, unless it were to prepare them for the joy of
this conflict. Who was it revealed to our sires the
path through the Maeotian swamp, for so many ages
closed secret? Who, moreover, made armed men yield
to you, when you were as yet unarmed? Even a mass of
federated nations could not endure the sight of the Huns.
I am not deceived in the issue;--here is the field so many
victories have promised us. I shall hurl the first spear
at the foe. If any can stand at rest while Attila fights,
he is a dead man." Inflamed by these words, they all
dashed into battle.

[Sidenote: FIERCE FIGHTING]

XL And although the situation was itself fearful, yet 207
the presence of their king dispelled anxiety and hesitation.
Hand to hand they clashed in battle, and the fight
grew fierce, confused, monstrous, unrelenting--a fight
whose like no ancient time has ever recorded. There such
deeds were done that a brave man who missed this marvellous
spectacle could not hope to see anything so wonderful
all his life long. For, if we may believe our 208
elders, a brook flowing between low banks through the
plain was greatly increased by blood from the wounds
of the slain. It was not flooded by showers, as brooks
usually rise, but was swollen by a strange stream and
turned into a torrent by the increase of blood. Those
whose wounds drove them to slake their parching thirst
drank water mingled with gore. In their wretched plight
they were forced to drink what they thought was the
blood they had poured from their own wounds.

[Sidenote: DEATH OF KING THEODORID I IN THE BATTLE]

Here King Theodorid, while riding by to encourage 209
his army, was thrown from his horse and trampled under
foot by his own men, thus ending his days at a ripe old
age. But others say he was slain by the spear of Andag
of the host of the Ostrogoths, who were then under the
sway