holes rather than eyes.
Their hardihood is evident in their wild appearance, and
they are beings who are cruel to their children on the
very day they are born. For they cut the cheeks of the
males with a sword, so that before they receive the nourishment
of milk they must learn to endure wounds.
Hence they grow old beardless and their young men are 128
without comeliness, because a face furrowed by the sword
spoils by its scars the natural beauty of a beard. They
are short in stature, quick in bodily movement, alert
horsemen, broad shouldered, ready in the use of bow and
arrow, and have firm-set necks which are ever erect in
pride. Though they live in the form of men, they have
the cruelty of wild beasts.

[Sidenote: FIRST IRRUPTION OF THE HUNS as early as 375]

When the Getae beheld this active race that had invaded 129
many nations, they took fright and consulted with
their king how they might escape from such a foe. Now
although Hermanaric, king of the Goths, was the conqueror
of many tribes, as we have said above, yet while
he was deliberating on this invasion of the Huns, the
treacherous tribe of the Rosomoni, who at that time were
among those who owed him their homage, took this
chance to catch him unawares. For when the king had
given orders that a certain woman of the tribe I have
mentioned, Sunilda by name, should be bound to wild
horses and torn apart by driving them at full speed in
opposite directions (for he was roused to fury by her
husband's treachery to him), her brothers Sarus and
Immius came to avenge their sister's death and plunged
a sword into Hermanaric's side. Enfeebled by this blow,
he dragged out a miserable existence in bodily weakness.
Balamber, king of the Huns, took advantage of his ill 130
health to move an army into the country of the Ostrogoths,
from whom the Visigoths had already separated
because of some dispute. Meanwhile Hermanaric, who
was unable to endure either the pain of his wound or the
inroads of the Huns, died full of days at the great age of
one hundred and ten years. The fact of his death enabled
the Huns to prevail over those Goths who, as we have
said, dwelt in the East and were called Ostrogoths.

(The Divided Goths: Visigoths)

[Sidenote: Valentinian I 364-375]

[Sidenote: THE VISIGOTHS SETTLE IN THRACE AND MOESIA 376]

[Sidenote: Valens 364-378]

XXV The Visigoths, who were their other allies and 131
inhabitants of the western country, we