nd domestics round the person of their master. They watched his nod;
they trembled at his frown; and at the first signal of his will they
executed, without murmur or hesitation, his stern and absolute commands.
In time of peace the dependent princes, with their national troops,
attended the royal camp in regular succession; but when Attila collected
his military force he was able to bring into the field an army of five
or, according to another account, of seven hundred thousand Barbarians.

The ambassadors of the Huns might awaken the attention of Theodosius, by
reminding him that they were his neighbors both in Europe and Asia;
since they touched the Danube on one hand, and reached, with the other,
as far as the Tanais. In the reign of his father Arcadius, a band of
adventurous Huns had ravaged the provinces of the East, from whence they
brought away rich spoils and innumerable captives. They advanced, by a
secret path, along the shores of the Caspian Sea; traversed the snowy
mountains of Armenia; passed the Tigris, the Euphrates, and the Halys;
recruited their weary cavalry with the generous breed of Cappadocian
horses: occupied the hilly country of Cilicia, and disturbed the festal
songs and dances of the citizens of Antioch.

Egypt trembled at their approach; and the monks and pilgrims of the Holy
Land prepared to escape their fury by a speedy embarkation. The memory
of this invasion was still recent in the minds of the orientals. The
subjects of Attila might execute, with superior forces, the design which
these adventurers had so boldly attempted; and it soon became the
subject of anxious conjecture whether the tempest would fall on the
dominions of Rome or of Persia. Some of the great vassals of the King of
the Huns, who were themselves in the rank of powerful princes, had been
sent to ratify an alliance and society of arms with the Emperor, or
rather with the general, of the West. They related, during their
residence at Rome, the circumstances of an expedition which they had
lately made into the East.

After passing a desert and a morass, supposed by the Romans to be the
lake Maeotis, they penetrated through the mountains, and arrived, at the
end of fifteen days' march, on the confines of Media; where they
advanced as far as the unknown cities of Basic and Cursic. They
encountered the Persian army in the plains of Media; and the air,
according to their own expression, was darkened by a cloud of arrows.
But the