the
efforts of courage and diligence were often recompensed by the gift of
freedom. The historian Priscus, whose embassy is a source of curious
instruction, was accosted in the camp of Attila by a stranger, who
saluted him in the Greek language, but whose dress and figure displayed
the appearance of a wealthy Scythian. In the siege of Viminiacum he had
lost, according to his own account, his fortune and liberty; he became
the slave of Onegesius; but his faithful services, against the Romans
and the Acatzires, had gradually raised him to the rank of the native
Huns; to whom he was attached by the domestic pledges of a new wife and
several children. The spoils of war had restored and improved his
private property; he was admitted to the table of his former lord; and
the apostate Greek blessed the hour of his captivity, since it had been
the introduction to a happy and independent state, which he held by the
honorable tenure of military service.

This reflection naturally produced a dispute on the advantages and
defects of the Roman government, which was severely arraigned by the
apostate, and defended by Priscus in a prolix and feeble declamation.
The freedman of Onegesius exposed, in true and lively colors, the vices
of a declining empire, of which he had so long been the victim; the
cruel absurdity of the Roman princes, unable to protect their subjects
against the public enemy, unwilling to trust them with arms for their
own defence; the intolerable weight of taxes, rendered still more
oppressive by the intricate or arbitrary modes of collection; the
obscurity of numerous and contradictory laws; the tedious and expensive
forms of judicial proceedings; the partial administration of justice;
and the universal corruption, which increased the influence of the rich
and aggravated the misfortunes of the poor. A sentiment of patriotic
sympathy was at length revived in the breast of the fortunate exile: and
he lamented, with a flood of tears, the guilt or weakness of those
magistrates who had perverted the wisest and most salutary institutions.

The timid or selfish policy of the Western Romans had abandoned the
Eastern Empire to the Huns. The loss of armies, and the want of
discipline or virtue, were not supplied by the personal character of the
monarch. Theodosius might still affect the style, as well as the title,
of "Invincible Augustus"; but he was reduced to solicit the clemency of
Attila, who imperiously dictated these