attest the work of man's hands in ages
past, and which, to the practised eye, demonstrate that this quiet spot
has once been the fortified position of a huge military host.

Local tradition gives to these ancient earthworks the name of Attila's
Camp. Nor is there any reason to question the correctness of the title,
or to doubt that behind these very ramparts it was that fourteen hundred
years ago the most powerful heathen king that ever ruled in Europe
mustered the remnants of his vast army, which had striven on these
plains against the Christian soldiery of Toulouse and Rome. Here it was
that Attila prepared to resist to the death his victors in the field;
and here he heaped up the treasures of his camp in one vast pile, which
was to be his funeral pyre should his camp be stormed. It was here that
the Gothic and Italian forces watched, but dared not assail their enemy
in his despair, after that great and terrible day of battle when

"The sound
Of conflict was o'erpast, the shout of all
Whom earth could send from her remotest bounds,
Heathen or faithful; from thy hundred mouths,
That feed the Caspian with Riphean snows.
Huge Volga! from famed Hypanis, which once
Cradled the Hun; from all the countless realms
Between Imaus and that utmost strand
Where columns of Herculean rock confront
The blown Altantic; Roman, Goth, and Hun,
And Scythian strength of chivalry, that tread
The cold Codanian shore or what far lands
Inhospitable drink Cimmerian floods,
Franks, Saxons, Suevic, and Sarmatian chiefs,
And who from green Armorica or Spain
Flocked to the work of death."

The victory which the Roman general Aetius, with his Gothic allies, had
then gained over the Huns, was the last victory of imperial Rome. But
among the long fasti of her triumphs, few can be found that, for their
importance and ultimate benefit to mankind, are comparable with this
expiring effort of her arms. It did not, indeed, open to her any new
career of conquest--it did not consolidate the relics of her power--it
did not turn the rapid ebb of her fortunes. The mission of imperial
Rome was, in truth, already accomplished. She had received and
transmitted through her once ample dominion the civilization of Greece.
She had broken up the barriers of narrow nationalities among the various
states and tribes that dwelt around the coasts of the Mediterranean. She
had fused these