his defences.

But when the morning broke and revealed the extent of the carnage with
which the plains were heaped for miles, the successful allies saw also
and respected the resolute attitude of their antagonist. Neither were
any measures taken to blockade him in his camp, and so to extort by
famine that submission which it was too plainly perilous to enforce with
the sword. Attila was allowed to march back the remnants of his army
without molestation, and even with the semblance of success.

It is probable that the crafty Aetius was unwilling to be too
victorious. He dreaded the glory which his allies the Visigoths had
acquired, and feared that Rome might find a second Alaric in Prince
Torismund, who had signalized himself in the battle, and had been chosen
on the field to succeed his father Theodoric. He persuaded the young
King to return at once to his capital, and thus relieved himself at the
same time of the presence of a dangerous friend as well as of a
formidable though beaten foe.

Attila's attacks on the Western Empire were soon renewed, but never with
such peril to the civilized world as had menaced it before his defeat at
Chalons; and on his death, two years after that battle, the vast empire
which his genius had founded was soon dissevered by the successful
revolts of the subject nations. The name of the Huns ceased for some
centuries to inspire terror in Western Europe, and their ascendency
passed away with the life of the great King by whom it had been so
fearfully augmented.[25]

EDWARD GIBBON

The facility with which Attila had penetrated into the heart of Gaul may
be ascribed to his insidious policy as well as to the terror of his
arms. His public declarations were skilfully mitigated by his private
assurances; he alternately soothed and threatened the Romans and the
Goths; and the courts of Ravenna and Toulouse, mutually suspicious of
each other's intentions, beheld with supine indifference the approach of
their common enemy. Aetius was the sole guardian of the public safety;
but his wisest measures were embarrassed by a faction which, since the
death of Placidia, infested the imperial palace; the youth of Italy
trembled at the sound of the trumpet; and the barbarians, who, from fear
or affection, were inclined to the cause of Attila, awaited with
doubtful and venal faith the event of the war. The patrician passed the
Alps at the head of some troops, whose strength and numbers scarcely
deserv