hildhood are trained to the use
of horses, think it beneath them to walk. They are also all trained by
careful discipline of various sorts to become skilful warriors. And this
is the reason why the Persians, who are originally of Scythian
extraction, are very skilful in war.

21. Nearly all the Alani are men of great stature and beauty; their hair
is somewhat yellow, their eyes are terribly fierce; the lightness of
their armour renders them rapid in their movements; and they are in
every respect equal to the Huns, only more civilized in their food and
their manner of life. They plunder and hunt as far as the Sea of Azov
and the Cimmerian Bosphorus, ravaging also Armenia and Media.

22. And as ease is a delightful thing to men of a quiet and placid
disposition, so danger and war are a pleasure to the Alani, and among
them that man is called happy who has lost his life in battle. For those
who grow old, or who go out of the world from accidental sicknesses,
they pursue with bitter reproaches as degenerate and cowardly. Nor is
there anything of which they boast with more pride than of having killed
a man: and the most glorious spoils they esteem the scalps which they
have torn from the heads of those whom they have slain, which they put
as trappings and ornaments on their war horses.

23. Not is there any temple or shrine seen in their country, nor even
any cabin thatched with straw, their only idea of religion being to
plunge a naked sword into the ground with barbaric ceremonies, and then
they worship that with great respect, as Mars, the presiding deity of
the regions over which they wander.

24. They presage the future in a most remarkable manner; for they
collect a number of straight twigs of osier, then with certain secret
incantations they separate them from one another on particular days; and
from them they learn clearly what is about to happen.

25. They have no idea of slavery, inasmuch as they themselves are all
born of noble families; and those whom even now they appoint to be
judges are always men of proved experience and skill in war. But now let
us return to the subject which we proposed to ourselves.

III.

Sec. 1. Therefore the Huns, after having traversed the territories of the
Alani, and especially of that tribe of them who border on the Gruthungi,
and who are called Tanaitae, and having slain many of them and acquired
much plunder, they made a treaty of friendship and alliance with those
who r