were soon recalled by the hopes of plenty and pleasure; and Albinus, prefect of Rome, informed the Court, with some anxiety and surprise, that in a single day he had taken an account of the arrival of fourteen thousand strangers.  In less than seven years the vestiges of the Gothic invasion were almost obliterated, and the city appeared to resume its former splendor and tranquillity.  The venerable matron replaced her crown of laurel, which had been ruffled by the storms of war; and was still amused, in the last moment of her decay, with the prophecies of revenge, of victory, and of eternal dominion.

FOOTNOTE: 

[18]

     “The prostrate South to the destroyer yields
     Her boasted titles and her golden fields;
     With grim delight the brood of winter view
     A brighter day and skies of azure hue;
     Scent the new fragrance of the opening rose,
     And quaff the pendent vintage as it grows.”

See Gray’s Poems, published by Mr. Mason, p. 197.

HUNS INVADE THE EASTERN ROMAN EMPIRE

ATTILA DICTATES A TREATY OF PEACE

A.D. 441

EDWARD GIBBON

Beyond the Great Wall of China, erected to secure the empire from their encroachments, were numerous tribes of troublesome Hiongnou who, becoming united under one head, were successful in an invasion of that country.  These confederated tribes became known as the Huns.  Until the advent of M. Deguignes all was dark concerning them.  That learned and laborious scholar conceived the idea that the Huns might be thus identified, and has written the history from Chinese sources, of those who since that time have poured down upon the civilized countries of Asia and Europe and wasted them.  Boulger also identifies these tribes with the Huns of Attila.  After driving the Alani across the Danube and compelling them to seek an asylum within the borders of the Roman Empire, the terrible Huns had halted in their march westward for something more than a generation.  They were hovering, meantime, on the eastern frontiers of the empire, “taking part like other barbarians in its disturbances and alliances.”  Emperors paid them tribute, and Roman generals kept up a politic or a questionable correspondence with them.  Stilicho had detachments of Huns in the armies which fought against Alaric, King of the Goths, the greatest Roman soldier after Stilicho—­and, like Stilicho, of barbarian parentage—­Aetius, who was to be their most formidable antagonist, had been a hostage and messmate in their camps.  All historians agree that the influx of these barbaric peoples hastened, more than any other cause, the rapid decline of the great empire which the Romans had built up.

About A.D. 433 Attila, equally famous in history and legend, became the King of the Huns.  The attraction of his daring character,