216 THE HUNS OF ATTILA. 



the mind of the Roman there were strange forebodings of 

 coming evil. The twelve centuries of the duration of Roman 

 sovereignty, foretold in the twelve vultures that appeared to 

 Romulus, and which had ever been regarded as a prophecy of 

 destiny to Rome, were now near to their eventful close. An 

 earthquake of more than usual terror had recently sent the sea 

 careering high up into the land, had toppled down stately castles, 

 and caused wide-spread desolation among the sons of the south. 

 This to Roman superstition had betokened some direful calamity. 

 All southern Europe was at this time anxiously scanning the 

 horizon for some signs of alarm ; when lo, . on the far off bounds 

 of its geography, there suddenly loomed up the dark masses of 

 the Huns. Their coming was heralded from en,d to end of 

 Europe; and rumor catching up their ferocious habits and un- 

 gainly proportions, magnified them into odious monsters sprung 

 of " midnight foul and hideous hags." With a shrill piercing 

 voice, uncouth in mien and gesture, with beardless face and 

 sunken but flashing eyes, with a massive head crowded between 

 broad brawny shoulders, well might they be hailed as savages by 

 barbarians of other worlds than their own. 



But little time however was given for fright or fables. Like 

 a tempest the Huns swept onward, deluging the land with 

 indiscriminate slaughter, or drawing into the vortex the tribes 

 which stood in their way. On the banks of the Tanais they en- 

 countered and vanquished the wide-spread Alani. The Ostrogoths, 

 who held sway from the the Euxine to the Baltic, bowed to the 

 storm. The Visigoths, who came next in turn, fled frightened 

 and trembling upon the tribes of the west and south, and ere 

 long, 'cowering on the summits of the Alps, stood gazing on the 

 majesty of Italy. 



The chieftain of these now driven and fugitive Goths, the 

 renowned Alaric, had once, upon some occasion of defeat, like 

 Hannibal of Carthage, sworn upon the altar of his gods eternal 

 enmity to Rome. And now, six hundred years later and in the 

 very track of the mighty African, he was leading the desperate 

 myriads of the north in one of the grandest irruptions of ancient 

 times, either to retrieve his fortunes or bury his name and his 



