CHAP. ix. PRECIOUS METALS. 233 



conditions of peace. " The emperor of the east 

 resigned, by an express or tacit convention, 

 an extensive and important territory, which 

 stretched along the southern banks of the Da- 

 nube, from Singidunum, or Belgrade, as far as 

 Novas, in the diocess of Thrace. The King of 

 the Huns required and obtained that his tribute 

 or subsidy should be augmented from seven 

 hundred pounds of gold (^28,000) to the annual 

 sum of two thousand one hundred (84,000) ; 

 and he stipulated the immediate payment of six 

 thousand pounds of gold (<240,000) to defray 

 the expenses or to expiate the guilt of the 

 war. 



" One might imagine that such a demand, 

 which scarcely equalled the measure of private 

 wealth, would have been readily discharged by 

 the opulent empire of the east; and the public 

 distress affords a remarkable proof of the im- 

 poverished or at least of the disorderly state of 

 the finances. The immediate supplies had been 

 exhausted by the unforeseen necessity of military 

 preparations. A personal contribution, rigor- 

 ously but capriciously imposed on the members 

 of the senatorian order, was the only expedient 

 that could disarm, without loss of time, the im- 

 patient avarice of Attila ; and the poverty of 

 the nobles compelled them to adopt the scan- 

 dalous resource of exposing to public auction 



