end against him. Rome would
have been again destroyed if it had not been for Pope Leo I who
went to the camp of Attila and persuaded him not to attack the
city. It is said that the barbarian king was awed by the majestic
aspect and priestly robes of Leo. It is also told that the apostles
Peter and Paul appeared to Attila in his camp and threatened him
with death if he should attack Rome. He did not go away, however,
without getting a large sum of money as ransom.

[Illustration: ST. LEO HALTING ATTILA AT THE GATES OF ROME]

IV

Shortly after leaving Italy Attila suddenly died. Only the day
before his death he had married a beautiful woman whom he loved
very much.

The Huns mourned their king in a barbarous way. They shaved their
heads and cut themselves on their faces with knives, so that their
blood, instead of their tears, flowed for the loss of their great
leader. They enclosed his body in three coffins--one of gold, one
of silver, and one of iron--and they buried him at night, in a
secret spot in the mountains. When the funeral was over, they killed
the slaves who had dug the grave, as the Visigoths had done after
the burial of Alaric.

After the death of Attila we hear little more of the Huns.

GENSERIC THE VANDAL

KING FROM 427-477 A.D.

I

The Vandals were another wild and fierce tribe that came from the
shores of the Baltic and invaded central and southern Europe in
the later times of the Roman Empire.

In the fifth century some of these people occupied a region in
the south of Spain. One of their most celebrated kings was name
Gen'ser-ic. He became king in 427, when he was but twenty-one years
of age. He was lame in one leg and looked as if he were a very
ordinary person.

Like most of the Vandals, he was a cruel and cunning man, but he
had great ability in many ways. He fought in battles even when
a boy and was known far and wide for his bravery and skill as a
leader.

About the time that Genseric became king, the governor of the Roman
province in the north of Africa, on the Mediterranean coast, was
a man called Count Boniface. This Count Boniface had been a good
and loyal officer of Rome; but a plot was formed against him by
Aetius, the general who had fought Attila at Chalons. The Roman
emperor at the time of the plot was Valentinian III. He was then
too young to act as ruler, so the affairs of government were managed
by his mother Placid'i-a.

[Illustration: PLACIDIA AND HER SON V