em, Gepidam in vulnere suorum cuncta tela
frangentem, Suevum pede, Hunnum sagitta praesumere, Alanum gravi Herulum
levi, armatura, aciem instruere. I am not precisely informed of the
situation of the River Netad.]

[Footnote 71: Two modern historians have thrown much new light on the
ruin and division of the empire of Attila; M. de Buat, by his laborious
and minute diligence, (tom. viii. p. 3-31, 68-94,) and M. de Guignes,
by his extraordinary knowledge of the Chinese language and writers. See
Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 315-319.]

Such an event might contribute to the safety of the Eastern empire,
under the reign of a prince who conciliated the friendship, without
forfeiting the esteem, of the Barbarians. But the emperor of the West,
the feeble and dissolute Valentinian, who had reached his thirty-fifth
year without attaining the age of reason or courage, abused this
apparent security, to undermine the foundations of his own throne, by
the murder of the patrician Aetius. From the instinct of a base and
jealous mind, he hated the man who was universally celebrated as the
terror of the Barbarians, and the support of the republic; [711] and his
new favorite, the eunuch Heraclius, awakened the emperor from the supine
lethargy, which might be disguised, during the life of Placidia, [72] by
the excuse of filial piety. The fame of Aetius, his wealth and dignity,
the numerous and martial train of Barbarian followers, his powerful
dependants, who filled the civil offices of the state, and the hopes of
his son Gaudentius, who was already contracted to Eudoxia, the emperor's
daughter, had raised him above the rank of a subject. The ambitious
designs, of which he was secretly accused, excited the fears, as well
as the resentment, of Valentinian. Aetius himself, supported by the
consciousness of his merit, his services, and perhaps his innocence,
seems to have maintained a haughty and indiscreet behavior. The
patrician offended his sovereign by a hostile declaration; he aggravated
the offence, by compelling him to ratify, with a solemn oath, a treaty
of reconciliation and alliance; he proclaimed his suspicions, he
neglected his safety; and from a vain confidence that the enemy, whom
he despised, was incapable even of a manly crime, he rashly ventured his
person in the palace of Rome. Whilst he urged, perhaps with intemperate
vehemence, the marriage of his son; Valentinian, drawing his sword, the
first sword he had ever drawn, plun