the numbers actually
engaged (162,000 are said to have fallen on both sides), it is clear
that this was a collision of nations rather than of armies, and that it
required greater skill than any that the rude Hunnish leader possessed,
to win the victory for his enormous host. After "a battle ruthless,
manifold, gigantic, obstinate, such as antiquity never described when
she told of warlike deeds, such as no man who missed the sight of that
marvel might ever hope to have another chance of beholding",[10] night
fell upon the virtually defeated Huns. The Gothic king had lost his
life, but Attila had lost the victory. All night long the Huns kept up a
barbarous dissonance to prevent the enemy from attacking them, but their
king's thoughts were of suicide. He had prepared a huge funeral pyre, on
which, if the enemy next day successfully attacked his camp, he was
determined to slay himself amid the kindled flames, in order that
neither living nor dead the mighty Attila might fall into the hands of
his enemies. These desperate expedients, however, were not required. The
death of Theodoric, the caution of Aetius, some jealousy perhaps between
the Roman and the Goth, some anxiety on the part of the eldest Gothic
prince as to the succession to his father's throne,--all these causes
combined to procure for Attila a safe but closely watched return into
his own land.

[Footnote 10: These are the words of the Gothic historian, Jordanes.]

The battle of the Catalaunian plains (usually but not quite correctly
called the battle of Chalons) was a memorable event in the history of
the Gothic race, of Europe, and of the world. It was a sad necessity
which on this one occasion arrayed the two great branches of the Gothic
people, the Visigoths under Theodoric, and the Ostrogoths under Walamir,
in fratricidal strife against each other. For Europe the alliance
between Roman and Goth, between the grandson of Theodosius, Emperor of
Rome, and the successor of Alaric, the besieger of Rome, was of
priceless value and showed that the great and statesmanlike thought of
Ataulfus was ripening in the minds of those who came after him. For the
world, yes even for us in the nineteenth century, and for the great
undiscovered continents beyond the sea, the repulse of the squalid and
unprogressive Turanian from the seats of the old historic civilisation,
was essential to the preservation of whatever makes human life worth
living. Had Attila conquered on the