so cruelly devastated it as
scarcely to leave a trace to be seen. Then growing bolder 222
and still thirsting for Roman blood, the Huns raged
madly through the remaining cities of the Veneti. They
also laid waste Mediolanum, the metropolis of Liguria,
once an imperial city, and gave over Ticinum to a like
fate. Then they destroyed the neighboring country in
their frenzy and demolished almost the whole of Italy.

[Sidenote: POPE LEO INTERVENES TO SAVE ROME 452]

Attila's mind had been bent on going to Rome. But
his followers, as the historian Priscus relates, took him
away, not out of regard for the city to which they were
hostile, but because they remembered the case of Alaric,
the former king of the Visigoths. They distrusted the
good fortune of their own king, inasmuch as Alaric did
not live long after the sack of Rome, but straightway
departed this life. Therefore while Attila's spirit was 223
wavering in doubt between going and not going, and he
still lingered to ponder the matter, an embassy came to
him from Rome to seek peace. Pope Leo himself came
to meet him in the Ambuleian district of the Veneti at the
well-travelled ford of the river Mincius. Then Attila
quickly put aside his usual fury, turned back on the way
he had advanced from beyond the Danube and departed
with the promise of peace. But above all he declared and
avowed with threats that he would bring worse things
upon Italy, unless they sent him Honoria, the sister of the
Emperor Valentinian and daughter of Augusta Placidia,
with her due share of the royal wealth. For it was said 224
that Honoria, although bound to chastity for the honor
of the imperial court and kept in constraint by command
of her brother, had secretly despatched a eunuch to summon
Attila that she might have his protection against he
brother's power;--a shameful thing, indeed, to get license
for her passion at the cost of the public weal.

[Sidenote: MARCIAN 450-457]

[Sidenote: ATTILA DEFEATED BY THORISMUD]

XLIII So Attila returned to his own country, seeming 225
to regret the peace and to be vexed at the cessation of
war. For he sent ambassadors to Marcian, Emperor of
the East, threatening to devastate the provinces, because
that which had been promised him by Theodosius, a former
emperor, was in no wise performed, and saying that
he would show himself more cruel to his foes than ever.
But as he was shrewd and crafty, he threatened in one
direction and