d at their
head. He pressed them to consider their past glory, their actual danger,
and their future hopes. The same fortune which opened the deserts and
morasses of Scythia to their unarmed valor, which had laid so many
warlike nations prostrate at their feet, had reserved the _joys_ of this
memorable field for the consummation of their victories. The cautious
steps of their enemies, their strict alliance, and their advantageous
posts he artfully represented as the effects, not of prudence, but of
fear. The Visigoths alone were the strength and nerves of the opposite
army; and the Huns might securely trample on the degenerate Romans,
whose close and compact order betrayed their apprehensions, and who were
equally incapable of supporting the dangers or the fatigues of a day of
battle. The doctrine of predestination, so favorable to martial virtue,
was carefully inculcated by the king of the Huns, who assured his
subjects that the warriors, protected by heaven, were safe and
invulnerable amid the darts of the enemy, but that the unerring Fates
would strike their victims in the bosom of inglorious peace. "I myself,"
continued Attila, "will throw the first javelin, and the wretch who
refuses to imitate the example of his sovereign is devoted to inevitable
death."

The spirit of the barbarians was rekindled by the presence, the voice,
and the example of their intrepid leader; and Attila, yielding to their
impatience, immediately formed his order of battle. At the head of his
brave and faithful Huns, he occupied in person the centre of the line.
The nations subject to his empire, the Rugians, the Heruli, the
Thuringians, the Franks, the Burgundians, were extended on either hand,
over the ample space of the Catalaunian fields; the right wing was
commanded by Ardaric, king of the Gepidae; and the three valiant brothers
who reigned over the Ostrogoths were posted on the left to oppose the
kindred tribes of the Visigoths. The disposition of the allies was
regulated by a different principle. Sangiban, the faithless King of the
Alani, was placed in the centre, where his motions might be strictly
watched, and his treachery might be instantly punished. Aetius assumed
the command of the left, and Theodoric of the right wing; while
Torismond still continued to occupy the heights which appear to have
stretched on the flank, and perhaps the rear, of the Scythian army. The
nations from the Volga to the Atlantic were assembled on the plai