Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 3 (1897).djvu/438

 418 THE DECLINE AND FALL of Scythian extraction, l)ut of consular rank, and the quaestor Epigenes, a wise and experienced statesman, wlio was recom- mended to that office by his ambitious colleague. ReiRTiof The death of Rugilas suspended the progress of thi: treaty. 433-453 His two ncphcws, Attila and Bleda, who succeeded to the throne of their uncle, consented to a personal interview with the am- bassadors of Constantinople ; but, as they proudly refused to dismount, the business was transacted on horseback, in a spacious plain near the city of Mai'gus in the Upper Ma?sia. The kings of [AD. 433] the Huns assumed the solid benefits, as well as the vain honours, of the negotiation. They dictated the conditions of peace, and each condition was an insult on the majesty of the empire. Besides the fi'eedom of a safe and plentiful market on the banks of the Danube, they required that the annual contribution should be augmented from three hundred and fifty to seven hundred pounds of gold ; that a fine, or ?*ansom, of eight pieces of gold should be paid for every Roman captive who had escaped from his Barbarian master ; that the emperor should renounce all treaties and engagements with the enemies of the Huns ; and that all the fugitives, who had taken refuge in the court or provinces of Theodosius, should be delivered to the justice of their offended sovereign. This justice was rigorously inflicted on some unfortunate youths of a royal race. They were cruci- fied on the territories of the empire, by the command of Attila : and, as soon as the king of the Huns had impressed the Romans with the terror of his name, he indulged them in a short and arbitrary respite, whilst he subdued the rebellious or independ- ent nations of Scythia and Gemiany.^ Hi8 figure and Attila, the SOU of Mundzuk, deduced his noble, perhaps his character ' ^ ' ' r r regal, descent ^ from the ancient Huns, who had formerly con- tended with the monarchs of China. His features, according to the observation of a Gothic historian, bore the stamp of his national origin ; and the portrait of Attila exhibits the genuine deformity of a modem Calmuck : '■' a large head, a swarthy com- plexion, small, deep-seated eyes, a flat nose, a few hairs in the place of a beard, broad shoulders, and a short square body, of .xii. xiii. .xiv. xv. 5 Priscus, p. 39 [fr. 12]. The modern Hungarians have deduced his genealogy, which ascends, in the thirty-fifth degree, to Ham the son of Noah ; yet they are igjnorant of his father's real name (de Guignes. Hist, des Huns, torn. ii. p. 297). 8 Compare Jornandes (c. 35, p. 661) with Bufifon, Hist. Naturelle, tom. iii. p. 380. The former had a right to observe, originis suae signa restituens. The character and portrait of Attila are probably transcribed from Cassiodorius.
 * See Priscus, p. 47, 48 [fr. i], and Hist, des Peuples de I'Europe, torn. vii. c.