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 OF THE K(JMAN EMPIRE 447 the Romans of the PLast, whom he had so often vanquished, he soon declared his resolution of suspending the easy conquest, till he had achieved a more glorious and important enterprise. In the memorable invasions of Gaul and Italy, the Huns were naturally attracted by the wealth and fertility of those provinces; but the particular motives and provocations of Attila can only be explained by the state of the Western empire under the reign of V^alentinian, or, to speak more correctly, under the adminis- tratirn of Aetius." After the death of his rival Boniiace, Aetius had prudently re- character and tired to the tents of the Huns ; and he was indebted to their alii- tionof Aetim ance for his safety and his restoration. Instead of the suppliant language of a guilty exile, he solicited his pardon at the head of sixty thousand Barbarians ; and the empress Placidia confessed, a.d. ei^s* by a feeble resistance, that the condescension, which might have been ascribed to clemency, was the effect of weakness or fear. She delivered herself, her son Valentinian, and the Western em- pire, into the hands of an insolent subject ; nor could Placidia protect the son-in-law of Boniface, the virtuous and faithful Sebastian,^ from the implacable persecution, which urged him from one kingdom to another, till he miserably perished in the service of the Vandals. The fortunate Aetius, who was im- mediately promoted to the rank of patrician, and thrice invested with the honours of the consulship, assumed, with the title of master of the cavalry and infantrv', the whole military' power of the state ; and he is sometimes styled, by contemporan,- wTiters, the Duke, or General, of the Romans of the West. His prudence, rather than his virtue, engaged him to leave the grandson of Theodosius in the jxjssession of the purple; and Valentinian was permitted to enjoy the peace and luxury of Italy, while the patrician appeared in the glorious light of a hero and a patriot who supported near twenty years the ruins of the Western empire. The Gothic historian ingenuously confesses that Aetius 3 The second book of the Histoire Critique de rEtablissement de la Monarchic Fran^ise, torn. L p. 189-424, throws great light on the state of Gaul, when it was invaded by Attila ; but the ingenious author, the Abb6 Dubos, too often bewilders himself in system and conjecture, •• Victor Vitensis (de Persecut. VandaL 1. i. c. 6, p. 8, edit. Rtu'nart) calls him, acer consilio et strenuus in bello ; but his courage, when he became tinfortunate, was censured as desperate rashness, and Sebastian deserved, or obtained, the epithet ol prcucepi (Sidon. ApoUinar. Carmen, ix. i3i Ug. 280]). His adventures at Constantinople, m Sidly, Gaul, Spain and .A^frica, are faintly marked in the Chronicles of MarcelUnus and Idatius. In his distress he was always followed by a numerous train ; since he could ravage the Hellespont and Propontis and seize the city of Barcelona.