Page:Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus.djvu/596

584 5. At last he pitched his camp at a distance in a very favourable spot near the banks of the Dniester and the valleys of the Gruthungi, and sent Muderic, who afterwards became Duke of the Arabian frontier, with Lagarimanus and others of the nobles, with orders to advance for twenty miles, to reconnoitre the approach of the enemy; while in the mean time he himself, without delay, marshalled his troops in line of battle.

6. However, things turned out in a manner very contrary to his expectations. For the Huns (being very sagacious in conjectures) suspecting that there must be a considerable multitude further off, contrived to pass beyond those they had seen, and arranged themselves to take their rest where there was nothing at hand to disturb them; and then, when the moon dispelled the darkness of night, they forded the river, which was the best plan that presented itself, and fearing lest the piquets at the outposts might give the alarm to the distant camp, they made all possible speed and advanced with the hope of surprising Athanaric himself.

7. He was stupefied at the suddenness of their onset, and, after losing many of his men, was compelled to flee for refuge to the precipitous mountains in the neighbourhood, where, being wholly bewildered with the strangeness of this occurrence, and the fear of greater evils to come, he began to fortify with lofty walls all the territory between the banks of the river Pruth and the Danube, where it passes through the lands of the Taifali, and he completed this line of fortification with great diligence, thinking that by this step he should secure his own personal safety.

8. While this important work was going on, the Huns kept pressing on his traces with great speed, and they would have overtaken and destroyed him if they had not been forced to abandon the pursuit from being impeded by the great quantity of their booty. In the mean time a report spread extensively through the other nations of the Goths, that a race of men, hitherto unknown, had suddenly descended like a whirlwind from the lofty mountains, as if they had risen from some secret recess of the earth, and were ravaging and destroying everything which came in their way. And then the greater part of the population which, because of their want of necessaries,