the Emperor of the West, and it is needless to say that the subject which they had come to discuss was that interminable one, the sacred vases of Sirmium. The father of Orestes, and Constantius the Roman secretary of Attila, journeyed, in an unofficial capacity, with the ambassadors. It was certainly a striking scene: the ambassadors from Ravenna and Constantinople, the representatives of the dignity of the two Imperial courts, the functionaries who between them could set forth the whole majesty that might still survive in the title Senatus Populus Que Romanus, meeting in a dingy little village in Hungary, and waiting with abject submission till a snub-nosed Kalmuck should ride past and contemptuously toss them a permission to follow in his train. It is difficult to resist the conclusion that Attila, who had a genius for scenic effect in the enhancement of his glory, not unlike that which our century has witnessed in the Napoleons, had purposely arranged this confluence of the two embassies, and partly for this cause had invited Maximin to follow him into Hungary.

After crossing a few more rivers, the united embassies came in sight of the village in which was situated the palace of Attila. Students have discussed whether this Hunnish capital is represented by the modern city of Pesth, by Tokay, or by some other less-known name; but we may dismiss with absolute indifference the inquiry in what particular part of a dreary and treeless plain a barbarian king reared his log-huts, of which probably, twenty years after his death, not a vestige remained.

As Attila entered the village he was met by a procession of maidens in single file wearing linen veils, thin and white, and so long that under each veil, held up as it was by the hands of the women on either side of the path, seven maidens or more were able to walk. There were many of these sets of girls, each set wearing one veil; and as they walked they sang national songs in honor of the king. The last house which he reached before his own was that of his favorite and chief minister Onégesh, and as he passed it the wife of the owner came forth with a multitude of attendants bearing food and wine-"the highest honor," says Priscus, "which one Scythian can pay to another" — saluted him, and begged him to partake of the repast which she had

provided as a token of her loyalty. The king, wishing to gratify the wife of his most trusted counselor, partook accordingly, without dismounting from his horse, his attendants holding high before him the silver table on which the banquet was spread. Having eaten and drunk he rode on to his palace.

This edifice, the finest in all the country round, stood on a little hill, and seemed to dominate the whole settlement. Yet it was in truth, as has been already said, only a log-hut of large dimensions. Externally it seems that it was built of half-trunks of trees, round side outwards, and within, it was lined with smoothly-planed planks. Round the inclosure in which the dwellings of the king and his wives were placed ran a wooden palisading, for ornament, not defense; and the top of the palace was fashioned into the appearance of battlements. Next to the king's house in position, and only second to it in size, rose the dwelling of Onégesh. The only stone building in the place was a bath, which Onégesh had built at a little distance from his palisading. The stone for this building had been brought from quarries in the Roman province of Pannonia; and in fact all the timber used in the settlement had been imported likewise, for in the vast and dreary plain where the nomad nation had pitched its camp, not a tree was growing, not a stone underlay it. With the building of the bath of Onégesh a grim jest was connected. The architect, a Roman provincial, who had been carried captive from Sirmium, hoped that his ingenuity would at least be rewarded by the boon of freedom, if no other architect's commission was paid him. But no such thoughts suggested themselves to the mind of Onégesh. When he had completed his task, the architect was rewarded by being turned into bath-man, and had to wait upon his master and his master's guests whensoever they had a mind for the pleasures of the sudatorium and the tepidarium. Thus, as Priscus remarks, with a hint, no doubt, at the personal uncleanliness of the Huns, the unhappy man of science "had prepared for himself unconsciously a worse lot than that of ordinary servitude among the Scythians."

Onégesh himself, who was absent when Priscus sought an interview with his brother Scotta, had now returned to his master's court. He had been engaged in quelling the last remains of independence among the Acatziri, a people possibly of Slavonic

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origin, who dwelt on the Lower Danube. The Byzantine ministers had endeavored to parry Attila's attack by stirring up some of the petty chieftains of this nation against him. But, with their usual tendency to blunder, they had sent their most costly and honorable presents to the wrong man and consequently Curidach, the real head of the confederacy, having received only the second gift, called in the aid of Attila to avenge the insult and beat down the power of his associated kings. The Hun was nothing loth, and soon succeeded in quelling all opposition. He then invited Curidach to come and celebrate their joint triumph at his court; but that chieftain, suspecting that his benefactor's kindness was of the same nature as the promised boon of Polyphemus to Ulysses, "I will eat Outis last," courteously declined. "It is hard," he said, "for a man to come into the presence of a god; and if it be not possible to look fixedly even at the orb of the sun, how shall Curidach gaze undistressed upon the greatest of gods?" The compliment served for the time, but Attila understood what it was worth, and at a convenient season sent his Grand Vizier, Onégesh, to dethrone Curidach and to proclaim the eldest son of Attila king of the Acatziri in his stead. From this expedition the Prime Minister had now just returned successful and in high favor with his master.

The ambassadors were hospitably entertained by the wife and family of Onégesh. He himself had to wait upon the king to report the success of his mission, and the only drawback which had befallen his party, an accident namely to the young prince, who had slipped off his horse and fractured some of the bones of his right hand. At nightfall Maximin pitched his tents a little way off the inclosure of the royal dwellings, and next morning he sent Priscus early to the house of Onégesh with servants bearing presents both from himself and from Theodosius. The zealous rhetorician was actually up before the barbarian. The house was still close barred and there was no sign of any one stirring.

While Priscus was waiting, and walking up and down before the palisading which surrounded the house of Onégesh, a man, with the dress and general appearance of a Hun, came up and saluted him with a well-pronounced Greek xaîpe ("How d'ye do?"). A Hun speaking Greek was an anomaly which

VII. - 2

aroused all the attention of the Sophist, for, as he says, "though it is true that this people, who are a kind of conglomerate of nations, do sometimes affect the speech of the Goths, or even that of the Italians, in addition to their own barbarous language, they never learn Greek, except indeed they be inhabitants of Thrace or Dalmatia, who have been carried captive into the Hunnish territory. And these captives or their offspring may be easily known by their ragged garments and scabby heads, and all the other tokens of their having changed their condition for the worse. But this man seemed like a flourishing Scythian, handsomely dressed, and having his hair neatly clipped all round his head. So, returning his salutation, I asked him who he was, and from what part of the world he had come into that barbarian land to adopt the Scythian life. "What has put it into your head to ask me such a question as that?" said he. "Your Greek accent," answered I. Then he laughed and said, "Tis true I am of Greek parentage, and I came for purposes of trade to Viminacium, a city of Moesia, on the Danube" [about sixty miles below Belgrade]. "There I abode for a long time, and married a very wealthy wife. But on the capture of the city by the Huns I was stripped of all my fortune, and assigned as a slave to this very Onégesh before whose door you are standing. That is the custom of the Huns: after Attila has had his share, the chiefs of the nation are allowed to take their pick of the wealthiest captives, and so Onégesh chose me. Afterwards, having distinguished myself in some actions with the Romans and the Acatziri, I surrendered to my master all the spoils which I had taken in war, and thus, according to the law of the Scythians, I obtained my freedom. I married a barbarian wife, by whom I have children: I am admitted as a guest to the table of Onégesh, and I consider my present mode of life decidedly preferable to my past. For when war is over, the people of this country live like gentlemen, enjoying themselves to the full, and free from worry of any kind. But the people in Roman-land are easily worsted in war, because they place their hopes of safety on others rather than themselves. Their tyrants will not allow them the use of arms, and the condition of those who are armed is even more dangerous, from the utter worthlessness of their generals, who have no notion of the art of War. Then, too,

Peace has its injuries not less severe than War. Think of all the cruelties practised by the collectors of the revenue, the infamy of informers, and the gross inequalities in the administration of the laws. If a rich man offends, he can always manage to escape punishment; but a poor man, who does not know how to arrange matters, has to undergo the full penalty, unless indeed he be dead before judgment is pronounced, which is not unlikely, considering the intolerable length to which lawsuits are protracted. But what I call the most shameful thing of all is that you have to pay money in order to obtain your legal rights. For a man who has been injured cannot even get a hearing from the court without first paying large fees to the judge and the officials who serve him."

In reply to this angry outburst, Priscus entered into a long and sophistical disquisition on the advantages of division of labor, the necessity that judges and bailiffs, like men of other occupations, should live by their calling, and so on. It is easy to see that Priscus felt himself to be talking as sagely as Socrates, upon whose style his reply is evidently modeled; but that reply has the fault so common with rhetoricians and diplomatists, of being quite up in the air, and having no relation to the real facts of the case. His conclusion is the most interesting part of the speech: "As for the freedom which you now enjoy, you may thank Fortune for that and not your master, who sent you to war, where you were likely to have been killed by the enemy on account of your inexperience. But the Romans treat even their slaves better than this. True, they correct them, but only for their good as parents or schoolmasters correct children, in order that they may cease to do evil and behave as is suitable for persons in their station. The Roman master is not allowed, as the Hun is, to punish his slave so as to cause his death. Besides, we have abundant legal provisions in favor of freedom, and this gift may be bestowed not only by men who are in the midst of life, but also by those who are on the point of death. Such persons are allowed to dispose of their property as they please, and any directions of a dying man concerning the enfranchisement of his slaves are binding on his heirs." Thus I reasoned with him. He burst into tears, and said, "The laws are beautiful, and the polity of the Romans is excellent; but the