[29] When both armies were in position Fridigern, "being skilful in divining the future," says Ammianus, "and fearing a doubtful struggle," sent a herald to Valens with the promise that if the Romans would give hostages to the Goths the latter would cease their depredations and even aid the Romans in their wars. Richomeres, the Roman cavalry leader, was chosen by Valens to serve as a hostage; but as he was proceeding to the Gothic camp the soldiers who accompanied him made a rash attack upon a division of the enemy and precipitated a battle which soon spread to the whole army. [30] The goddess of war, regarded in Roman mythology as the sister of Mars. [31] Signs of the zodiac, sometimes employed by the Romans to give figurative expression to the time of day. [32] The number of Romans killed at Cannae (216 B.C.) is variously estimated, but it can hardly have been under 50,000. CHAPTER III. THE HUNS 5. Descriptions by a Graeco-Roman Poet and a Roman Historian The Huns, a people of Turanian stock, were closely related to the ancestors of the Magyars, or the modern Hungarians. Their original home was in central Asia, beyond the great wall of China, and they were in every sense a people of the plains rather than of the forest or of the sea. From the region of modern Siberia they swept westward in successive waves, beginning about the middle of the fourth century, traversed the "gateway of the nations" between the Caspian Sea and the Ural Mountains, and fell with fury upon the German tribes (mainly the Goths) settled in eastern and southern Europe. The descriptions of them given by Claudius Claudianus and Ammianus Marcellinus set forth their characteristics as understood by the Romans a half-century or more before the invasion of the Empire by Attila. There is no reason to suppose that either of these authors had ever seen a Hun, or had his information at first hand. When both wrote the Huns were yet far outside the Empire's bounds. Tales of soldiers and travelers, which doubtless grew as they were told, must have supplied both the poet and the historian with all that they knew regarding the strange Turanian invaders. This being the case, we are not to accept all that they say as the literal truth. Nevertheless the general impressions which one gets from their pictures cannot be far wrong. Claudius Claudianus, commonly regarded as the last of the Latin classic poets, was a native of Alexandria who settled at Rome about 395. For ten years after that date he occupied a position at the court of the Emperor Honorius somewhat akin to that of poet-laureate. Much of his writing was of a very poor quality, but his descriptions were sometimes striking, as in the stanza given below. On Ammianus Marcellinus see p. 34.