Sources--(a) Claudius Claudianus, _In Rufinum_ ["Against Rufinus"], Bk. I., 323-331. Text in _Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Auctores Antiquissimi_, Vol. X., pp. 30-31. Translated in Thomas Hodgkin, _Italy and Her Invaders_ (Oxford, 1880), Vol. II., p. 2. (b) Ammianus Marcellinus, _Rerum Gestarum Libri qui Supersunt_, Bk. XXXI., Chaps. 2-4 [see p. 34]. Translated in Hodgkin, _ibid._, pp. 34-38. (a) There is a race on Scythia's[33] verge extreme Eastward, beyond the Tanais'[34] chilly stream. The Northern Bear[35] looks on no uglier crew: Base is their garb, their bodies foul to view; Their souls are ne'er subdued to sturdy toil Or Ceres' arts:[36] their sustenance is spoil. With horrid wounds they gash their brutal brows, And o'er their murdered parents bind their vows. Not e'en the Centaur-offspring of the Cloud[37] Were horsed more firmly than this savage crowd. Brisk, lithe, in loose array they first come on, Fly, turn, attack the foe who deems them gone. [Sidenote: Physical appearance of the Huns] (b) The nation of the Huns, little known to ancient records, but spreading from the marshes of Azof to the Icy Sea,[38] surpasses all other barbarians in wildness of life. In the first days of infancy, deep incisions are made in the cheeks of their boys, in order that when the time comes for whiskers to grow there, the sprouting hairs may be kept back by the furrowed scars; and hence they grow to maturity and to old age beardless. They all, however, have strong, well-knit limbs and fine necks. Yet they are of portentous ugliness and so crook-backed that you would take them for some sort of two-footed beasts, or for the roughly-chipped stakes which are used for the railings of a bridge. And though they do just bear the likeness of men (of a very ugly type), they are so little advanced in civilization that they make no use of fire, nor of any kind of relish, in the preparation of their food, but feed upon the roots which they find in the fields, and the half-raw flesh of any sort of animal. I say half-raw, because they give it a kind of cooking by placing it between their own thighs and the backs of their horses. They never seek the shelter of houses, which they look upon as little better than tombs, and will enter only upon the direst necessity; nor would one be able to find among them even a cottage of wattled rushes; but, wandering at large over mountain and through forest, they are trained to endure from infancy all the extremes of cold, of hunger, and of thirst. [Sidenote: Their dress]