We know really nothing of the tremendous encounter which followed, the result of which saved the Western world. It is true that Jornandes gives us a long account of it, but we are ignorant how far it is likely to be true, whence he got it, and how much was his own invention. That the battle was immense, we know; Jornandes asserts that it had no parallel and that it was such that, if unseen, no other marvel in the world could make up for such a loss. He tells us that there was a tradition that a stream that passed over the plain was swollen with blood into a torrent: “they who drank of it in their thirst drank murder.” It was by this stream, according to Jornandes, that Theodoric, King of the Visigoths, was thrown from his horse and trampled under foot and slain, and so fulfilled the prophecy which Attila’s sorcerers had declared to him. The fall of the King appears so to have enraged the Visigoths--and here we must go warily with Jornandes--that they engaged the enemy more closely and almost slew Attila himself in their fury. Indeed, it was their great charge which flung him and his guard, the Hunnish centre, back into the mighty earthwork which before them seemed but a frail barrier so enormous was their rage. Night fell upon the foe beleaguered and blockaded within that mighty defence. In that night Thorismund, the son of Theodoric, was lost and found again. Aetius, too, separated in the confusion of the night from his armies, found himself, as Thorismund had done, among the waggons of the enemy, but like Thorismund again found his way back at last and spent the rest of the night among the Goths. When day dawned, what a sight met the eyes of the allies. The vast plains were strewn with the dying and the dead, 160,000 men had fallen in that encounter, and within that terrible earthwork lay what was left of the Huns, wounded and furious, trapped as Alfred trapped Guthrum later upon the Wiltshire downs. The battle had cost the Imperialists dear enough. Nor was their loss all. The death of Theodoric brought with it a greater anxiety and eventually cost Aetius his Gothic allies. A council of war was called. It was determined there to hold Attila and starve him within his earthwork. In the meantime search was made for the body of Theodoric. After a long time this was found, “where the dead lay thickest,” and was borne out of the sight of the enemy, the Goths “lifting their harsh voices in a wild lament.” It is to be supposed that there Theodoric was buried. And it is probable that the bones and swords and golden ornaments and jewels which were found near the village of Pouan by the Aube in 1842 may well have been the remains of Theodoric and his funeral, for the fight doubtless raged over a great territory, and it is certain that the king would be buried out of sight of the foe. On the other hand, these bones may have belonged to a Frankish chief who had fallen in the fight for the passage of the Aube.