Attila's first assault upon the Roman power was directed against the Eastern Empire. The court at Constantinople had been duly obsequious to him, but he found a pretext for war. "It was pretended that the Roman bishop of Margus had surreptitiously introduced himself into the sepulchre of the Hunnic kings and stolen from it the buried treasure. The Huns immediately fell upon a Roman town during the time of a fair, and pillaged everything before them, slaying the men and carrying off the women. To all complaints from Constantinople the answer was, "The bishop, or your lives.' The emperor thought, and with reason, that to give up an innocent man to be massacred would be displeasing to Heaven, would alienate the clergy, and only appease for a moment the demands of his merciless enemy. He refused, though timidly and in vague terms. The Huns replied by scouring Pannonia, laying Sirmium, its capital, in ruins, and extending their ravages far south of the Danube to the cities of Naissa and Sardica, upon both of which they wrought the extremity of their vengeance. A truce of four years only increased their fury and aggravated its effects. The war was suddenly recommenced. This time they reached Thessaly, and renewed with a somewhat similar result the far-famed passage of Thermopylæ by the hordes of Xerxes. Two Roman armies were put to complete rout, and seventy cities levelled to the ground. Theodosius purchased the redemption of his capital by the cession of territory extending for fifteen days' journey south of the Danube, by an immediate payment of 6,000 pounds of gold, and the promise of 2,000 more as an annual tribute." _J. G. Sheppard, Fall of Rome, lecture 4._ HUNS: A. D. 451. Attila's invasion of Gaul.