This was a terrible time for the struggling Britons--it was no longer a war in which offers of peace were made, and hostages received, but a contest between two powers, for the very soil on which they trod. This the islanders knew, and though often sorely depressed and hardly driven, they still continued to look the storm in the face. Every man had now his own household to fight for--the Roman party was led on by Aurelius Ambrosius, the British headed by Vortigern; a name which they long remembered and detested, for the misery it brought into the land. As for Rome, she had no longer leisure to turn her eye upon the distant struggle, for Attila and his Goths were now baying at her heels; there was a cry of wailing and lamentation in her towered streets, and the wide landscape which stretched at her imperial feet, was blackened by the fire of the destroyer. She had no time, either to look on or send assistance to either party; and when Ætius had read the petition sent by the Britons, who complained that "the barbarians chase us into the sea; the sea throws us back upon the barbarians; and we have only the hard choice left us of perishing by the sword or by the waves," he doubtless cast it aside, and exclaimed, "I also am beset by a host of enemies, and cannot help you:" a grim smile, perhaps, for a moment lighting up his features, as he recalled the Romans who, false to their country, had basely lingered in the British island, and thus deserted him in the hour of need; and as the stern shadow again settled down upon his features, he consoled himself for a moment by thinking that they also had met with their reward--then again prepared to defend himself against the overwhelming force of Attila.