The next blow that threatened the distracted Empire was an invasion of the Huns. Placidia cannot be held responsible for the subsequent calamities, for Ætius, strong in his alliance with the Huns, had forced his way back into power, and was the real governor of the Empire. But the formidable task he undertook was made more difficult by a romantic and unhappy occurrence within Placidia’s domestic circle. We have already spoken of her daughter Honoria, who came in disgrace to Constantinople in 434. The great distinction of the Constantinopolitan court, the possession of three royal virgins, seems to have excited the pious jealousy of Placidia, and she apparently designed that her court should not lack its Vestal Virgin. We are not told that any vow was imposed on the young Honoria, but she was reared with the discipline of a conventual novice, and given to understand that the exalted state of virginity was assigned to her. In 433 the title of Augusta was bestowed on her, in some compensation of her sacrifice. But the daughter of Constantius had thicker blood in her veins than the daughters of Arcadius, and the claustral regime--the restriction of attendance to eunuchs and women--does not seem to have been rigorously enforced at Ravenna. In 434 the seventeen-year-old princess was discovered to be in a painful condition, and was dispatched to Constantinople, and incarcerated in a nunnery by the indignant Pulcheria. But the young girl had a spirit beyond her years. She had heard of the formidable nation of the Huns, which awaited, in the neighbourhood of the Danube and the Volga, its turn to fill the Imperial stage; she had heard that the young and powerful Attila had recently acceded to the throne of that nation. In some way she secured a messenger who took from her a letter and a ring to Attila, offering him her heart and her dowry if he would release her. The girlish freak was destined to have terrible consequences for the Empire. The lady herself we may dismiss in a word. She seems to have been kept in close confinement in the East until about 450, sending fruitless messages, from time to time, to her romantic lover. Attila had sufficient occupation during those fifteen years, and was content to put her name on the lengthy list of his wives. When, in 450, he formally demanded her person, he was assured that she was married. It is not impossible that she was released on condition that she accepted a husband chosen for her. But her end is obscure, and one is disposed to doubt if she would ever have resumed her liberty without joining the victorious Hun.