son of the latter, Valentinian II., was brought by the widowed empress Justina into the camp, and there the legions swore allegiance to him. The time was now approaching when the waning power of the Roman empire became more and more unequal to the task of defending her provinces. Aurelian already had withdrawn the Roman legions from Dacia and allowed the Goths to settle there, and Probus had introduced the Goths into Lower Pannonia. Roman influence and Roman protection began to be of little value; the great empire, weakened by internal dissensions, by the internecine wars waged against each other by imperial pretenders, torn by religious disputes, and finally divided, hastened to its downfall. At this period a new people made its appearance in Europe on the shores of the Black Sea and along the banks of the Danube, namely, the Huns, who were pushing before them the Goths towards the West. They differed in race from the Germans, Slavs, and Romans, and they had in Attila a leader capable of uniting under his sway the most discordant ethnical elements. Ostrogoths, Gepidæ, Vandals, Alans, Rugians, mostly Germanic populations, followed the banners of the foreign leader, trusting in his good fortune and awed and magnetized by his great personal qualities. He pushed forward with an immense number of followers, gathering strength as he advanced by the accession of the barbarous nations, bearing down and destroying every thing before him. Theodosius II., Emperor of the East, agreed to pay tribute to the king of the Huns; but in order to disguise to his subjects the disgraceful transaction, he appointed Attila a general of the empire, so that the tribute should have the appearance of official pay. But Attila was not satisfied with this, and broke the peace, overran the Balkan peninsula, pillaged the Byzantine provinces, and destroyed the cities until he obtained his own terms. Priscus Rhetor, who was one of the embassy sent by Theodosius II. to the court of Attila, describes the wooden structure in which the king of the Huns dwelt on the banks of the Theiss, somewhere in the vicinity of Szeged, and the feasting there. Kings sat at the table, lords sang Attila’s heroic deeds, and the guests drank each other’s health from vessels of gold. Heathen and Christian, Roman citizens and Asiatic barbarians, as well as the representatives of the Germanic tribes, mixed with each other and thronged his court. It was during one of those feasts, in 453, as he was celebrating his nuptials, that the mighty king of the Huns was carried off by a fit of apoplexy. Whilst the sons of Attila were contending with each other for the possession of the empire, the Germanic populations fell upon the divided Huns and drove them back to the Black Sea.