Genseric and Attila.

In the reign of Valentinian III. Africa was lost to the western empire; the cause was the ambition and art of Ætius, the imperial general. Galla Placidia, the mother of the young emperor, governed for him with wisdom. Bonifacius was governor of Africa. Ætius wished to cause enmity between him and the regent. He wrote to Bonifacius, telling him he had been traduced to her, and that she would recall him and put him to death; he represented to Placidia that Bonifacius was meditating rebellion, and that the only way to check was to recall him: she did so; he refused obedience: it was resolved to make war on him. Bonifacius, diffident of his own resources, cast his eyes on the Vandals, now masters of Andalusia: he offered land on the coast of Africa, as the price of their assistance, to their princes Genseric and Gonderic. Genseric,.an able, enterprising, and ambitious youth, immediately crossed the strait. Terror and devastation tracked his 427. route. Bonifacius perceived his error: aided by some forces sent by Theodosius II. emperor of the East, he armed in defence of the country. Genseric defeated both him and the imperial general Aspar. He took Carthage, plundered it, destroyed the nobility, and tortured all ranks to make them discover their treasures. Being an Arian, he relentlessly persecuted the orthodox.

His son Hunneric was married to a West-Gothic princess. As Genseric grew old, he became suspicious: he took it into his head that his daughter-in-law meditated poisoning him, and he cut off her nose and ears, and sent her home to her own country. Then, fearing the vengeance of the West-Goths, and a union between them and the Roman emperor against him, he sent ambassadors to Attila, king of the Huns, to induce him to invade the western empire.

The whole nation of the Huns was united under this able prince. He ruled from the Volga to Hungary ; Gepidæ, Langobards, East-Goths, and nations of southern

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A. D.

Germany obeyed him; the emperor Theodosius paid him tribute; 700,000 warriors marched beneath his banners, each Hunnish tribe under its chief. One soul animated the whole; all yielded implicit obedience to the mandate of their great Tanjoo. Attila was generous, and not averse from mercy.

Attila resolved on war. He prepared the way by artifice; he wrote to Theoderic (Dietrich), the WestGothic king residing at Toulouse, inviting him to unite in a partition of the empire of the Romans, his sworn foes. He wrote to the imperial court, exaggerating the fidelity of the Huns, and proposing to restore the integrity of the empire by a union of their forces to expel the West-Goths from Gaul and Spain. The imperial court saw through the artifice. Valentinian called on

all the barbaric monarchs of the West to join in averting the common danger: his call was attended to. The valiant West-Gothic monarch, the Burgundians who dwelt in the modern Burgundy, Dauphiné, Savoy, and West Switzerland, Sangiban, king of the Alans, on the Loire, the towns of Armorica, the community of Paris, the Ripuarian Franks between the Maese and Rhine, the Salian Franks ruled by Meroveus, and the Saxons beyond the Rhine, all took arms to repel the Huns.

From his village-court on the banks of the Theiss, Attila pursued his march through Austria, Styria, the borders of Rhætia and Allemannia, passed the Rhine, defeated at Basil the king of the Burgundians, rapidly advanced till on the Marne in the plains of Croisette, not A. D. far from Chalons, he encountered the army of the confederates.

450.

The left wing of the confederates was commanded by Ætius, the Roman general, the right by Theoderic, the centre by king Sangiban. One wing of the army of Attila was led by the king of the Gepida, the other by the princes of the East-Goths. Attila ordered the principal efforts to be directed against the West-Goths and Alans, and desired all to fix their eyes on him. fight was long and bloody. Theoderic fell, encouraging

The

his men.
At the approach of night, Attila found it
necessary to retreat. The West-Goths burned to avenge
the death of their king. Ætius judged it more politic
to reserve the Huns as a counterpoise to them: he also
wished to prolong the war, and his own command.
Attila, as the country was unable to support his troops,
returned home.

A. D.

Vengeance, or, as is said, the invitation of a sister 452. of the emperor, who offered him her hand, drew Attila to Italy. Aquileia resisted in vain: it was levelled to the ground; its male inhabitants put to the sword, the women and children led into slavery. All the towns of northern Italy were taken and plundered. He entered Ravenna through a breach made by the citizens in their walls, to testify their submission. Leo, the venerable bishop of Rome, came to meet him, bearing gifts, and accompanied by nobles. He besought him to spare the city where the apostle had preached, and which Alaric had not violated. Attila was moved: he drew off his army, laden with spoil, to pasture their herds once more beyond the Danube. Dreaded by the East and West, Attila died soon after, on the night of his marriage with 453. the fair Hildichunde, and with him expired the power of the Huns.

Fall of the Western Empire.

Valentinian III. was a luxurious and superstitious prince. He had violated the wife of Maximus, a noble Roman. Bent on vengeance, Maximus, to deprive the emperor of support, contrived to make him put the brave Ætius to death. This incensed the guards, whose prefect Ætius had been, and Valentinian was murdered by them. Maximus was made emperor, and he married Eudoxia, the widow of his predecessor. In a moment of unguarded confidence he revealed to her the secret of his being the chief agent in the death of Valentinian. Eudoxia, who had loved the husband of her youth, resolved to avenge him. She wrote to Africa to

455.

A. D. 456.

Genseric, calling upon him to avenge the murder of him,
who had so many years left him in undisturbed posses-
sion of the fertile regions of Africa. Genseric obeyed
the summons. On intelligence of his approach, all the
principal citizens of Rome fled to the Sabine and Tus-
can mountains. Maximus was put to death by the
people. No resistance was offered to the Vandals.
Fourteen days they abode in Rome, which Leo, its bishop,
with difficulty saved from conflagration. The empress
and her daughters, the flower of the youth, the artists
and mechanics, were brought to Africa. The works of
art were embarked for the same place, but were lost on
the passage.
All the south of Italy was wasted by the

Vandals.

Avitus, a man of noble descent and virtuous life, was elevated to the purple in Gaul, but almost immediately laid down his dignity. The Romans then chose Ma457. jorianus, a brave warrior. He marched against the

Alans, who were threatening a descent into Italy, but 461. was murdered by his own soldiers. His successor was Severus. The Alans, who were a tribe of Slavonian race, had settled on the Loire in Gaul. Finding themselves straitened between the Franks and the West-Goths, they abandoned that country, passed the Alps, and reached Bergamo. Here they were defeated by the imperial general, Richimir, who shortly afterwards deposed the emperor, and raised his own father-in-law, Anthe467. mius, to the throne. He designed to govern under the name of the emperor. Anthemius was refractory: a battle was fought near Rome. Richimir was victorious; he put Anthemius to death, wasted and plundered the city in a dreadful manner, and survived but forty days. Olybrius, married to a daughter of 473. Valentinian, was raised to the throne, which he occupied but seven months. Glycerius, a lord of the court, was chosen by the Romans; but the Eastern emperor set up 474. Julius Nepos against him, and Glycerius retired and took orders, and became bishop of Porto.

The emperor sent his general, Orestes, to defend the

passage of the Alps against the barbarians, who were continually advancing. By means of his army Orestes forced him to resign, and he invested with the purple A. D. his own son, Romulus Augustus, a youth of amiable 475. manners and cultivated mind.

The Heruli, a people whom we first find seated in Pomerania, on the shores of the Baltic, had gradually proceeded southwards. They fed their herds in Pannonia, then roved into Noricum, and now appeared in Italy, with other tribes, headed by the valiant Odoacer. Pavia, defended by the father of the young emperor, resisted. It was taken, and Orestes beheaded.

All the cities opened their gates at the approach of Odoacer. Romulus laid down sceptre, purple, and crown, and entered the camp of the Herulian chief. His life was spared, and he was sent to a castle in Campania.

Thus, in the days of a prince of the same name as 476. her supposed founder, in the 1229th year of the city, fell the empire of Rome. She had by valour and prulence risen from the smallest beginnings; had step by step enlarged her dominions, absorbed one after another all the nations of the civilised world that surrounded the Mediterranean, had adopted their vices, had lost her strength by internal corruption. The mighty colossus had long tottered on its base; each tribe of the GothoGerman stock had by turns agitated it: the last and decisive effort was reserved for the dwellers of Rügen and Pomerania, a tribe unheard of in her days of glory.

We here quit the ancient world. New scenes open, new manners appear; the gods of Greece and Rome have vanished: a different religion is dominant, before which another ancient system also gives way; while the wilds of Arabia send forth another religion, which, in its rapidity of diffusion and extent of dominion, will vie with that which emanated from its vicinity six centuries before. We shall meet limited monarchy the prevalent form of government; view the amazing fabric of ecclesiastical dominion; and contemplate feudalism, with its chivalry and its martial spirit.