" Emperors paid them tribute, and Roman
generals kept up a politic or a questionable correspondence with
them. Stilicho had detachments of Huns in the armies which fought
against Alaric, King of the Goths, the greatest Roman soldier after
Stilicho--and, like Stilicho, of barbarian parentage--Aetius, who
was to be their most formidable antagonist, had been a hostage and
messmate in their camps. All historians agree that the influx of
these barbaric peoples hastened, more than any other cause, the
rapid decline of the great empire which the Romans had built up.
About A.D. 433 Attila, equally famous in history and legend, became
the King of the Huns. The attraction of his daring character, and
of his genius for the war which nomadic tribes delight in, gave him
absolute ascendency over his nation, and over the Teutonic and
Slavonic tribes near him. Like other conquerors of his race he
imagined and attempted an empire of ravage and desolation, a vast
hunting ground and preserve, in which men and their works should
supply the objects and zest of the chase.
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