Egypt trembled at their approach; and the monks and pilgrims of the Holy
Land prepared to escape their fury by a speedy embarkation. The memory
of this invasion was still recent in the minds of the orientals. The
subjects of Attila might execute, with superior forces, the design which
these adventurers had so boldly attempted; and it soon became the
subject of anxious conjecture whether the tempest would fall on the
dominions of Rome or of Persia. Some of the great vassals of the King of
the Huns, who were themselves in the rank of powerful princes, had been
sent to ratify an alliance and society of arms with the Emperor, or
rather with the general, of the West. They related, during their
residence at Rome, the circumstances of an expedition which they had
lately made into the East.
After passing a desert and a morass, supposed by the Romans to be the
lake Maeotis, they penetrated through the mountains, and arrived, at the
end of fifteen days' march, on the confines of Media; where they
advanced as far as the unknown cities of Basic and Cursic.
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