The perpetual intercourse of the
Huns and the Goths had communicated the familiar knowledge of the two
national dialects; and the Barbarians were ambitious of conversing in
Latin, the military idiom even of the Eastern Empire. But they disdained
the language and the sciences of the Greeks; and the vain sophist, or
grave philosopher, who had enjoyed the flattering applause of the
schools, was mortified to find that his robust servant was a captive of
more value and importance than himself. The mechanic arts were
encouraged and esteemed, as they tended to satisfy the wants of the
Huns. An architect in the service of Onegesius, one of the favorites of
Attila, was employed to construct a bath; but this work was a rare
example of private luxury; and the trades of the smith, the carpenter,
the armorer, were much more adapted to supply a wandering people with
the useful instruments of peace and war.
But the merit of the physician was received with universal favor and
respect: the Barbarians, who despised death, might be apprehensive of
disease; and the haughty conqueror trembled in the presence of a captive
to whom he ascribed perhaps an imaginary power of prolonging or
preserving his life.
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