The Huns might be provoked to insult the misery of
their slaves, over whom they exercised a despotic command; but their
manners were not susceptible of a refined system of oppression; and the
efforts of courage and diligence were often recompensed by the gift of
freedom. The historian Priscus, whose embassy is a source of curious
instruction, was accosted in the camp of Attila by a stranger, who
saluted him in the Greek language, but whose dress and figure displayed
the appearance of a wealthy Scythian. In the siege of Viminiacum he had
lost, according to his own account, his fortune and liberty; he became
the slave of Onegesius; but his faithful services, against the Romans
and the Acatzires, had gradually raised him to the rank of the native
Huns; to whom he was attached by the domestic pledges of a new wife and
several children. The spoils of war had restored and improved his
private property; he was admitted to the table of his former lord; and
the apostate Greek blessed the hour of his captivity, since it had been
the introduction to a happy and independent state, which he held by the
honorable tenure of military service.
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