We may imagine, therefore, with what terror in this the twelve hundredth
year after the foundation of Rome the inhabitants of the Roman Empire
must have heard the tidings that the royal brethren Attila and Bleda had
founded a new capital on the Danube, which was designed to rule over the
ancient capital on the Tiber; and that Attila, like Romulus, had
consecrated the foundations of his new city by murdering his brother; so
that for the new cycle of centuries then about to commence, dominion had
been bought from the gloomy spirits of destiny in favor of the Hun by a
sacrifice of equal awe and value with that which had formerly obtained
it for the Roman.
It is to be remembered that not only the pagans but also the Christians
of that age knew and believed in these legends and omens, however they
might differ as to the nature of the superhuman agency by which such
mysteries had been made known to mankind. And we may observe with
Herbert, a modern learned dignitary of our Church, how remarkably this
augury was fulfilled; for "if to the twelve centuries denoted by the
twelve vultures that appeared to Romulus we add, for the six birds that
appeared to Remus, six _lustra_ or periods of five years each, by which
the Romans were wont to number their time, it brings us precisely to the
year 476, in which the Roman Empire was finally extinguished by
Odoacer.
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