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An attempt to assassinate Attila, made, or supposed to have been made,
at the instigation of Theodoric the Younger, the emperor of
Constantinople, drew the Hunnish armies, in 445, upon the Eastern
Empire, and delayed for a time the destined blow against Rome. Probably
a more important cause of delay was the revolt of some of the Hunnish
tribes to the north of the Black Sea against Attila, which broke out
about this period, and is cursorily mentioned by the Byzantine writers.
Attila quelled this revolt, and having thus consolidated his power, and
having punished the presumption of the Eastern Roman Emperor by fearful
ravages of his fairest provinces, Attila, in 450 A.D., prepared to set
his vast forces in motion for the conquest of Western Europe. He sought
unsuccessfully by diplomatic intrigues to detach the king of the
Visigoths from his alliance with Rome, and he resolved first to crush
the power of Theodoric, and then to advance with overwhelming power to
trample out the last sparks of the doomed Roman Empire.
A strange invitation from a Roman princess gave him a pretext for the
war, and threw an air of chivalric enterprise over his invasion.
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