Thin
His beard and hoary; his flat nostrils crown'd
A cicatrized, swart visage; but, withal,
That questionable shape such glory wore
That mortals quail'd beneath him."
Two chiefs of the Franks, who were then settled on the Lower Rhine, were
at this period engaged in a feud with each other, and while one of them
appealed to the Romans for aid, the other invoked the assistance and
protection of the Huns. Attila thus obtained an ally whose cooeperation
secured for him the passage of the Rhine, and it was this circumstance
which caused him to take a northward route from Hungary for his attack
upon Gaul. The muster of the Hunnish hosts was swollen by warriors of
every tribe that they had subjugated; nor is there any reason to suspect
the old chroniclers of wilful exaggeration in estimating Attila's army
as seven hundred thousand strong. Having crossed the Rhine probably a
little below Coblentz, he defeated the king of the Burgundians, who
endeavored to bar his progress. He then divided his vast forces into two
armies, one of which marched northwest upon Tongres and Arras and the
other cities of that part of France, while the main body, under Attila
himself, advanced up the Moselle, and destroyed Besancon and other towns
in the country of the Burgundians.
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