At another interval of thirty-one
miles stood Altinum, with its white villas clustering round the curves
of its lagoons, and rivalling Baiae in its luxurious charms. Altinum was
effaced as Concordia and as Aquileia. Yet another march of thirty-two
miles brought the squalid invaders to Patavium, proud of its imagined
Trojan origin, and, with better reason, proud of having given birth to
Livy. Patavium, too, was levelled with the ground. True, it has not like
its sister towns remained in the nothingness to which Attila reduced it.
It is now
"Many-domed Padua proud,"
but all its great buildings date from the Middle Ages. Only a few broken
friezes and a few inscriptions in its museum exist as memorials of the
classical Patavium.
As the Huns marched on Vicenza, Verona, Brescia, Bergamo, all opened
their gates at their approach, for the terror which they inspired was on
every heart. In these towns, and in Milan and Pavia (Ticinum), which
followed their example, the Huns enjoyed doubtless to the full their
wild revel of lust and spoliation, but they left the buildings unharmed,
and they carried captive the inhabitants instead of murdering them.
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