He appears to have been even meditating flight from
Italy, and to have thought of persuading Valentinian to share his
exile. But counsels a shade less timorous prevailed. Some one suggested
that possibly even the Hun might be satiated with havoc, and that an
embassy might assist to mitigate the remainder of his resentment.
Accordingly ambassadors were sent in the once mighty name of "the
Emperor and the Senate and People of Rome" to crave for peace, and these
were the men who were now ushered into the camp of Attila.
The envoys had been well chosen to satisfy that punctilious pride which
insisted that only men of the highest dignity among the Romans should be
sent to treat with the lord of Scythia and Germany. Avienus, who had,
two years before, worn the robes of consul, was one of the ambassadors.
Trigetius, who had wielded the powers of a prefect, and who, seventeen
years before, had been despatched upon a similar mission to Genseric the
Vandal, was another. But it was not upon these men, but upon their
greater colleague, that the eyes of all the barbarian warriors and
statesmen were fixed.
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