The barbarian yielded to his spell as
he had yielded to that of Lupus of Troyes, and, according to a
tradition, which, it must be admitted, is not very well authenticated,
he jocularly excused his unaccustomed gentleness by saying that "he knew
how to conquer men, but the lion and the wolf (Leo and Lupus) had
learned how to conquer him."
The tradition which asserts that the republic of Venice and its neighbor
cities in the lagoons were peopled by fugitives from the Hunnish
invasion of 452, is so constant and in itself so probable that we seem
bound to accept it as substantially true, though contemporary or nearly
contemporary evidence to the fact is utterly wanting.
The thought of "the glorious city in the sea" so dazzles our
imaginations when we turn our thoughts toward Venice that we must take a
little pains to free ourselves from the spell and reproduce the aspect
of the desolate islands and far-stretching wastes of sand and sea to
which the fear of Attila drove the delicately nurtured Roman provincials
for a habitation.
If we examine on the map the well-known and deep recess of the Adriatic
Sea, we shall at once be struck by one marked difference between its
eastern and its northern shores.
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