Attila and the Huns

BY EDWARD HUTTON AUTHOR OF “RAVENNA”
LONDON CONSTABLE & COMPANY LTD. 1915
TO BELOVED ITALY WITH WHOM IN THIS HOUR OF RENEWED PERIL ONCE MORE WE FIGHT THE BARBARIANS A.D. 401-1915
“There is a race on Scythia’s verge extreme
Eastward beyond the Tauris’ chilly stream.
The Northern Bear looks on no uglier crew;
Bare is their garb, their bodies foul to view,
Their souls are ne’er subdued to sturdy toil
Or Ceres’ webs. Their sustenance is spoil.
With horrid wounds they gash their brutal brows
And o’er their murdered parents bind their vows....”
In these words, Claudian the poet of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, describes the Huns of the fifth century, the brood of Attila to whom the German Kaiser appealed before the whole world when he sent his brother to China to meet the Boxers:—