“We are holding our own,” he wrote; “the walls still stand unshattered, the heart of the enemy, they say, is failing, the besiegers seem to slacken at their work. Glorious it will be if this great host is driven back, baffled by one faithful stronghold. Despair not for us; hope and pray!”
But they had scarcely read these words of courage and hope, when another message brought the fatal tidings that Aquileia, the impregnable, had fallen, was being razed to the ground and burnt to ashes, and, with the terrible Hunnish genius of destruction, smitten to the dust never to rise any more.
A flight of storks had done it; a flock of harmless, innocent birds had accomplished the ruin of Aquileia.
Just as the assailants were wearying of their work, and murmurs of retreat were spreading in the camp, and Attila himself was pacing round the unbroken walls, moodily meditating whether to go or stay, the flapping of wings and the cry of birds arrested his attention. He looked up, and saw the white storks which had built their nests on the roofs of the city soaring high in the air, and alluring their callow young to follow them, evidently with the intention of abandoning the beleaguered city, and, contrary to their usual habits, betaking themselves to the open country. He caught at the augury. “Look there!” he cried to the dispirited soldiers; “see those birds, whose instinct tells them of the future; they are leaving the city which they foresee is to perish, the fortress which they know will fall.”
The courage of the Huns revived at his words. Once more they pushed their engines up to the walls, and plied their slings and catapults; and the walls yielded; and Aquileia, the impregnable, the city of the north wind, fell, as was the fate of cities that sank beneath the Huns, never to rise again.
There was need indeed now of Leo’s strong words in the sorrowful little family on the Aventine. The fellowship of the Passion was theirs; the cup of the martyrs was held to their lips. But it was Christ, the ever-living, the ever-loving, the all-conquering, not himself, that Leo had set before them; and He, “the Ransom from death, and the Cup of Life” (pretium et poculum), would not fail His Christians. All else in the world—emperors, armies, generals, statesmen—were failing Rome. Would Leo himself fail?
Leo did not fail!
The people of Rome had done well in electing him during his absence, and waiting the forty days for his return. Every one else among their rulers failed them, but not Leo.
The feeble Valentinian was present in the city; he had fled to Rome, it was said, as a safer refuge, for the moment, than his Imperial Ravenna, enclosed in her marshes. The port of Ravenna on the Adriatic was too near the fallen city of Aquileia, so long the queen of the Adriatic; too near the hordes of the Huns. Aetius, the great general, the Count of Italy, seemed to fail them. The foremost place which he obtained for himself by basely betraying his great rival Boniface, Count of Africa, had proved no post of ease or real power to him. The feeble Emperor himself had become his rival, using him (as was afterwards terribly proved) not a moment longer than the hour of danger lasted. Boniface was dead; Africa, through his treachery, was lost to the Empire, to civilization, and, as it was proved afterwards, to Christianity; and Italy lay bare to the foe. He himself had become the dread and detestation of the weak and wicked court, and now it seemed as if a palsy had fallen on his own strong will and clear intellect; it was rumoured that Aetius was counselling the Emperor that they should take flight together and abandon Rome to her fate.
Only Leo was left. But Leo stood firm, a rock of strength because he stood on the Rock. Still his protecting presence and his words of power were there—“Christ Himself has not abandoned the care of His beloved flock.”