“He has hundreds of thousands of savages at his command,” replied her father. “And Honoria, the Emperor’s sister, has sent him a betrothal ring, requesting him to come and marry her, to set her free from the tyranny of her imperial relations, and to accept as her dowry half the Empire. And Attila accepts the proposal, and promises to come with his hundreds of thousands of savages as a bridal train, to lay Italy waste on his way, and probably throw the plunder of Rome in as a bridal gift.”
“It is some farce Petronius Maximus got up for your amusement you are telling us of, not a fact!” said Damaris.
“The Emperor may think it all a farce,” said Fabricius, “but scarcely the General Aetius, the Count of Italy.”
“What is the General Aetius proposing to do?”
“To go back to Gaul, and keep Attila there if he can,” replied Fabricius, “and to play his old game of setting the barbarians against each other. But the barbarians seem to have learnt the game, and not to enjoy it, so that it becomes more and more difficult to win. It almost seems as if the Romans would have to learn to fight their own battles again themselves.”
“Father,” said Marius, “let me be one such Roman. Let me go to the provinces and fight these savages back! The Goths, they say, were civilized citizens compared with these Huns.”
“With whom would you go?” said Fabricius. “With your young friend Sidonius Apollinaris, his Platos and Homers, his classical Latin and his elegant villas?”
“No; with Aetius, to the battle-field, wherever that may be.”
“The battle-field is everywhere, perhaps at its hardest here at the heart of the corruption,” Fabricius said, laying his hand on the young man’s shoulder, yet with evident pride in his proposal. “Did we not see a portion of it as we came home to-night?”
“Where? What?” said Lucia.