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BIOGRAPHY UNIVERSAL LIBRARY

ATTILA, KING OF THE HUNS, AND HIS PREDECESSORS

CHAPTER VI

Death of Theodosius

37. Rekan. Constantius.

In the meantime the ambassadors had received an invitation from Rekan the wife of Attila, to sup at the house of Adam the superintendant of her household and affairs;and having proceeded together with some of the principal Scythians, they were received with much courtesy, and fared sumptuously. Each of the guests paid them the singular compliment after the Hunnish fashion of standing up from the table and giving them a cup of wine, and, after they had drunk, embracing them and kissing them before he received back the cup. The supper was prolonged till it was time to retire to rest, and on the following day they were again invited to feast with Attila. The same forms were observed as on the former day, but instead of his elder son, Obarsius or Obars his uncle on the father’s side sat on his couch.

During the repast the monarch spoke kindly to them, desiring them to request the emperor to send a wife, as he had promised, for Constantius the secretary who had been given to him by Aetius. This Constantius, having previously accompanied the ambassadors whom Attila had sent to Theodosius, had promised that he would exert himself to make the peace durable, if the emperor would bestow a rich wife upon him, which was granted, and the daughter of Saturninus a rich and distinguished Greek, was promised to him. But Saturninus was afterwards assassinated by the empress Eudocia, and the emperor was prevented by Zeno, a man of consular dignity, from fulfilling his promise. This man had led a great force of Isaurians to the protection of Constantinople during the war, and, having then the command of all the forces in the East, he had withdrawn the damsel from the custody in which she had been placed, and had betrothed her to Rufus, one of his own dependants.

Constantius complained to the emperor of the insult and injustice done to him, and asked to have either the lady who had been thus abducted, or another bride of equal rank and opulence; on which account Attila enjoined to Maximin the care of the interests of his secretary, who undertook to give him a portion of the dowry, if he should succeed in obtaining one of the most wealthy Greek heiresses in marriage.

38. Berich accompanies the ambassadors on their return

Three days after, the ambassadors of Theodosius were dismissed with gifts, and with them Attila sent, on a mission to the emperor, Berich, who has been mentioned as having sat above them at the banquet. He was a member of the select council, and lord over many Scythian villages, and had been on some former occasion received by the Romans on an embassy.

During the journey, while they were tarrying in a certain village, a Scythian was taken, who had been sent as a spy by the Romans into the territory of Attila, who forthwith ordered him to be crucified. On the next day, as they were passing through another village, they saw two men who had formerly been taken prisoners in war, and were conducted with their hands tied behind them, having been guilty of murdering the masters to whom they had been allotted; and these were also crucified, their heads having been fixed to two beams furnished with hooks. 

At the passage of the Danube, Berich, who had until then been exceedingly familiar and friendly, became very hostile and exasperated in consequence of some futile differences between the servants. He showed the first mark of resentment by redemanding a horse which he had given to Maximin; for Attila had ordered all the members of the select council to offer gifts to Maximin, and a horse had been sent by every one of them; Maximin however, wishing to get credit for moderation, had accepted only a few and sent back the remainder. Not content with requiring back his gift, Berich would no longer keep company with them on the road or eat with them; but having passed through Philippopolis and reached Adrianople, they came to an explanation with him, and a seeming reconciliation having taken place, they invited him to supper. On their arrival however at Constantinople it appeared that he still nourished the same resentment, alleging as a cause some offensive depreciation of Areobindus and Aspar by Maximin, detracting from their achievements in war, on account of the insignificance of the barbarians to whom they had been opposed, which he looked upon as an insult to himself and his countrymen.

39. Return of Bigilas.

On the way they had met Bigilas returning from Constantinople, and had informed him of the result of their mission. When Bigilas reached the quarter where Attila was then sojourning, he was seized by persons who had received previous directions to that effect, and the money which he was bringing for Edécon was taken from him. Being brought before Attila, he was asked, for what purpose he had brought so much gold; to which he replied, that he had brought it to supply himself and his companions with horses and other necessaries on the road, and with a view to ransom several captives, by whose relations he had been strenuously entreated; but Attila addressing him said, “Nevertheless, O malignant wild beast, you shall not by your sophistry escape judgment, nor will any pretext be sufficient to screen you from the infliction of punishment, for the money which thou hast in store is infinitely greater than necessary for thy expenses, or the purchase of horses and beasts of burden, or even for the ransom of captives, all which moreover I forbad you when thou earnest with Maximin”. Having thus said, he ordered the son of Bigilas, who had been then for the first time brought to the Hunnish court, to be hewn down with the sword, unless he should forthwith declare unto whom and for what purpose he was bringing so much gold. But, when Bigilas beheld his son about to suffer death, he began to weep and lament, and cry out that justice demanded that he should be smitten with the sword, and not his son who was innocent of all offence; and without further delay he confessed all the things that had been devised between himself and Edécon, the eunuch Chrysaphius and the emperor, again imploring that he might be executed and not his son. Attila knowing from the previous report of Edécon that Bigilas had spoken the truth, directed him to be kept in chains, and threatened that he would not set him free, until his son should have been sent to Constantinople, and should have brought back other five hundred pieces of gold for their ransom. He therefore remained in custody, and his son was sent together with Orestes and Eslas to Constantinople.

40. His son sent to Constantinople.

The purse, in which the gold had been brought by Bigilas, was delivered to Edécon, and he was ordered by Attila to suspend it to his neck, and thus to enter the presence of the emperor, and having shown it to ask Chrysaphius whether he recognized it. Eslas was ordered to state that Theodosius was indeed the son of a noble father, and that Attila was also of noble birth, and had well sustained the nobility inherited from his father Mundiuc, but that Theodosius had fallen from his dignified station by submitting to pay tribute to him, and was become his slave; and that he therefore acted ill in devising secret snares like a wicked domestic against his superior, whom fortune had given him for his master. That Attila would not forgive the offence committed by him, unless the eunuch Chrysaphius were delivered up to undergo condign punishment. The storm, which was soon to burst on Chrysaphius, threatened him from more than one quarter; on the one side Attila demanded his life, on the other Zeno, incensed against the minister on account of the act of his master, who had confiscated to the public treasury the property of the daughter of Saturninus, whom Zeno had married to his dependant Theodosius had ordered the confiscation, being stung by the report of Maximin, who had stated that Attila had said that the emperor ought to fulfill his promise and give the lady to Constantius, for that no one amongst his subjects could have power to betroth her in contravention of his authority and engagements; that if the man who had dared to do so had not already suffered punishment for his temerity, the emperor was a slave to his own servants, and that he would willingly afford him assistance to emancipate him from their dominion.

41. Mission of Nomus and Anatolius.

The party of Chrysaphius, however, being prevalent at the court of Theodosius, it was determined to dispatch to Attila Anatolius master of the royal guard, who had proposed the terms of peace which had been concluded with the Huns, and Nomus having the title of master of the forces; both numbered amongst the patricians who had precedence over regular military rank. Nomus was sent with Anatolius, because he was very friendly to Chrysaphius, and Attila well disposed to receive him, and because he was also a man of great wealth, and was never sparing of money, when he had any object to accomplish. They were directed to use every endeavor to mollify Attila, and persuade him to adhere to the treaty which had been concluded; and to promise Constantius a wife in every respect as desirable as the lady of whom he had been disappointed; assuring him that the daughter of Saturninus had been averse to the alliance proposed, and was lawfully wedded to another; and that the Roman law did not authorize the betrothment of a woman to any man without her own consent.

Chrysaphius sent a present of gold to pacify the offended monarch. The mission of Theodosius having crossed the Danube proceeded through the territory of the Huns as far as the Drencon or Drecon; for Attila, through respect for Anatolius and Nomus whom he esteemed, advanced towards them and met them on the banks of that river, to save them a further journey. At first he spoke to them in the most over­bearing tone, but at length their gifts and conciliatory language prevailed over his irritated temper, and he consented to keep the peace, and gave up to the Romans all the land he claimed to the south of the Danube, and waived his demands for the restoration of fugitives, on condition that the Romans should pledge themselves to receive none in future. He also set free Bigilas, having received the 500 pounds of gold which his son had brought with the embassy; and he further, to show his kindness towards Nomus and Anatolius, liberated several captives without any ransom; and he dismissed the ambassadors with presents of horses and skins of wild beasts, such as were usually worn for ornament by the Scythian kings.

Constantius was directed to proceed with them on their return to Constantinople, that he might obtain without further delay, the rich heiress promised to him by the emperor; nor was the secretary unsuccessful in this expedition, but consummated his nuptials with the widow of Armatius, the son of Plinthas, who had been a Roman general and consul. The lady was both rich and noble, and espoused Constantius at the request of the emperor. It is impossible to contemplate these transactions, of which Priscus, who was engaged in them, has left such minute particulars, without blushing at the perfidious villainy of the Chris­tian court, and admiring the noble magnanimity and moderation of the pagan on this occasion; but it was perhaps the policy of Attila to represent his own life to be so protected by the great destinies for which he pretended to have been foredoomed, that such attempts against it were very unimportant and certain of ending in discomfiture; and it might be more for his interest to treat them with scorn, than to attract attention to them by a public execution.

In the whole career of his life he was disposed to clemency when it did not militate against the success of his undertakings, but inexorable and remorseless where it was his interest to disarm opposition by the terror of his exterminating vengeance. The indiscriminate slaughter of the inhabitants of a town captured after an obstinate defence, might deter another from resisting, but he must have been aware that those, who had entered into a direct conspiracy against his life, must have done so with the certain expectation of crucifixion if they should foil; and that the punishment, if inflicted, would add nothing to the motives which necessarily existed to deter men from engaging in so desperate an undertaking; and that treating it lightly, as a vain and impracticable scheme which it was not worth his while to punish, might be the best mode of deterring the superstitious from attempting it. It is most remarkable that his personal respect and deference for Nomus and Anatolius should have won from him in the plenitude of his strength and at the very moment when he must have been most irritated by the treacherous and disgusting designs of Theodosius, concessions which would in vain have been sought for by an appeal to arms.

42. Mission of Apollonius.

The empire, however, though relieved from the immediate fear of Attila, was threatened with internal dissensions, and Zeno became a formidable rival to his master. The sword of Attila, though sheathed, was ever ready for fresh contests, and he appears to have been in the following year (AD 450) excited to new threats of invasion, in consequence of the non-payment of the stipulated tribute by the emperor. 

Apollonius, brother to Rufus then defunct, to whom Zeno had given the daughter of Saturninus, friendly to Zeno upon that account, and bearing the rank of general, was despatched to pacify Attila; but, having crossed the Danube, he was denied access to him: for Attila was enraged at the retention of the tribute, which he said had been arranged and agreed upon by men better and more worthy to reign than Theodosius, and he therefore rejected the ambassador, to show his contempt for the emperor; but, although he refused to admit his messenger, or to enter into any negotiation, he nevertheless ordered the gifts of Theodosius to be sent to him, and threatened Apollonius with death if he should deny them. The ambassador however showed a spirit worthy of the ancient fortunes of Rome, and replied, that it did not become the Scythians to ask for what they must take either as gifts, or by plunder; signifying that he was ready to give them if his embassy was received, but that the Huns must take them as booty if they thought fit to assassinate him. Attila, however, though he frequently indulged in such threats, appears in fact to have always respected the immunity conferred on ambassadors by the common consent of nations; and the high-minded Roman was dismissed without having been admitted into his presence.

43. Death of Theodosius. Marcian. Honoria.

Theodosius did not live to feel the effects of the anger of Attila, from whom it is probable that he withheld the promised tribute in consequence of the exhausted state of his finances, rather than a determination to brave his animosity. A fall from his horse terminated the life of this inglorious and degraded emperor. His sister Pulcheria, was proclaimed empress without opposition, although there had been no previous instance of a female succeeding to the throne; and the first act of her reign was the execution of Chrysaphius without a legal trial, before the gates of Constantinople. Fearful however of swaying the scepter of the East without the support of a stronger arm at so critical a period, she immediately espoused the senator Marcian, a Thracian about sixty years of age, who had served with credit under Aspar and Ardaburius; but, though she invested him by this political union with the imperial purple, she compelled him in wedlock to respect the religious vow which she had made of perpetual virginity.

As soon as Attila heard of the accession of Marcian to the throne, he sent to demand the stipulated tribute, but Marcian adopted a higher tone than his predecessor, and replied that he did not hold himself bound by the humiliating concessions of Theodosius; that he would send presents to him, if he kept the peace, but, if he threatened war, he would oppose to him arms and men by no means inferior to his own forces.

At this period the intrigue of Honoria with Attila had been discovered, and had brought down upon her the indignation and vengeance of either empire. The extract, which is extant from the history of Priscus, relating to this subject, refers to a previous relation of the circumstances which had taken place, but, that being lost, their particulars can only be imperfectly collected or surmised from subsequent allusions. At the voluptuous court of Ravenna, that princess celebrated for her beauty and her incontinence, while she continued still under the guardianship of Placidia her mother and her brother Valentinian, in the very spring of her youth, sixteen years before this period, had been found pregnant by her chamberlain Eugenius, and had been disgracefully sent from thence to Constantinople, to be immured in the secluded chambers of Pulcheria the sister of Theodosius, who had made a vow of singleness, and dwelt in a sworn society of holy virgins. Weary of the monotonous and hopeless mode of life in which her youth was thus passing away, under the tutelage of her harsh and sanctified relation, she had probably at a much earlier period, made a tender to Attila of her hand and pretensions to the throne of Rome, and that offer, to which on his first accession to the throne, he had paid little attention, had been renewed a little before this period, when his matured designs against the empire rendered such an alliance important, as a ground whereon to rest his claims.

The message was carried to Attila by an eunuch despatched by the princess secretly from Constantinople with a letter and a ring, which he was instructed to deliver, but the exact date of the occurrence is not recorded. At the moment of the accession of Marcian to the throne, the correspondence of Honoria with the Hun was by some accident brought to light. The unfortunate and guilty princess was regarded with abhorrence by the Christians, and previously to her being sent back to Italy and placed in strict confinement at Ravenna, she was compelled to give her hand in marriage to some person who was selected for that purpose, in order to render her union with Attila unlawful and impracticable. The records are lost which would have informed us who and what the bridegroom was, but it is pretty evident that the ceremony only was performed, and that the marriage was not consummated; and as it was certainly not intended that she should ever avail herself of the privileges of a married woman, the husband selected for her was probably an obscure and perhaps a blind old man, for the extinction of the eyes was the usual mode of disqualifying a man to wear the imperial purple of Constantinople.

 In the passage of Priscus which is preserved, and which evidently refers to a detailed account of the transactions, he says that when the things which had been done concerning her were reported to Attila, he immediately sent ambassadors to Valentinian emperor of the West, to assert that Honoria had been guilty of no unbecoming conduct, inasmuch as he had entered into an engagement to marry her, and that he would take up arms in her cause, unless she were admitted to hold the scepter of the empire. The Romans answered that it was not possible for him to espouse Honoria, who had been given to another man, and that she had no right to the throne, for the Roman dynasty consisted of a succession of males, and not of females: an answer which singularly contrasts with the contemporaneous and undisputed elevation of Pulcheria to the sister throne of Byzantium, occasioned perhaps by some intrigues for the downfall of Chrysaphius.

The rejection of the demands of Attila by Marcian had been softened by presents, and probably the refusal of Honoria’s hand was accompanied by like appeasement. According to the Alexandrine or Paschal chronicle, and to John of Antioch, surnamed Malellas, Attila sent to either emperor a Gothic messenger, saying, “My lord and yours commands you through me to make ready your palace for his reception”. Malellas mentions Theodosius, who was dead at this time; but the account is probably referable to the simultaneous summons which he sent to Constantinople and Rome immediately after the death of that emperor.

44. Views of Attila on Gaul—Court in Thuringia.

The views of Attila extended to the subjugation of the Medes and Persians, the Eastern and Western empires, and the Gothic and Franc kingdoms in France and Spain, which would have left him without a rival between the boundaries of China, or at least of the Tartars, and the Atlantic ocean : but he was awhile doubtful against which of those powers he should first turn his arms. Genseric the formidable king of the Vandals, who had wrested from Rome her African possessions, excited him to attack Theodoric king of the Visigoths, whose capital was Tolosa, the modern Toulouse. The daughter of Theodoric had been married to Hunneric the son of the Vandal monarch, who was so savage in his disposition, and inhuman even towards his own offspring, that on a bare suspicion that she had mixed poison for him, he cut off her nostrils and sent her back mutilated to her father. Fearing therefore the vengeance of Theodoric, he exerted himself by negotiation and ample presents to draw upon his antagonist the overwhelming armies of the Hun. The subsidy offered by Genseric probably determined Attila to commence his operations by the subjugation of Gaul, where he would have to attack the Francs of Meroveus, the Alans under Sangiban, the Gallic empire of Theodoric extending from his capital Tolosa into Spain, and the Roman province which was defended by the flower of the Roman army under the celebrated Aetius. The pretext for this invasion was the restitution of Alberon, the son and rightful heir of Clodion lately deceased, to the throne of his father in the north of France, from whence he had been expelled by the arts of the bastard Meroveus. Previous to his undertaking this memorable expedition, Attila held a plenar court or comitia in Thuringia at Erfurt, (for Eisenach, which has been named as the place where they were held, is perhaps a town of later origin) probably for the especial purpose of hearing the plaint of Basina the widow of Clodion, who had fled with her sons to the court of her brother Basinus in Thuringia.

45. Eudoxius. Bagauds. Meroveus. Alberon.

Eudoxius, a physician, had been drawn into a faction of rebels in Gaul, who, being pushed to extremities by the extortions of the nobles and clergy, had first revolted in the reign of Diocletian under the denomination of Bagauds, and had since made head under the guidance of Tibato against the Roman authority. They were everywhere defeated and severely handled, and Eudoxius was the only man of importance amongst the movers of that sedition who escaped, and he took refuge at the Hunnish court. He is described as a bad, but able, man; and from him it is supposed that Attila received much information concerning the actual state of Gaul, and encouragement to attempt its invasion. It is observable, that the organization of the faction called Bagauds seems to have been the only popular attempt to vindicate civil rights under the domination of the Western emperors.

Meroveus, against whom the arms of Attila were now directed, was the illegitimate son of Clodion, and his master of the horse. The dynasty of the Marcomirians ended with Clodion the son of Pharamond and grandson of Marcomir; and Meroveus, a traitor, an usurper, and alien to the blood royal, being illegitimate, founded a new dynasty. Fredegarius, writing in 641, says that the mother of Meroveus was bathing on the coast and was attacked by a sea-monster, who became the father of Meroveus. This fable has evident relation to his illegitimacy. The writer who there cites Fredegarius from Gregory of Tours considers the Marobudos or Maroboduus who lived in the time of Augustus and Tiberius to have been an earlier Meroveus, the former name being the Augustan, the latter the recent Gallo-Latin version of the Teutonic name Maerwu or Merwu. He also shows that the Merovingian kings called themselves by that title, (which makes it appear that they affected to be a new dynasty, and not inheritors from Clodion) by authorities dating AD 641 as above, AD 645 and 720, the last being thirty years before the restoration of the rightful heirs by the elevation of Pepin.

Mezeray states that Clodion left three sons (the eldest having died) Alberon, Regnault, and Rangcaire, who were too young to reign, and therefore the states elected Meroveus his bastard son. He boasts of his exploits in the Catalaunian victory, of which he attributes the principal honor to him, but entirely suppresses the cause of that war, which was to re-establish the rightful king whom he had expelled: and he adds incorrectly that, when firmly fixed in Gaul, he went to succor the sons of Clodion and establish them in Hainault, Brabant, and Namur; saying that on his return from that expedition he died in the tenth year of his reign in 458.

The historian Priscus, who was at the court of Attila on an embassy in 448, when Clodion was alive or on the point of death, never saw Alberon the rightful heir, who had not at that time had recourse to the Huns. At some antecedent period not ascertained, he had however seen Meroveus on an embassy at Rome, a beardless youth with long yellow hair falling over his shoulders, and he says that Aetius, having adopted him as his son and loaded him with gifts, despatched him to the emperor to acquire his friendship and enjoy his society in martial exercises. There is some obscurity however in the passage, for the word presbenúmenos, acting the part of a legate, must apply to a mission from the Francs, and could not refer to his visit at the court of Valentinian under the recommendation of the Roman general Aetius.

 It seems that Priscus meant that Meroveus was at Rome as an ambassador when he saw him, and was at some subsequent period sent by Aetius to carouse with Valentinian, probably at Ravenna. 

Looking to the subtle character and constant double dealing of Aetius, it can scarcely be doubted, that when he adopted Meroveus and sent him to Valentinian, he had intended to sow future dissensions in the family of Clodion, and to make use of Meroveus for the furtherance of his own schemes, whether against the inheritance of the Franc king or against the throne of Valentinian, or, as is most probable, against both: and, in directing him to be pre­sented to the emperor as the son of Clodion, with a view to the acquisition of his society and friendship, it is not likely that either Aetius or Meroveus should have put forward his illegitimacy; nor was it probable that Priscus, a Greek sophist of Constantinople, accidentally seeing this beardless young Franc at Rome, should have been informed at the time of his spurious birth. When Meroveus seized the throne and expelled Alberon who fled to the Huns, it was a matter of notoriety to all Europe that Alberon was the rightful heir and eldest son of Clodion, and if Priscus was not aware of the illegitimacy of Meroveus, he must have concluded that he was younger than him to whom the inheritance appertained. His silence as to the name of the banished king is proof that he had not very ample information concerning the transaction, and perhaps only knew the little which he states; and, living at Constantinople far from the scene of action, he may have fallen very naturally into an error on the point of seniority. If Meroveus had succeeded to the throne of his lawful father, though to the prejudice of an elder brother, his accession would not have been that of a new dynasty, and, instead of being called Merovingian kings, he and his descendants would from the first have been named after Pharamond the sire or Marcomir the grandsire of Clodion.

The brief expression therefore of Priscus, that the elder son of Clodion sought the assistance of the Huns, the younger that of Aetius, is insufficient to outweigh the far greater probability of the fact as related by other writers, that Meroveus was in fact the oldest, though not the legitimate, son of Clodion. The lineal genealogy runs thus:— 1. Marcomir.—2. Pharamond.—3. Clodion who died 448.—4. Alberon, d.491.—5. Wambert, d. 529—6. Ambert, d. 570. (collateral Wambert 2.)—7. Arnold, d. 601.—8. St. Arnulf, d. 641.—9. Ansegisus, d. 685.— 10. Pepin, d. 714.—11. Charles Martell, d. 741.—12. Pepin, d. 768.—13. Charlemagne, and so on, till the occupation of the throne by Hugh Capet in 987, when the Marcomirian line became extinct.

 John Bertels abbot of Epternach collected all the traditions and chronicles he could find in the convents of Luxemberg and Ardennes. He states that Clodion Capillatus married Basina daughter of Widelph duke of the Thuringians, probably sister to Basinus who was duke when Attila was in Thuringia. She bore him four sons, Phrison, Alberon or Auberon, Reginald, and Rauchas. Phrison died very young of an arrow-shot, and the grief of that loss hastened the death of his father. Clodion by his will appointed his bastard son Meroveus, who was his master of the horse, to be regent and guardian of his sons.

For some years he acted with fidelity, but when the Roman arms were pressing on the Francs, he tendered his resignation, declining the responsibility of administering the affairs of another person in such a crisis, and knowing that his authority and skill were necessary at the moment. The result was conformable to his expectations. The Francs proclaimed him king, and he took the crown, whereupon queen Basina sent her three sons for safety to Thuringia. Some years afterwards Alberon took counsel how he should recover his rights and destroy Meroveus and his progeny; Meroveus at the same time meditating the like against him and his kindred.

With these views Alberon married Argotta daughter of Theodemir king of the Goths, formed a strict alliance with the Goths, Vandals, Bohems, and Ostrogoths, and by their aid recovered possession of Arduenna, Lower Alsatia, Brabantia, Cameracum, and Turnacum, and obtained the title of Rex Cameracensis. His chief residence however was in the Nemus Carbonarium, a part of the forest of Ardennes, where he sacrificed to idols and fortified Mons Hannoniae (Mons in Hainault), as an asylum against the malice of Meroveus. Argotta bore him Wambert, who married a daughter of the emperor Zeno. 

A lieutenant under Clovis conquered Brabant and Flanders about the year 492, and took king Alberon and his two brothers prisoners, whom the French king barbarously slew with his own hand, as soon as they were brought into his presence. He afterwards affected remorse, and endeavored to allure Wambert into his power, in order to cut off the last remnant of Clodion’s legitimate heirs. Wambert was however too wary, and placed his sons Wambert and Anselbert (or Ambert), under the safeguard of Theodoric king of Italy and the emperor Zeno who made them senators of the Eastern empire.

About AD 520 Wambert recovered Ardennes and Hainault, to which possessions the senator Wambert the second succeeded on his death in 528, by favor of Childebert king of Paris, who also gave Anselbert the marquisate of Moselle and Scheld, of which the seat of government was on the latter river. The senator Wambert, who espoused St. Clotilda daughter of Almeric king of Italy, was succeeded by a third Wambert his son.

Such is the statement of Bertels. The only inaccuracy, which appears on the face of it, is that the events, which took place between the death of Clodion in 448, and the flight of Alberon to the Huns previous to Attila’s invasion of Gaul in 451, a space of only three years, appear to be extended over a longer, though indefinite, period. With this limitation, that Meroveus could not have continued faithful above two years, and that Alberon immediately sought assistance to recover his rights, there is no reason to doubt that the account of Bertels is substantially correct. He was unacquainted with the writings of Priscus, and appears to have known nothing about Attila and his Huns; yet, except what relates to the inferior age of Meroveus, he affords collateral evidence from quite different sources, which is confirmed by the account of the Greek sophist; for it is evident that the Goths, with whom Bertels states Alberon to have made alliance, were the great confederacy of nations headed by Attila and brought by him on the occasion of the disputed succession of Clodion into the celebrated field of Chalons.

The Thuringian writers of the middle ages make mention of the movements of Attila, and state that he was in Thuringia and at Eisenach. The Danish writer, professor Suhm, referring to the Thuringian authors, states his disbelief of the existence of Eisenach in the days of Attila, and thinks that Erfurt, anciently called Bicurgium, was the place intended. Sidonius Apollinaris mentions Toringus (the Thuringian) amongst the people who invaded Belgium under the command of Attila. German histories unknown to Bertelius and only seen in MS. by Lazius, affirm that Attila held a diet of his kings and dukes in Thuringia before he set out to invade Gaul. Putting these concurrent accounts together, it seems that Attila held a diet in Thuringia, where he heard the plaint of queen Basina and her sons, and proceeded to act thereupon. Henning in his Universal Genealogy gives the following statement: Clodio crinitus had, by …, Meroveus, who married Verica daughter of Guntraum king of Sweden, and died AD 458, and by Basina daughter of Widelph king of Thuringia Albero or Alberic from whom the Carolingians are descended, Rauches or Roches lord of Cambray, and Reginald king of the Eburi who married Wamberga daughter of Alaric the first king of the Visigoths in Spain. Albero warred under Attila, hoping to recover the scepter of his father, of which his brother Meroveus had taken forcible possession. Being defeated he retreated to his own people, (meaning his Belgic or Cameracan subjects) being careful not to fall into the hands of Meroveus, and died about 491.

CHAPTER VII

Battle of Châlons