HISTORY OF ROMAN-3Chapter XXXV: Invasion By Attila.Part I. Invasion Of Gaul By Attila. - He Is Repulsed By Aetius AndThe Visigoths. - Attila Invades And Evacuates Italy. - The DeathsOf Attila, Aetius, And Valentinian The Third. It was the opinion of Marcian, that war should be avoided,as long as it is possible to preserve a secure and honorablepeace; but it was likewise his opinion, that peace cannot behonorable or secure, if the sovereign betrays a pusillanimousaversion to war. This temperate courage dictated his reply tothe demands of Attila, who insolently pressed the payment of theannual tribute. The emperor signified to the Barbarians, thatthey must no longer insult the majesty of Rome by the mention ofa tribute; that he was disposed to reward, with becomingliberality, the faithful friendship of his allies; but that, ifthey presumed to violate the public peace, they should feel thathe possessed troops, and arms, and resolution, to repel theirattacks. The same language, even in the camp of the Huns, wasused by his ambassador Apollonius, whose bold refusal to deliverthe presents, till he had been admitted to a personal interview,displayed a sense of dignity, and a contempt of danger, whichAttila was not prepared to expect from the degenerate Romans. 1He threatened to chastise the rash successor of Theodosius; buthe hesitated whether he should first direct his invincible armsagainst the Eastern or the Western empire. While mankind awaitedhis decision with awful suspense, he sent an equal defiance tothe courts of Ravenna and Constantinople; and his ministerssaluted the two emperors with the same haughty declaration.Attila, my lord, and thy lord, commands thee to provide a palacefor his immediate reception. 2 But as the Barbarian despised,or affected to despise, the Romans of the East, whom he had sooften vanquished, he soon declared his resolution of suspendingthe easy conquest, till he had achieved a more glorious andimportant enterprise. In the memorable invasions of Gaul andItaly, the Huns were naturally attracted by the wealth andfertility of those provinces; but the particular motives andprovocations of Attila can only be explained by the state of theWestern empire under the reign of Valentinian, or, to speak morecorrectly, under the administration of Aetius. 3Footnote 1: See Priscus, p. 39, 72.Footnote 2: The Alexandrian or Paschal Chronicle, whichintroduces this haughty message, during the lifetime ofTheodosius, may have anticipated the date; but the dull annalistwas incapable of inventing the original and genuine style ofAttila.Footnote 3: The second book of the Histoire Critique delEtablissement de la Monarchie Francoise tom. i. p. 189 - 424,throws great light on the state of Gaul, when it was invaded byAttila; but the ingenious author, the Abbe Dubos, too oftenbewilders himself in system and conjecture. After the death of his rival Boniface, Aetius had prudentlyretired to the tents of the Huns; and he was indebted to theiralliance for his safety and his restoration. Instead of thesuppliant language of a guilty exile, he solicited his pardon atthe head of sixty thousand Barbarians; and the empress Placidiaconfessed, by a feeble resistance, that the condescension, whichmight have been ascribed to clemency, was the effect of weaknessor fear. She delivered herself, her son Valentinian, and theWestern empire, into the hands of an insolent subject; nor couldPlacidia protect the son- in-law of Boniface, the virtuous andfaithful Sebastian, 4 from the implacable persecution whichurged him from one kingdom to another, till he miserably perishedin the service of the Vandals. The fortunate Aetius, who wasimmediately promoted to the rank of patrician, and thriceinvested with the honors of the consulship, assumed, with thetitle of master of the cavalry and infantry, the whole militarypower of the state; and he is sometimes styled, by contemporarywriters, the duke, or general, of the Romans of the West. Hisprudence, rather than his virtue, engaged him to leave thegrandson of Theodosius in the possession of the purple; andValentinian was permitted to enjoy the peace and luxury of Italy,while the patrician appeared in the glorious light of a hero anda patriot, who supported near twenty years the ruins of theWestern empire. The Gothic historian ingenuously confesses, thatAetius was born for the salvation of the Roman republic; 5 andthe following portrait, though it is drawn in the fairest colors,must be allowed to contain a much larger proportion of truth thanof flattery. * His mother was a wealthy and noble Italian, andhis father Gaudentius