462 THE DECLINE AND FALL allies continually pressed, and sometimes engaged the troops whom Attila had posted in the rear ; the hostile columns, in the darkness of the night, and the perplexity of the roads, might encounter each other without design ; and the bloody conflict of the Franks and Gepid*, in which fifteen thousand ^^ Barbarians were slain, was a prelude to a more general and deci- sive action. The Catalaunian fields ^- spread themselves round Chalons, and extend, according to the vague measurement of Jornandes, to the length of one hundred and fifty, and the breadth of one hundred, miles, over the whole province, which is intitled to the appellation of a champaig)i country. '♦^ This spacious plain was distinguished, however, by some inequalities of ground ; and the importance of an height, which commanded the camp of Attila, was understood, and disputed, by the two generals. The young and valiant Torismond first occupied the summit ; the Goths rushed with iiTesistible weight on the Huns, Avho laboured to ascend from the opposite side ; and the posses- sion of this advantageous post inspired both the troops and their leaders with a fair assurance of victory. The anxiety of Attila prompted him to consult his priests and haruspices. It was reported that, after scrutinizing the entrails of victims and scraping their bones, they revealed, in mysterious language, his own defeat, with the death of his principal adversary ; and that the Barbarian, by accepting the equivalent, expressed his in- voluntary esteem for the superior merit of Aetius. But the un- usual despondency, which seemed to prevail among the Huns, engaged Attila to use the expedient, so familiar to the generals of antiquity, of animating his troops by a military oration ; and his language was that of a king who had often fought and conquered at their head.** He pressed them to consider their 41 The common editions read XCM.; but there is some authority of manuscripts (and almost any authority is sufficient) for the more reasonable number of xvm. ••2 Chalons or Duro-Catalaunum, afterwards Catalauni, had formerly made a part of the territory of Rheims, from whence it is distant only twenty-seven miles. See Vales. Notit. Gall. p. 136. D'Anville, Notice de I'Ancienne Gaule, p. 212, 279. [See Appendix 28. J ^ The name of Campania, or Champagne, is frequently mentioned by Gregory of Tours ; and that great province, of which Rheims was the capital, obeyed the command of a duke. Vales. Notit. p. 120-123.
- I am sensible that these military orations are usually composed by the histo-
rian ; yet the old Ostrogoths, who had served under Attila, might repeat his dis- course to Cassiodorius : the ideas, and even the expressions, have an original Scythian cast ; and I doubt whether an Italian of the sixth century would have thought of the hujus certaminis^a«</?a.
