432 THE DECLINE AND FALL youth, the skill and reputation of the leaders whom they had chosen, and their darinjj exploits atrainst the innumerable host of the Barbarians. Instead of tamely expecting their approach, the Azimuntines attacked, in frequent and successful sallies, the troops of the Huns, who gradually declined the dangerous neighbourhood ; rescued from their hands the spoil and the captives ; and recruited their domestic force by the voluntary association of fugitives and deserters. After the conclusion of the treaty, Attila still menaced the empire with implacable war, unless the Azimuntines were persuaded, or compelled, to comply with the conditions which their sovereign had accepted. The ministers of Theodosius confessed with shame, and with truth, that they no longer possessed any authority over a society of men, who so bravely asserted their natural independence ; and the king of the Huns condescended to negotiate an equal ex- change with the citizens of Azimus. They demanded the restitution of some shepherds, who, with their cattle, had been accidently surprised. A strict, though fruitless, inquiry was allowed ; but the Huns were obliged to swear that they did not detain any prisoners belonging to the city, before they could recover two surviving countr'men, whom the Azimuntines had reserved as pledges for the safety of their lost companions. Attila, on his side, was satisfied, and deceived, by their solemn asseveration that the rest of the captives had been put to the sword ; and that it v^as their constant practice immediately to dismiss the Romans and the deserters, who had obtained the security of the public faith. This prudent and officious dissimu- lation may be condemned or excused by the casuists, as they incline to the rigid decree of St. Augustin or to the milder sentiment of St. Jerom and St. Chrysostom : but every soldier, every statesman, must acknowledge that, if the race of the Azi- muntines had been encouraged and multiplied, the Barbarians would have ceased to trample on the majesty of the empire. ^^ Paris) there is one of the name of Esimontou, whose position is doubtfully marked in the neighbourhood of Anchialus and the Euxine Sea. The name and walls of Azimuntium might subsist till the reign of Justinian, but the race of its brave defenders had been carefully extirpated by the jealousy of the Roman princes. [But the town appears again in the reign of Maurice ; and there — c. xlvi. foot- note 36 — Gibbon corrects his statement here.j 38 The peevish dispute of St. Jerom and St. Augustin, who laboured, by different expedients, to reconcile the seeming quarrel of the two apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, depends on the solution of an important question (Middleton's Works, vol. ii. p. 5-10) which has been frequently agitated by Catholic and Protestant divines, and even by lawyers and philosophers of every age.
