The death of Attila
AD. 453
Before the kine of the Huns evacuated Italy, he threatened
to return more dreadful and more implacable, if his bride, the
princess Honoria, were not delivered to his ambassadors within
the term stipidated by the treaty. Yet, in the meanwhile, Attila
relieved his tender anxiety by adding a beautiful maid, whose
name was Ildico, to the list of his innumerable wives.[1] Their
marriage was celebrated with barbaric pomp and festivity at his
wooden palace beyond the Danube ; and the monarch, oppressed with wine and sleep, retired, at a late hour, from the
banquet to the nuptial bed. His attendants continued to re-
spect his pleasures, or his repose, the greatest part of the ensuing
day, till the unusual silence alarmed their fears and suspicions ;
and, after attempting to awaken Attila by loud and repeated cries,
they at length broke into the royal apartment. They found the
trembling bride sitting by the bedside, hiding her face with
her veil, and lamenting her own danger as well as the death of
the king, who had expired during the night.[2] An artery had
suddenly burst ; and, as Attila lay in a supine posture, he was
suffocated by a torrent of blood, which, instead of finding a
passage through the nostrils, regurgitated into the lungs and
stomach. His body was solemnly exposed in the midst of the
plain, under a silken pavilion ; and the chosen squadi'ons of the
Huns, wheeling round in measured evolutions, chanted a funeral
song to the memory of a hero, glorious in his life, invincible in
his death, the father of his people, the scourge of his enemies,
and the terrror of the world. According to their national cus-
tom, the Barbarians cut off a part of their hair, gashed their
faces with unseemly wounds, and bewailed their valiant leader
as he deserved, not with the tears of women, but with the blood
of warriors. The remains of Attila were enclosed within three
- ↑ Altila, ut Priscus historicus refert, extinctionis suk tempore puellam Ildico nomine, decoram valde, sibi [in] matrimonium post innumerabiles uxores . . . socians. Jornandes, c. 49, p. 683, 684. He afterwards adds (c. 50, p. 686): Filii Attilfe, quorum per licentiam libidinis poene populus fuit. — Polygamy has been established among the Tartars of every age. The rank of plebeian wives is regulated only by their personal charms; and the faded matron prepares, without a murmur, the bed which is destined for her blooming riv.il. But in royal families the daughters of Khans communicate to their sons a prior right of inheritance. See Genealogical History, p. 406, 407, 408.
- ↑ The report of her guilt reached Constantinople, where it obtained a very different name : and Marcellinus observes that the tyrant of Europe was slain in the night by the hand and the knife of a woman. Corneijle, who has adapted the genuine account to his tragedy, describes the irruption of blood in forty bombast lines, and Attila exclaims with ridiculous fury :
S'il ne veut s'arreter {his blood),
(Dit il) on me payera ce qui m'en va couter.
