THE BARBARIAN INVASIONS 85 be left waste to the south of the Danube. In 450 the new emperor at Constantinople, Marcian, refused to pay the tribute, but the next year Attila, instead of making war upon Marcian, began his first onslaught upon the Western Empire and led a huge host westward into Gaul. Aetius now had to fight against the Huns instead of having them as his soldiers, but he was joined by Theodoric, King of the West Goths, against whom he had often contended in the past. Orleans, situated on the northernmost bend of the Loire, is a strategic point whose possessor can enter almost any section of Gaul or France. Theodoric and Aetius, coming from southwest and southeast, reached it before the Huns, who advanced from Metz which they had just sacked. Attila withdrew eastward again and a few miles from Troyes was fought the great battle of the Catalaunian Fields, sometimes called Chalons. It was indecisive, but at least a limit had been set to Attila' s hitherto unbroken series of victories. Moreover, he continued to retreat, and the following year (452) he decided to invade Italy where there were no Goths to oppose him. He ravaged the north, sack- ing such cities as Pavia and Milan, but then was met by an embassy of three persons from the emperor and senate at Rome, and soon afterwards withdrew northward once more. One of the ambassadors was Pope Leo I. The next year Attila died and his empire went rapidly to pieces. Sensational events followed one another fast at this time. In 454, Valentinian III, with his own sword, killed Aetius, much as his father, Honorius, had ordered the End of the death of Stilicho in his day. In 455, Valentinian Empire in in his turn was publicly assassinated, and no one the West punished his slayers. In the same year occurred the sack " of Rome by the Vandals already mentioned. Meanwhile Britain began to suffer from new invaders — marauding bands of Jutes, Angles, and Saxons from the coasts of Ger- many and Denmark — who were gradually to conquer and occupy most of England. With the murder of Valentinian the dynasty of Theodosius the Great ceased to rule, and in ' the West emperors were put up and pulled down with con-
