with seeming moderation, that, unless their sovereign obtained complete and immediate satisfaction, it would be impossible for him, were it even his wish, to check the resentment of his warlike tribes.  Besides the motives of pride and interest, which might prompt the King of the Huns to continue this train of negotiation, he was influenced by the less honorable view of enriching his favorites at the expense of his enemies.  The imperial treasury was exhausted to procure the friendly offices of the ambassadors and their principal attendants, whose favorable report might conduce to the maintenance of peace.

The Barbarian monarch was flattered by the liberal reception of his ministers; he computed, with pleasure, the value and splendor of their gifts, rigorously exacted the performance of every promise which would contribute to their private emolument, and treated as an important business of state the marriage of his secretary Constantius.  That Gallic adventurer, who was recommended by Aetius to the King of the Huns, had engaged his service to the ministers of Constantinople, for the stipulated reward of a wealthy and noble wife; and the daughter of Count Saturninus was chosen to discharge the obligations of her country.  The reluctance of the victim, some domestic troubles, and the unjust confiscation of her fortune cooled the ardor of her interested lover; but he still demanded, in the name of Attila, an equivalent alliance; and, after many ambiguous delays and excuses, the Byzantine court was compelled to sacrifice to this insolent stranger the widow of Armatius, whose birth, opulence, and beauty placed her in the most illustrious rank of the Roman matrons.

For these importunate and oppressive embassies Attila claimed a suitable return:  he weighed, with suspicious pride, the character and station of the imperial envoys; but he condescended to promise that he would advance as far as Sardica to receive any ministers who had been invested with the consular dignity.  The council of Theodosius eluded this proposal, by representing the desolate and ruined condition of Sardica, and even ventured to insinuate that every officer of the army or household was qualified to treat with the most powerful princes of Scythia.  Maximin, a respectable courtier, whose abilities had been long exercised in civil and military employments, accepted, with reluctance, the troublesome, and perhaps dangerous, commission of reconciling the angry spirit of the King of the Huns.

His friend, the historian Priscus, embraced the opportunity of observing the Barbarian hero in the peaceful and domestic scenes of life:  but the secret of the embassy, a fatal and guilty secret, was intrusted only to the interpreter Vigilius.  The two last ambassadors of the Huns, Orestes, a noble subject of the Pannonian province, and Edecon, a valiant chieftain of the tribe of the Scyrri, returned at the same time from Constantinople to the royal camp.  Their obscure names were afterward illustrated by the extraordinary fortune and the contrast of their sons:  the two servants of Attila became the fathers of the last Roman Emperor of the West, and of the first Barbarian King of Italy.