cities, fortresses and villages, and converting the whole region into
a desert. At the head of an army of seven hundred thousand men, he
plunged all Europe into dismay. Both the Eastern and Western empire
were compelled to pay him tribute. He even invaded Gaul, and upon the
plains of Chalons was defeated in one of the most bloody battles ever
fought in Europe. Contemporary historians record that one hundred and
six thousand dead were left upon the field. With the death of Attila,
the supremacy of the Huns vanished. The irruption of the Huns was a
devastating scourge, which terrified the world. Whole nations were
exterminated in their march, until at last the horrible apparition
disappeared, almost as suddenly as it arose.

With the disappearance of the Huns, central Russia presents to us the
aspect of a vast waste, thinly peopled, with the wrecks of nations and
tribes, debased and feeble, living upon the cattle they herded, and
occasionally cultivating the soil. And now there comes forward upon
this theater of violence and of blood another people, called the
Sclavonians, more energetic and more intelligent than any who had
preceded them. The origin of the Sclavonians is quite lost in the haze
of distance, and in the savage wilds where they first appeared. The
few traditions which have been gleaned respecting them are of very
little authority.

From about the close of the fifth century the inhabitants of the whole
region now embraced by European Russia, were called Sclavonians; and
yet it appears that these Sclavonians consisted of many nations, rude
and warlike, with various distinctive names. They soon began to crowd
upon the Roman empire, and became more formidable than the Goths or
the Huns had been. Wading through blood they seized province after
province of the empire, destroying and massacring often in mere