and invaded Gaul a second time. His pretext was the conquest of the dominions of the Alani between the Rhône, the Saône, and the Loire. This time the Romans did not hasten to the defence of Gaul, but left the contest to be decided between the Huns and the Alani with their powerful allies the West Goths. But if Aetius was so anxious to make an alliance with the Goths against the first attack of Attila, why did he remain a spectator of the second conflict? Evidently because he then knew that Attila was not powerful enough to subdue the West Goths; that, on the other hand, Thorismund could not defeat Attila without weakening his power by his very victories; and that, in both events, the barbarians would become less powerful, and the Roman empire safer. This greater safety would more particularly be secured for the Roman dominions in Gaul, which were the particular object of the ambition of Aëtius. In short, the second invasion of Gaul by Attila leads to the conclusion that Aëtius succeeded in getting rid of Attila in Italy by persuading him to make war again on the West Goths, in which he had good reasons for remaining neutral. To weaken the barbarians by kindling discord between them, was a policy well known to and often employed by the Roman government. Though the cunning Attila attempted to keep his design secret, Thorismund was aware of it, and prepared for resistance. At what place in Gaul he met Attila is not known, but the battle was as bloody as that on the Campi Catalaunici, and as fatal for Attila, who fled into Germany, and thence beyond the Danube. Jornandes is the only early writer who gives an account of Attila's second invasion of Gaul; his statements have been doubted, especially by Garelli, whose interesting account is contained in Belius's edition of Juvencus Cælius Callanus, cited below; but although it may be doubtful if Attila penetrated far into Gaul, the fact of the whole war cannot altogether be considered as fabulous. Isidorus (Chron. Gothor. ad an. 490) states that it was said that after the loss of the battle on the Campi Catalaunici, Attila never appeared again (“nusquam comparuisse dicatur"), but he evidently speaks of the borders of the West Gothic empire. Gregorius Turonensis (Hist. Franc. ii. 7) says that Thorismund overthrew the power of the Alani in Gaul, an event which took place some time before the death of Thorismund in A.D. 453: was Attila invited by the Alani to his second expedition, and did they betray the West Goths a second time, so as to deserve a severe punishment? Gibbon passes over in silence the embassy of the father of Cassiodorus, and the second expedition of Attila against the West Goths. Attila died in A.D. 453, in his royal village in Hungary. Some say that he was killed by a mistress; others, that having married a new wife called Ildico, he died on the night of his marriage from the rupture of a vessel produced by too copious draughts of wine, to which he was not accustomed. Awakened by the cries of the young woman, his attendants rushed into the bed-room, and found him on his back suffocated by a torrent of blood. His body was exposed in a silk tent, in the midst of a vast plain, and a crowd of the most gallant Huns assembled to solemnize the funeral with martial plays on horseback, not unlike the ludi circenses of the Romans, whereupon they began a death-song to this effect :-" We praise the memory of Attila, the son of Munzuccus, the greatest king of the Huns, and master of the most gallant nations of the world, who ruled with a power unwitnessed before over the kingdoms of Scythia and Germany, and who terrified both the Roman empires by the conquest of their splendid cities. But in order to preserve a store of booty for future times, and soothed by the prayers of the inhabitants, he withdrew, contenting himself with an annual tribute. When he had achieved all this with the greatest success, he died not from a wound received from his enemies, nor by the perfidy of his subjects, but in the midst of his faithful vassals, enjoying their merry company, and without pain and agony. Who would ever have expected such a death, which nobody can take revenge for?" According to their national custom the Huns gashed their faces with wounds, because such a great hero was not to be lamented with womanlike tears, but with the blood of men. After having finished their song, they put the dead body on a bier, covered with three plates, the first of gold, the second of silver, and the third of iron, by which they meant that Attila had conquered with his sword the riches of both the Roman empires. The body was interred at night, and the grave was filled up with precious ornaments and weapons: a tumulus was erected over it, which was called strava in the language of the Huns, and the captives and slaves who were employed in heaping it up were put to death after the work was finished, and buried at the foot of the tumulus. This is the account of Jornandes, on the authority of Priscus. Attila left several sons, who could not agree about the succession, and during the troubles produced by their ambition the Teutonic nations, their vassals, shook off the Hunnic yoke. Artharic, king of the Gepida, was the first to take up arms, and he defeated the Huns in a battle on the river Netad in Pannonia, in which Ellac, the eldest son of Attila, lost his life. The other Teutonic vassals having followed the example of the Gepida, the Huns were driven out of Pannonia and Dacia, and finally retreated as far as the Dnieper and Don, where Dengezic, a younger son of Attila, succeeded in maintaining himself. The reign of Attila lasted somewhat less richest dresses. He ate only a little meat from a wooden platter, and drank a little wine from a wooden goblet: sobriety, so rare among the barbarians of those times, was one of his greatest virtues. Towards the end of the banquet some bards came in and sang the exploits of Attila and the Huns. The Scythian, the Gothic, the Greek, and the Latin (Ausonian) tongues were spoken at his court. Priscus was also received by and dined with two of Attila's wives, Cerca and Recca, whom he found lying on a beautiful divan, and their apartments full of the choicest furniture and than twenty-five years. In this short space | of time he founded an immense empire, and acquired greater power than any barbarian king had ever possessed in Europe. But his empire was not a compact body connected by solid civil institutions: subdued by the sword, kept in obedience by fear, the numerous nations which yielded to him had no other common interest than the prospect of plunder. When the leader died whose genius opened to them the treasuries of Greece, Italy, and Gaul, their hopes vanished with him, and each nation took the course dictated to them by their own national sympa-ornaments. Attila's personal appearance was thies and antipathies. All the warriors of Attila were not equally barbarous, yet by their cruelty and the ruin of so many towns and humbler dwelling-places they have all equally deserved the execration of mankind. The principal theatres of Attila's devastations were parts of Thrace, Macedonia, Thessaly, and Illyricum, eastern Gaul, and northeastern Italy. Germany did not suffer from him, which is easily explained, as the tribes of southern and eastern Germany were his vassals, and he never entered the countries of the Saxons. Attila, as a conqueror, may be compared to Genghiz Khan and Timur: all three were bloody meteors; but while Genghiz and Timur founded lasting empires, Attila, in more remote and darker times, was unable to forge chains that would hold beyond his own life. Priscus, the ambassador of the Emperor Theodosius the Younger at the Hunnic court, has written a history of his legation, from the extant fragments of which we derive the most interesting information both about the private and public life of Attila. Other details are given by Jornandes and Juvencus, who have partly borrowed from Priscus. The usual residence of Attila was an immense village, an assemblage of tents, huts, and magnificent buildings of wood, situated at some distance east of the present town of Pesth, and fifteen days' journey north of Widdin, between the Danube and the Theiss, in Hungary. His palace consisted of a great number of contiguous buildings of wood, the walls of which were covered with various sorts of fine woods, polished, gilt, and carved with remarkable taste; others were hung with costly tapestry, and the floors were covered with the choicest carpets. When Attila received Priscus, he sat on a throne, surrounded by some of his sons and his ministers and generals, and after the audience was finished he invited the Greek minister to dine with him. The guests dined at several small tables covered with gold and silver vessels, and the dishes were all in the Greek fashion: they took copious draughts from gold and silver goblets. Attila was seated in a wooden square-formed chair, in a very simple costume, so as to be easily distinguished from the rest of the company, who were clad in the very like that of the other Huns, who probably differed little from some of the present Finnish nations in eastern Russia; he was of short stature, had broad shoulders, a large head, a flat nose, a tawny face, and small piercing eyes. His chief passion was glory, and he was subject to fits both of love and anger. He was kind to those who were under his protection, and always ready to listen to advice or entreaty. He used to preside in the courts of justice, and his sentences were dictated by feelings of equity. But he was terrible to his enemies, and exterminated all from whom he expected a protracted resistance. Preferring the nomadic and warlike habits of his nation to a settled life, he cared little for the destruction of towns, or perhaps he destroyed them with the intention of depriving the people of fixed habitations, and thus forcing them to a wandering life, in which state they would soon feel that he was the best protector they could have. The zeal which nomadic nations have always shown in the destruction of towns, a zeal which is generally attributed to a kind of inexplicable passion for destruction, is probably founded on the same reasons, the policy of nomadic people to destroy fixed settlements being quite as natural as the efforts of civilized nations to force nomades into such settlements. Among his own countrymen Attila was not only conspicuous for possessing their virtues in a higher degree, but also in being exempt from many of their vices; and while his mind was enlightened enough to raise him above their superstitions, he had all the prudence and selfpossession requisite for turning such superstitions to his own account. The great success of his arms having been attributed by the Huns to some extraordinary cause, he spread a rumour that he had found the sword once possessed by their god of war, and he thus succeeded in creating among his warriors that unbounded confidence in him and in themselves, without which no man has subdued, nor ever will subdue, the nations of the world. Attila and his Huns still live in the memory of the people of Germany. After his death, when the nations recovered from the awe with which they were stricken, bards made him the subject of their songs, and as the warriors of Germany had a just claim to part of his glory, their own pride made them forget their past sufferings, and through the veil of poetry the bloody "scourge of God" was admired by later generations as the model of a great hero and a wise king. Attila is the hero of many of the oldest German songs and legends, and we can trace his fame in the Sagas of Norway and Iceland. But nowhere is his name more conspicuous than in the celebrated "Niebelungen-Lied." There we see King Etzel of "Heunenland," or "Hiunenland," the mightiest king from the Rhône to the Rhine, and from the Elbe to the sea (v. 4990), who marries Chriemhild, the beautiful widow of the (Frankish) hero Sivrit (Siegfried), and the daughter of Danchrad (Tancred), king of the Burgundians, who resided at Worms on the Rhine. Chriemhild at first declines the hand of Etzel, because it would not befit a Christian woman to marry a heathen king, and Etzel also doubts if the princess would take him on account of the difference of their religion; but the knights of Etzel encourage him to try, his name being so high and his power so great that no woman would refuse to become his wife. Chriemhild yields to these reasons, especially as Rüdiger, Etzel's ambassador, tells her that if she will condescend to love his noble master she will bear twelve mighty crowns, and Etzel will also bestow on her the lands of nearly thirty princes whom he had subdued with his invincible sword (vv. 4953-56). The road by which Rüdiger and his companions conduct the bride to Etzelenburch, the residence of Etzel, is described as leading to Vergen on the Tunovve (Danube), thence across Bavaria to Pledelingen (Pladling on the Isar), Pazzove (Passau), Everdingen (Efferding), and Ens in Osterland (Austria), thence to Zeizenmure (Mons Calii, now Zeiselmauer), and Tuln, where she was received by the knights of Etzel, whose dominions were so vast that there were knights of all the countries of Europe, Russians, Greeks, Wallachians, Poles, wild Pechenegues from Kiew, Thuringians, and even a Danish knight. The marriage took place at Vienna, whence they travelled to Heimburg and Misenburg, where they embarked on the Danube, and went to Etzelenburch, which is described as situated on the Danube, on or near the site of the present towns of Ofen, or Buda, and Pesth. Etzelenburch now becomes the theatre of the further events related in the " NiebelungenLied," and after the tragical death of all the heroes, and at last of Chriemhild, Etzel remains alone to lament the fate of so many gallant knights who had fallen victims to the jealousy and revenge of two women, Chriemhild and Brunhild. (Priscus, Excerpta de Legationibus Gentium ad Romanos, and especially De Legationibus Romanorum ad Gentes, in the Paris and Bonn collections of 66 the Byzantine writers; Jornandes, De Regnorum Successione, pp. 57, 58, De Rebus Gothicis, pp. 115–133, ed. Lindenbrog; Isidorus, Chronicon Gothorum, ad an. 467; Marcellinus Comes, Chronicon, ad an. 422, &c.; Prosper, Chronicon, ad an. 1 Marciani et Valentiniani, &c.: Idatius, Chronicon, ad an. 1 Marciani, &c.; Gregorius Turonensis, Historia Francorum, ii. 5, &c.; Sidonius Apollinaris, Epistolæ, vii. 12, viii. 15, Carmina, v. 319, &c., 336, &c.; Baronius, Annales, ad an. 451, 452; Juvencus Cælius Callanus, Vita Attila, in Belius, Apparatus Hist. Hungariæ." Juvencus, who lived probably before the twelfth century, compiled from Priscus and other Greek sources: the first edition of his work was published by Hieronymus Squarciaficus, in his edition of the Lives of Plutarch, Venice, 1502, fol.; it is not mentioned by Fabricius: a second edition is contained in the fifth volume of most of the editions of Canisius, "Antiquæ Lectiones," Ingolstadt, 1608, 4to.; but although the first edition and several MSS. of it were perused by French historians as early as the beginning of the sixteenth century, both the name of the author and his work were so little known, that, long after the publication of the Ingolstadt edition, Leibnitz said he believed it to be fictitious. (Fabricius, Biblioth. Med. et Infim. Latinitatis, “Juvencus, Cælius;" Meusel, Bibliotheca Historica, vol. v. part 1, pp. 338, &c.; Mascov, The History of the Ancient Germans, translated by Lediard, vol. i. pp. 490–541; Der Niebelungenlied, ed. Von der Hagen.) W. P. ATTI'LIA GENS. [ATILIA GENS.] ATTILIA'NUS. The name of a sculptor so called appears on a statue of a Muse in the gallery of Florence. He is stated to be of Aphrodisias. The inscription is, “Opus Attiliani Aphrodisiensis.” R. W. jun. ATTILIUS FORTUNATIANUS. [FORTUNATIANUS.] ATTIRET, JEAN DENYS, called Frère Attiret, a French painter, whose career is remarkable. He was born in 1702, in the Franche-Comté, at Dôle, where his father also was a painter, and his first instructor. The Marquis de Broissia sent him to Rome, where he completed his studies. After his return Attiret attracted some notice by some pictures which he painted at Lyon; he subsequently went to Avignon, where he joined the society of Jesuits, and during his novitiate he painted four pictures for the cathedral of Avignon, and some other works. About this time the French Jesuit missionaries at Peking wished a painter to be sent out to them from France, and, accordingly, Attiret set out about the end of the year 1737 to join his countrymen in China. Soon after his arrival he presented the Chinese emperor, Këen-Loong, with a picture of the Adoration of the Kings, which so pleased his celestial majesty that he ordered it to be hung up in one of the chambers in his palace; and he indicated an intention of entirely engrossing the time of Attiret upon works according to his taste, and in water-colours, for he disliked the gloss of oil. He ordered him to restore in distemper a painting upon a wall in one of the rooms of his palace, which, if an extraordinary honour to Attiret, as a foreigner, was, through the ceremonies of the palace, as extraordinarily troublesome. He had to deliver himself over to various sets of eunuchs, and to wait long at many doors every time he entered and left the apartment where the painting was, and in which he was locked up from seven o'clock in the morning until five in the afternoon, with several other eunuchs to attend upon, or rather watch over him. Ceremony would not admit of any derangement, and he was accordingly obliged to make shift with a chair upon a table as his scaffolding. His meals were sent to him every day from the emperor's table, but before they had performed the journey from the emperor's apartment to his they were quite cold, and he did not touch them; he ate fruit and biscuits. However, notwithstanding his difficulties, he completed the picture, with the assistance of the advice of Castiglione of the Portuguese mission, entirely to the satisfaction of the emperor. [CASTIGLIONE, GIUSEPPE.] The Chinese court painters became very jealous of Attiret, and, knowing his dislike to water-colours, they took care that he should be constantly employed in that style; and, to add to his vexations, when he was occupied over any great work, he was constantly interrupted by eunuchs, who came with orders from the emperor for him to paint immediately some flowers upon a fan, or some such trifling command. He had so many commissions, not only from the emperor, but from the great people of the court also, that he was obliged to employ Chinese painters to enable him to execute them all. He made all the designs, and executed the chief objects as the figures, and especially the carnations. He found that in the costume, in the landscape, and even in the animals, the Chinese painters got on much quicker and better than he could. By giving way to the Chinese taste Attiret gradually became a great favourite, even with the painters. One large picture which he painted displeased the emperor: it was a landscape, in which were some Chinese ladies, but their fingers were not red enough, and their nails were not long enough; they wanted also that imperturbable tranquillity of demeanour which appears to be a characteristic of the Chinese. Attiret took the advice of one of the court painters, altered it under his direction, obtained his good opinion, and gave general satisfaction: he was enabled even to establish a drawing-school. Between the years 1753 and 1760, the emperor, Keen-Loong, obtained several victories over some Tartar hordes in distant parts in the north-west of the empire, and in 1754 Attiret was ordered to follow, in order to perpetuate his victories upon the spot. He made many accurate drawings of triumphs, processions, festivals, &c., in which he was assisted by Chinese painters; and from these he painted several pictures, which, with portraits of the emperor, so pleased him, that he created Attiret mandarin, with all the appointments, a dignity, however, which Attiret told the minister that he could not assume. Some of his pictures were preserved in the palace, and shown only by special permission of the emperor. No pains were spared to render them complete; many officers who distinguished themselves travelled, according to Father Amiot, even eight hundred leagues to sit for their portraits. Sixteen of these, or similar drawings, were sent to France to be engraved at the emperor's expense, and their execution was intrusted to the direction of C. N. Cochin the younger. The plates were engraved by J. Aveline, Aug. de St. Aubin, L. Masquelier, F. de Né, J. B. Choffard, Ph. le Bas, N. de Launay, and P. L. Prevost; and on so large a scale that it was necessary to make paper expressly to print them upon, which cost sixteen pounds the ream. The prints are extremely scarce, for they were sent with the plates to China as soon as they were printed, a few impressions only, for the royal family of France and for the library of Paris, being reserved. The sixteen drawings were not all by Attiret, some were by the Jesuits Castiglione and Sikelbar. There is a small copy of the large prints by the engraver Helman. Attiret died at Peking in 1768, aged sixtysix. The emperor ordered two hundred ounces of silver to be given towards the expense of his burial; and the emperor's brother sent his principal eunuch to weep over his coffin, a duty, however, which the Jesuits told him was not required, but he followed the coffin some time on foot. The sculptor CLAUDE FRANÇOIS ATTIRET was the nephew of Frère Attiret, and was born at Dôle, in 1728. He was the pupil of Pigal, and obtained one of the great annual prizes for sculpture of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture at Paris, of which he afterwards became a member. He died in the hospital of Dôle, in 1804. The following are his best works :-Statues of the four seasons, of St. André and St. Jean, and one of Louis XVI., which was the first that was erected to him,-it was made for the city of Dôle. He made also the ornaments of the public fountain of Dôle. (Extrait d'une lettre du Père Amiot du 1 Mars, 1769, de Peking, contenant l'éloge du Frère Attiret, et le précis de l'état de la peinture chez les Chinois, it was inserted by De Guignes in the Journal des Sçavans, for June, 1771; Huber, Manuel des Amateurs, &c.; Gabet, Dictionnaire des Artistes de l'Ecole Française, &c.) R. N. W. ATTIUS, LUCIUS. [ACCIUS.] ATTO, or ACTO, Bishop of VERCELLI, was elected to that see in A.D. 924, on the death of Ragembert, who perished in the conflagration of Pavia by the Magyars, the then recent conquerors of Hungary, and formidable invaders of Italy. In the year 946, as appears by his will, he was advanced in age, and in 964 a certain Ingo was bishop of Vercelli. This appears to be all that is positively known of Atto. He is called by Ughelli, in his "Italia Sacra," and by some other writers, Atto the Second, but Buronzo, the editor of his works, affirms that in the list of bishops of Vercelli no other Atto is found either before or after him. From his own declaration that he lived under the law of the Lombards, it was conjectured by Muratori that he was himself a Lombard, but according to Buronzo it was open to any one in that age to choose whether he would live under the law of the Lombards, the Franks, or the Romans, without regard to his origin. Buronzo is, however, less successful in explaining away a declaration in one of Atto's works, that he was by birth a stranger to Vercelli, and there appears little room to doubt that he was the Atto mentioned in a contemporary charter as arch-chancellor to Hugo and Lothair, the joint kings of Italy. The works attributed to Atto by different writers are six in number; for we can hardly reckon his "Testamentum," or Will, as one. They are: 1. "Capitulare," or a collection of canons of the church of Vercelli. 2. "Libellus de Pressuris Ecclesiasticis," a treatise on ecclesiastical jurisdictions. 3. 66 Epistolæ," a set of letters, mostly on theological subjects, eleven in number. 4. "Ser mones," a collection of eighteen sermons. 5. Expositio Epistolarum Sancti Pauli," a series of comments on the Epistles of St. Paul. 6. " Polypticum," also called "Perpendiculum," a grave satire on the manners of his time. The first five are written in much the same style, which is superior to that of his age; the last in a most obscure and affected one, which it appears was in vogue at the time, as ornamental, and might be thought appropriate to the subject. There are two editions or versions of the "Polypticum," the second of which was drawn up by the author at a time when more freedom of speech was allowed than when the first was composed, but is still difficult to be understood while the first, without the assistance of the second, would be absolutely unintelligible. Andres, the historian of litera- | ture, speaks with praise of the treatise "De Pressuris Ecclesiasticis," and Buronzo commends the commentaries on St. Paul with a warmth which can hardly be ascribed altogether to the partiality of an editor. cum دو 66 The first three of these six works were first printed in D'Achéry's Spicilegium (published 1665-67), from a transcript furnished to D'Achéry by Cardinal Bona, from a manuscript in the Vatican, No. 4322. This manuscript is damaged in every leaf, and D'Achéry found it impossible to obtain a collation from another in the possession of the chapter of Vercelli. In the new edition of the " Spicilegium," by De la Barre, in 1723, some few of these defects in the treatise "De Pressuris" were supplied from another source. In 1761 Mansi inserted in his new edition of the "Anecdota" of Baluze five sermons of Atto, and a copy of the " Polypticum," from the manuscript in the Vatican; but these were most incorrectly printed from a hasty transcript. Seven years after, in 1768, Carlo Buronzo del Signore published what he called "Attonis Opera Omnia," at Vercelli, in two volumes folio. Being himself a canon of Vercelli, he had full access to the manuscripts of the Chapter, and supplied the deficiencies in the pieces already printed in the "Spicilegium." Of the publication by Mansi he had apparently never heard, and the "Sermones" and "Polyptiare wanting in his edition, though he hints obscurely in the preface that he was aware of their existence, and meant to publish them at some time or other. About fivesixths of his two volumes are occupied by the comments on St. Paul, which he discovered in the library at Vercelli, and supposed to be Atto's from the similarity of style, and from finding it stated at the end of the manuscript that it was written by Atto's order, "jussu Attonis." Mai is of opinion that these grounds are by far too weak to support the conjecture. It was the second version of the Polypticum" which was made public by Mansi, in the "Anecdota,” in 1761; the other was first published by Mai, in the sixth volume of his " Scriptorum Veterum nova Collectio," in 1832, together with the eighteen sermons of which Mansi had given five, and a copy of Atto's will. Both versions of the " Polypticum" commence with these words :-"Fulanus cupiens me sic beatum instar felicissimi opilionis Silvestri summi exitum," which Mansi and Mai conceive to refer to the death of Pope Sylvester II., which took place in 1003. They suppose, therefore, that the author of the " Polypticum" must be a different person from the author of the works published by D'Achéry, and of a later date, and share the productions of Atto between two men whom they call Atto senior and Atto junior, both bishops of Vercelli. Mai appears by this to have overlooked the statement of Buronzo, that no other Atto occurs in the list of the bishops of that diocese. It does not seem altogether impossible that the words quoted 66 |