For more than ten years before the death of Placidia both East and
West had been aware of a new cloud in the north-east. This darkness
was the vast army of Huns, which, in the exodus from Asia proper,
under Attila, threatened to overrun the empire and to lay it waste. In
447, indeed, Attila fell upon the Adriatic and Aegean provinces of the
eastern empire and ravaged them till he was bought off with a shameful
tribute. His thoughts inevitably turned towards the capital, and it is
said, I know not with how much truth, that in the very year of their
death both Placidia and Theodosius received from this new barbarian an
insolent message which said: "Attila, thy master and mine, bids thee
prepare a palace for him."

Theodosius II., however, was succeeded upon the Eastern throne by his
sister Pulcheria who shared her government with the virile and bold
soldier Marcian. But upon Placidia's death, on the other hand, the
government of the West fell into the hands of her weak and sensual son
Valentinian III.

Placidia's greatest failure, indeed, was in the training and education
of her children. Valentinian was incapable and vicious, while Honoria,
who had inherited much of the romantic temperament of her mother, was
both unscrupulous and irresponsible. Sent to Constantinople on account
of an intrigue with her chamberlain, Honoria, bored by the ascetic
life in which she found herself and furious at her virtual
imprisonment, sent her ring to Attila and besought him to deliver her
and make her his wife as Ataulfus had done Placidia her mother.
Though, it seems, the Hun disdained her, he made this appeal his
excuse. Within a year of the death of Theodosius and Placidia he
decided that the way of least resistance lay westward. If he were