Page:Readings in European History Vol 1.djvu/66

Readings in European History 9. Conver- sation of Priscus with a Greek living among the barbarians (448). It is urged that if we Romans are wicked and corrupt, that the barbarians commit the same sins, and are not so miserable as we. There is, however, this difference, that if the barbarians commit the same crimes as we, yet we sin more grievously. . . . All the barbarians, as we have already said, are pagans or heretics. The Saxon race is cruel, the Franks are faithless, the Gepidae are inhuman, the Huns are unchaste, in short, there is vice in the life of all the bar- barian peoples. But are their offenses as serious as ours ? Is the unchastity of the Hun so criminal as ours ? Is the faithlessness of the Frank so blameworthy as ours? Is the intemperance of the Alemanni so base as the intemper- ance of the Christians ? Does the greed of the Alani so merit condemnation as the greed of the Christians ? If the Hun or the Gepid cheat, what is there to wonder at, since he does not know that cheating is a crime ? If a Frank perjures himself, does he do anything strange, he who regards perjury as a way of speaking, not as a crime? About the time that Salvian was writing, the imperial government at Constantinople dispatched an embassy to Attila, the king of the Huns. One of the imperial mes- sengers, Priscus, has left a very interesting account of his experiences. He tells, among other things, of a con- versation that he had with a former inhabitant of the Roman Empire who declared that life among the bar- barians had many advantages. As Priscus was waiting for his audience with Attila, he says : A man whom, from his Scythian dress, I took for a bar- barian, came up and addressed me in Greek, with the word " Hail ! " I was surprised at a Scythian * speaking Greek. For the subjects of the Huns, swept together from various lands, speak, beside their own barbarous tongue, either Hun- nic or Gothic, or as many as have commercial dealings 1 Priscus seems to use this term " Scythian " as almost synonymous with barbarian.