I'm Patrick Weiman, and this is the Fall of Rome.

Writing in the late 4th century, the Roman historian Amianus Marcellinus brought to the

attention of his readers a previously unknown group of barbarians recently arrived in the Western

reaches of the Eurasian step.

Quote, the people of the Huns, but little known from ancient records, dwelling beyond the

meiotic sea near the ice-bound ocean, exceed every degree of savagery.

Since there the cheeks of the children are deeply furrowed with the steel from their very

birth, in order that the growth of hair, when it appears at the proper time, may be checked

by the wrinkled scars, they grow old without beards and without any beauty, like a unix.

They all have compact, strong limbs and thick necks, and are so monstrously ugly and mischapen

that one might take them for two-legged beasts, or for the stumps, rough-hune into images

that are used in putting sides to bridges.

But although they have the form of men, however ugly, they are so hearty in their mode

of life that they have no need of fire nor of savory food, but eat the roots of wild

plants and the half-raw flesh of any animal whatever, which they put between their thighs

and the backs of their horses, and this warm it a little.

They are never protected by any buildings, but they avoid these like tombs, which are

set apart from everyday use.

For not even a hut that's withread can be found among them.

But roaming at large amid the mountains and woods, they learn from the cradle to endure

cold, hunger and thirst.

Amionus goes on.

...