The Burgundians Become Christians

I must now tell of an event that happened about this time and is well worth recording. Beyond the Rhine there lives a barbarian nation called the Burgundians. They lead a peaceful life, for almost all of them are craftsmen and support themselves by their trades. The Huns kept raiding this people, laid their country waste, and often killed great numbers of them. In this distress the Burgundians decided to turn not to any human being, but to put themselves under the protection of some god. After thinking seriously about it, they concluded that the God of the Romans powerfully defended those who feared him, and with one consent they all embraced the faith of Christ. So they went to one of the cities of Gaul and asked the bishop to give them Christian baptism. He ordered them to fast for seven days, and meanwhile taught them the first principles of the faith; on the eighth day he baptized them and sent them away. From then on they were full of confidence, and they marched against those who had invaded them. Nor were they disappointed in their hope. For the king of the Huns, Uptar by name, died in the night from overeating, and the Burgundians attacked that people while they were without a commander-in-chief. Though they were few and their enemies very many, they won a complete victory. The Burgundians were only three thousand men in all, and they destroyed no fewer than ten thousand of the enemy. From that time this nation became zealously devoted to the Christian religion. [a]

About the same time Barbas, the bishop of the Arians, died on the twenty-fourth of June, in the thirteenth consulship of Theodosius and the third of Valentinian, and Sabbatius was made his successor. Enough has been said about these matters.