One of the earliesit things I discovered on the web is still there - the eyewitness account, miraculously surviving, of a Roman envoy to the Court of Attila the Hun.


Priscus at the Court of Attila.


As both Peter Heather and Bryan Ward-Perkins emphasize in recent books on the fall of the West, the pressure of Attila's Huns as they moved west into eastern Europe put incalculable pressure on the Germanic tribes, including the Goths, Germans, Vandals, and others, and was one of the direct causes of the failure of the West.

A recent and very entertaining read about this very embassy, and the last alliance of Romans and Germans to beat back Attila's Huns is the recent The Scourge of God by William Dietrich.