Many centuries ago the fair land of Italy was in sore distress. There came down over the Alps on enation after another of wild northern barbarians. They descended into the provinces of Italy like a whirlwind, trampling down the vineyards and setting fire to towns and villages. The first to come was Alaric with his Goths, and the whole land was laid waste by his armies, as they moved on towards Rome. Then Alaric died and was laid to rest in the river Busento, and for a time the land had rest.

It was fifty years before the next barbarian conqueror came, but when he appeared, the invasion of Alaric was as a summer wind compared to a wild hurricane, for this was Attila the Hun; Attila the Destroyer, of whom it was said that where he stepped grass never grew again; Attila the Scourge of God, who declared that he would cross over into Italy to hunt, and when they asked him what he would hunt, said with a brutal laugh, "Hunt? What should I hunt, but Romans?"

Down over the Alps he came to the fair cities of northern Italy, with their sculptured halls and their marble villas, and laid them waste. Padua and Concordia, Milan, Turin, and Aquileia fell before him, but the last to fall was Aquileia. For three months the city held out, and the barbarians, who were unused to sieges and did not know how "to fight against stone walls," were at their wits' end. One day as Attila gazed at the city walls and pondered how he might get past them, he saw the storks leaving their nests and flying with their young away from the city. By their going he knew that famine had set in, and he rejoiced that the obstinate citizens who had held out against his swords must yield before the prospect of starvation.

So Attila waited, sure that each day would be the last, and that the people would throw open the gates and surrender the city to him. But the people of Aquileia were too clever for the dull barbarian. One day he noticed that a stork lighted on the figure of a sentinel standing at one of the towers, and perched there. "Surely a stork would not light upon a man," said Attila to himself, and he ordered an, attack on the city. Then he found that these sentinels who had been guarding the walls against him were blocks of wood cut in the form of men. The citizens had set them up to deceive the Huns, while they, with their women and children, were escaping by night from the city. Not all had yet escaped, but, while Attila and his warriors were breaking down the altars and robbing the palaces of their treasure, a large company of Aquileians were making their way along the shores of the Mediterranean, seeking some place of refuge from the barbarian.

As they journeyed along the shore, giving in every village the terrible word, "The Huns are upon us," they came to a place where there was a bay or lagoon almost landlocked by a group of low islands which stretched across its mouth. The fugitives looked at these islands and said, "There we should have water between us and the Huns; there if anywhere we should be safe." The kindly fisher folk lent them light boats, and they went over to the farthest island and stretched awnings and built huts and dwelt in safety; and that was the beginning of Venice.

Did they not go back to their city when Attila and the Huns were gone? you ask. Some of them did,—many of them; but they came back. From that time on Italy had no rest. The Alans and Vandals wandered through the land and fought with the Goths and Romans, and everywhere there was war and horror save on the Venetian islands. There the people dwelt in peace.

It was a simple life that could be lived on the low sand banks. No one could lord it over his neighbor, for no one's house was better than any other, and every one earned his living by fishing or making salt, which could be exchanged on the mainland for cloth and provisions, and so served as money. Men of all classes worked together deepening the channels so that their boats might pass through, and driving posts and making walls of woven reeds, which they bound against the banks of the islands to keep the sand from washing away. To build a house they drove posts and laid walls which would hold the sand foundations firm, and then built a stairway to the first floor, where the living room was to be. Their boats they kept tied like horses to the posts of the lower room. Gradually the islands (there were twelve larger ones and many small ones) came to be places of refuge from the barbarians. The island people were hospitable and welcomed those who sought shelter,—with this exception, which is written in their books, "They would receive no man who was a slave, nor a murderer, nor a man of wicked life."

During the time of peace, when Theodoric ruled the land, the little fishing settlement grew and became prosperous. Then the Lombards came down on Italy, and as usual they came first to the cities of Aquileia and Altinum, which had been rebuilt. They were the "cruellest of barbarians" and the most dangerous conquerors, for they came to seize the land and dwell in it.

This time the people did not wait for their coming. Once more the storks rose from their nests, and good Bishop Paul looked up to the towers of the city of Altinum and saw them going. First the birds flew round in circles, and there was a great chirping and chattering. Then all at once they picked up in their beaks those who could not fly, and flew away together to the southward. The good bishop had been in sore perplexity as to what he should advise the people, for he knew, as did every one, that the Lombards were coming, who destroyed cities as the flame licks up dry grass, and that all who stood in their way would be killed. Now he knew that the sign had been given him. He called the people together and told them that as the birds had gone away, so they too must seek safety in flight. The citizens divided into three parties, two of which sought shelter at neighboring cities; but the third group, of which Bishop Paul was the leader, stayed behind, not knowing which way to go. Two days they waited, and on the third day a strong, clear voice was heard (so the story goes) saying, "Go up into the tower and look at the stars."

The good bishop climbed the tower, and lo, the reflections of the stars made paths on the water to the islands beyond the lagoon. Then he went down and told the waiting people what he had seen, and they filled boats with such goods as they could carry, and the good bishop led them, and they came safely to the islands and landed and were saved.

This time the people had fled from the mainland never to return. While the Lombards were rebuilding their cities, the fugitives were building a new and fairer city on the islands which had sheltered them in trouble. They brought blocks of marble and columns of precious stone from the churches on the mainland, and began to build fine palaces and churches and bridges, some of which are standing to this day.