suddenly retreated. But we are at a loss to know what considerations were offered him to induce him to depart. It is unreasonable to suppose that this heathen king would have cared for the thunders or persuasions of the Church. The Emperor refused to surrender Honoria, and it is not recorded that money was paid. A trustworthy chronicle hands down another account which does not conflict with the fact that an embassy was sent, but evidently furnishes the true reasons which moved Attila to receive it favourably. Plague broke out in the barbarian host and their food ran short, and at the same time troops arrived from the east, sent by Marcian to the aid of Italy. If his host was suffering from pestilence, and if troops arrived from the east, we can understand that Attila was forced to withdraw. But whatever terms were arranged, he did not pretend that they meant a permanent peace. The question of Honoria was left unsettled, and he threatened that he would come again and do worse things in Italy unless she were given up with the due portion of the Imperial possessions. Leo's intercession could not prevent the sack of the city by the Vandal King Genseric in 455, but murder and arson were repressed by his influence. The Pope and members of his clergy, went to meet the invader to implore him to desist. While the Vandals plundered the city, the gesture nevertheless prevented Rome from being burned and assured that the Basilicas of St Peter, St Paul and St John, in which part of the terrified population sought refuge, were spared. Leo assisted in rebuilding the city of Rome, restoring key places such as Saint Peter's. On the fundamental dignity of Christians In his In Nativitate Domini, Christmas Day, sermon, "Christian, remember your dignity", Leo articulates a fundamental dignity common to all Christians, whether saints or sinners, and the consequent obligation to live up to it: Death and burial Leo died on 10 November 461 and, as he wished to be buried as close as possible to the tomb of St Peter, his body was entombed within the portico of Old St. Peter's Basilica. He was the first pope to be buried within St. Peter's. In 688, Pope Sergius I had Leo's remains moved to the south transept, inside the basilica. The relocation was apparently due to the number of later