When Pope Leo the Great rode out of Rome in 452 A.D. to meet Attila the Hun, he had no arms, no army, no armor, no bodyguards, no great retinue of ambassadors and advisers, advance men and area specialists. He went out only with a few fellow churchmen riding alongside him and a couple of lesser officials of the enfeebled and fading Roman Empire.

Attila came to the encounter at the head of a large, well-armed, battle-hardened army of Huns on horseback. The two men met because Attila and his followers, having plundered the northern Italian peninsula, were on their way south, with the apparent intention of sacking Rome. Leo's task was to persuade Attila not to plunder and burn the center of Western civilization.

Here, in this short-form book by award-winning author Charles L. Mee, Jr., is surprising story of that fateful encounter and its aftermath.