The Huns of Attila may, without injustice, be compared to the Moguls and Tartars, before their primitive manners were changed by religion and luxury. And the evidence of Oriental history may reflect some light on the short and imperfect annals of Rome. After the Moguls had subdued the northern provinces of China, it was seriously proposed, not in the hour of victory, but in the calm deliberation of council, to exterminate all the inhabitants of that populous country, so that vacant land might be converted to the pasture of cattle. The firmness of a Chinese mandarin, who insinuated some principles of rational policy into the mind of Zingis, diverted him from the execution of this horrid design.

From Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, London: Wordsworth, 1998 (first published from 1776 to 1788), pp. 631-632.