I spent 2 months researching this for college. I might as well put it up.

Attila

What first made me interested in studying Attila was his likeness to my favorite literary character, Conan of Cimmeria. Like Conan, Attila was a crude, uneducated barbarian out of the wilds of the far north, that with his own ferocity and cunning dominated a good portion of the “civilized world”. Attila is a name that will never be forgotten and if he hadn’t died young and under questionable conditions, he would have been crowned the first barbarian emperor of Rome years before Charlemagne’s Holy Roman empire.

From what I could gather (considering the endless bickering of historians over their origin) the Huns were a confederation of barbarian tribes that, under the conquest of a powerful tribe (presumably the Xongnu of northern China) gathered in a snowball effect so that when they burst over into Europe after defeating the Alan, they were a massive horde the likes of which the no one had seen since the Persians stared down from their city walls at the coming of Alexander almost a millennium before. By 376 the Huns had conquered all of the Germanic tribes between the Black Sea and the Danube on the northeast edge of the Roman empire and forced the survivors to flee east, causing them to spill into Roman territories and start the Goth wars against the Roman empire. The displaced Goths, fleeing the savage Huns, sacked Adrianople and destroyed two thirds of the roman army they battled there, including Emperor Valen. The arrival of the Huns in Europe came only a decade after Hilary bishop of Poitiers declared that the end of Roman civilization (and therefore the world) was near and that the Anti-Christ had already been born. It didn’t take the highly religious people of the empire long to identify the completely alien horde spreading across there frontier and there Germanic servants as the biblical Magog and Gog storming out of the north as was predicted in Ezekiel 38:1-39:20. many Romans believed that by the end of the century, the Anti-Christ would sit on the throne of an empire and that before that happened untold numbers would perish in the hours of judgment. By the time Attila was born around the year 400, his uncle Rua (also known as Rugila and Ruga) had united all the disjointed Hunnic tribes into a orderly military force. With there superior compound bows and unparalleled riding skills they were able to make lightning raids across the plains of eastern Europe, crushing German resistance and charging huge protection fees to the East Empire. After the death of his father, when he was a young boy, Attila and he brother Bleda were raised by Rua as his co-heirs. As a preteen Attila was part of a hostage exchange between western Rome and the Hunnic empire. This was a custom amongst cultures of the time to learn about one another. He was exchange for the young noble Roman soldier, Aetius. Where Aetius saw the Huns as a potential powerful ally he could learn from and turn to as a tool against the unruly barbarians the thinly stretched roman legion could no longer defend themselves against, Attila saw Rome as a disgusting and decedent culture, fat and rotting from the inside out. He swore to himself that he would some day return to the empire, not as a hostage, but as its new ruler. Ruga formed an alliance with Aetius and together they conquered the rebels in Gaul and many other Germanic peoples. After Ruga’s death in 434, Attila and Bleda ruled together for a time. Attila continued the campaigns with Aetius and his raids on the Byzantines, while Bleda remained a relatively unimportant king on the worlds stage. The siblings hated each other and barely communicated until cold hearted Attila killed his brother and took the whole Hunnic empire for himself in 445. three years later, the historian Priscus accompanying Maximinus (the ambassador of emperor Theodosius the second to the court of Attila) on a journey to meet the Hunnic emperor. Priscus gave the only reliable account of Attila’s physical appearance the world has ever seen. He described Attila as short and powerful with a broad chest, flat nose and a beard sprinkled with grey. Attila wore simple clothes and drank and ate from wooden cups and plates. The food he ate was simple too, mostly meat. He was a wise and grim looking man and the only time he smiled during Priscus’ whole audience with him was when his youngest son came to sit on his lap. It was said that Attila treated the boy as his favorite because an oracle had told him his empire would fail after he died and would be reborn under the descendants of his youngest son. Shortly after Priscus left his court, Attila defeated the Eastern Empire at the battle of Marcianopolis. As a term of the treaty between the two vast powers, extensive territory on the Roman side of the Danube was ceded to the Huns. Then Attila turned his attention to the Western Empire. After years of helping each other attain prestige, Attila and Aetius found themselves on opposing sides of a war. Under the advise of his vandal ally Geiseric, Attila prepared to Attacked Roman federate Gaul. While he was making his plans for attack, Attila received word from the western emperor Valentinian the 3rd’s sister, Honoria. She had been forced into a marriage with a low ranking official after her and a servant and lover tried to plan an overthrow of her dim witted brother. She sought an alliance with Attila and asked his aid in freeing her. To show the authenticity of her message, she sent an imperial ring which Attila took as a proposal of marriage. The bold Hun sent word to the Emperor that Honoria was to be released to him and that half of the Western empire was to be given to him as a dowry. Valentinian refused and Attila proceeded with his sack of Gaul. The barbarian leader swept unchallenged through eastern Gaul until he arrived at Orleans and found that Aetius’ Roman legion and Theodoric’s Gothic army waited within the city’s gates. Rather than tempt fate, Attila ordered a retreat. The two armies pursued him and near Troyes they struck hard at the invaders. The Hunnic cavalry, made useless by the rocky terrain of Gaul, were pressed into their own infantry and the losses the horde suffered were great. Thinking he had proved his point and not wanting to destroy the Huns who had become a political barrier between the empire and the wild Germans in the north, Aetius allowed the Huns to retreat and disbanded the giant Roman and Gothic army and returned to Italy. Not so much intimidated as embarrassed by the loss, Attila continued his rein of terror. This time he didn’t target the outlying territory of Gaul but the Italian peninsula itself. The Huns plundered northern Italian cities unchallenged and when they came within site of Rome herself, they were towing hundreds of carts of treasure. Without the combined armies of Gaul and Rome, the city had no way of defending itself. It was only luck that saved Rome. Plague had broken out within the ranks of Attila and food supplies were running low. To make matters worse their wagons were so full of plunder that the army could no longer maneuver fast enough to do battle and the east empire was sending a fleet of soldiers to aid their western brothers. Attila was allowed the out he was looking for when Pope Leo rode out of Rome to discuss peace with him. Attila took his heavy prizes and retreated from Rome, once again vowing to return as its conqueror. His dream of dominating all of Europe was never realized. Only a year later, he died in his bed. Most believe he choked on his own vomit like so many twentieth century rock stars but others theorize that he had heart failure, was poisoned or stabbed by his new bride. Like Alexander of ancient Greece, Attila’s empire died with him. None of his sons proved himself strong enough to hold the reins of their father’s empire and not long after Attila was buried with a massive treasure under a temporarily dammed off part of the Danube, one of his Alan generals staged a rebellion against his Hunnic masters. Without a strong leader, the horde fell apart and the Huns were scattered. Most of Attila’s people settled in modern day Hungary while others bred in or were hunted down in the lands of their former subjects. Never again would a Hunnic emperor rise to power.

One of the most interesting things I found out about Attila and his people while doing this project was that despite their importance in history, very little is known about the Huns. The most common theory holds that they were descended from the Xiongnu. the Xiongnu were a confederation of nomadic peoples that built an empire north of China in the 4th century BC and had mostly disappeared from records by the beginning of the first millennium. This idea was first formulated by Joseph de Guignes in the 1700’s. The theory is re-enforced by the fact that the Xiongnu used similar artifacts such as composite bows and cauldrons buried along side rivers. There were also similarities in language. The most compelling proof is found in the book of Wei a classic Chinese history book compiled by Wei Shou between 551 and 554. Wei states that the Xiongnu conquered the Alans around the same time western history records the Alans being taken over by the Huns. Beyond the Xiongnu theory, there are countless opinions about the origins of the Huns. The two most likely contenders are the idea of the “white Huns” out of Iran and the ethnogenesis theory that the Huns were no one people but rather a confederation of peoples conquered by a small group of noblemen. I find that the latter theory could easily co-exist with the Xiongnu theory and even the Iranian tribes could fit in with the snow ball effect that created the vast horde that slammed into the Germanic people of Europe in the 370’s. Other theories are as varied as the return of the semi-mythical Cimmerian and Scythian races of pre-history as many historians contemporary to the days of the Huns suggested to Jordanes theory of Gothic witches breeding with unclean spirits and even the view of the church that they were the biblical Mogog that would Harold the end of the word under the rule of the Anti-Christ. . Historians can’t agree on where they came from or for the most part how they lived and even though Attila is a name that will live for the rest of western civilization, very little is known for certain about his life. No one knows exactly when he was born,we have no records of his home life beyond his brief meeting with Priscus and scholars can’t even agree on how he died. I love a good mystery and I don’t think the end of this class will be the end of my research on this subject.

The second most interesting thing about Attila in my eyes is the Sheer amount he was able to accomplish in a single life time. In the fifty years of his life he doubled his uncles empire and came within a hairs breath of destroying Rome. The tale of Attila is the ultimate under dog story. its awe inspiring to think that this one man rearranged and entire continent as if it were nothing but a chess board.

What made the greatest impact on me about the story of Attila was the dramatic aspects of the lives of the people involved. In all corners of Attila’s world you have back stabbing siblings, rival tribes, Rival emperors, unfaithful lovers and broken alliances. The mans life played out chapter by chapter like the greatest of Greek tragedies. I find myself surprised that Shakespeare never wrote of the great barbarian king. This has been both the most difficult and the most enjoyable research project of my life and I would like to thank the college for providing me with the resources needed to paint a clear picture of the shrouded but epic life of Attila, the scourge of god.