Attila the Hun By Wyatt Willett Attila had
Attila the Hun By Wyatt Willett
Attila had a privileged upbringing. Attila was born in Pannonia (present day Hungary), circa 406. Unlike the unwashed, uneducated barbarian stereotype, he was born into the most powerful family north of the Danube River. In the late 420 s and early 430 s, Octar and Rugila, Attila’s uncles, jointly ruled the Hun Empire. Attila and his older brother, Bleda, received training in archery, sword fighting, how to ride and care for horses and learned military and diplomatic tactics. They also spoke, possibly read, both Gothic and Latin.
Once Attila rose to power, the first thing he did was negotiate a peace with the Romans. After the deaths of their uncles in 434, Bleda and Attila inherited joint leadership over the Hun empire. To start of their leadership, they negotiated a treaty with the Eastern Roman Empire, where Emperor Theodosius II agreed to pay 700 pounds of gold, yearly, as a promise of peace between the Huns and Romans, A few years after this treaty was made, Attila claimed the Romans had broken the treaty, which led to Attila carrying out devastating attacks through Eastern Roman cities. With Hun forces 20 miles away from Constantinople, Theodosius was forced to make terms and pay Attila 2100 pounds of gold every year.
He killed his own brother to grab absolute power for himself. Once the peace treaty with the romans was ended in 443, the Huns returned to the Hungarian Plain. Sometime during 443 and 445, Attila challenged Bleda for the sole power over the empire. Attila won and killed his brother, after which Attila led another assault on the Roman Empire and created another treaty with them, which had even harsher terms for the Romans.
He invaded Gaul to win himself a wife. In the spring of 450, Honoria, the ambitious sister of Valentian III, emperor of Western Rome, sent Attila a ring and asked him to help her get out of the impending marriage to a Roman aristocrat her brother was forcing on her. Attila took Honoria’s overture as a proposal. He claimed her as his newest bride, and half the Western Empire as her dowry. Honoria claimed to have intended no such thing, but her brother, furious at his sister’s scheming, was ready to send her across the Danube to placate Attila. He eventually relented, allowing her to marry the boring Roman aristocrat after all. Attila wouldn’t give up so easily, however, and would wage his next two military campaigns in Honoria’s name.
Attila suffered his first and only defeat at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains. In 451, 200, 000 of Attila’s Hun forces invaded Gaul. Leaving slaughter and devastation as they moved through the countryside, the Romans formed an alliance with King Theodoric I of the Visigoths. The combined Roman-Goth army confronted Attila in the decisive Battle of Catalaunian Plains, finally defeating the great Hun leader in one of the bloodiest conflicts in history. Theodoric was killed in the clash, while Attila withdrew his forces and subsequently retired from Gaul.
Despite his legendary lust for gold, Attila himself lived modestly and humbly. In 449, the Attila threw a banquet at which he served the guests a luxurious meal on silver plates. Attila him was served separately. He “ate nothing but meat on a wooden trencher…His cup was of wood, while his guests were given goblets of gold and silver. ” Unlike his subordinates, who arrogantly displayed their gold and gems on their horse’s bridle or weaponry, Attila’s “dress, too, was quite simple, affecting only to be clean. ”
He died horribly (and mysteriously) on his wedding night. Though gruesome, Attila’s death was not the fate you might have predicted for a great warrior and military leader. Even while pursuing his claim on Honoria, he decided to take yet another wife, a beautiful young woman named Ildico. They married in 453, just as Attila was preparing another attack on the Eastern Roman Empire and its new emperor, Marcian. During the wedding at Attila’s palace, the groom feasted and drank late into the night. The next morning, after the king failed to appear, his guards broke down the door of the bridal chamber and found Attila dead, with a weeping, hysterical Ildico at his bedside. No wound could be found, and it appeared that Attila had suffered a bad nosebleed while lying in a stupor and choked to death on his own blood.
No one knows where he’s buried. Attila’s army grieved their lost leader by smearing their faces with blood and riding their horses in circles around the tent holding his body. That night, his body was encased in three coffins–one gold, one silver, one iron– and buried in a tomb filled with the weapons of his defeated enemies, along with jewels and other treasures. As legend has it, a river was diverted so that Attila could be buried in its bed, and the waters were then released to flow over the grave. The servants who buried Attila were subsequently killed to prevent them from revealing his final resting place. The location of the burial site, believed to be somewhere in Hungary, remains unknown to this day.
Facts About the Huns 1. They did (almost) everything on horseback. 2. The bow was one of their most used weapons. 3. Fear was their most successful weapon.
- Slides: 10