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H. B. Cotterill
Medieval Italy

p93 CHAPTER VI

ATTILA THE HUN

What is known about the earlier history of the Huns has been already briefly related. It remains to describe the events of the few years during which they were the terror of Europe, led by Attila — the 'Scourge of God' — the devastator whose very war-horse left a trail where no grass ever grew again — the murderer of men, who writhes in the deepest pool of the infernal river of boiling blood — for so has popular and poetic imagination depicted him.1

Attila and Bleda, the nephews of that Rugilas who had befriended Aëtius, succeeded him as kings of the Huns. After some twelve years (c. 445) Bleda was deposed and murdered — probably by his brother Attila, who seems to have been regarded by his savage subjects with superstitious reverence, as being invincible by reason of the possession of an old sword, discovered by a shepherd and supposed to be the sword of the Hunnish war-god (called 'Mars' by the Latin chroniclers). As sole ruler of the Huns he rapidly and widely extended the Hunnish kingdom, which had already swallowed up the nearer nations of the Gepidae, Alani, Suevi (such as had not followed the Vandals), and the Ostrogoths, and now, it is said, spread its conquests, if not its permanent annexations, from Scandinavia to Persia, or even to the bounds of China.2 Even during the years when he shared the kingship with Bleda p94Attila's growing power had become a spectre of dread to the Empire. In the West he had indeed aided Aëtius to vanquish the Burgundians, as we have already seen; but to the Empire itself he was intensely hostile, feeling none of that reverence for it which was felt by Alaric and by Theoderic the Great. He had overrun much of its Eastern dominions, had scattered Roman captives as slaves through many lands, and had crucified on Roman territory the deserters from his own army whom he had captured. Both to Valentinian III at Ravenna and to Theodosius II at Constantinople the brothers had sent insolent messages,3 and a deprecating embassage from the Eastern Emperor to the camp of the Huns had resulted only in a demand for twice as much tribute as had been hitherto paid.

In 447 Attila, now sole king of all the Huns, advanced up to the very walls of Constantinople and exacted a threefold amount of tribute, which was paid by Theodosius, that 'meek man and excellent illuminator of manuscripts,'4 whose exactions brought his own subjects to the brink of despair and insurrection. And Attila's demands were not limited to such tribute. A curious thread of romance is interwoven in this story of savagery and bloodshed. It will be remembered that Galla Placidia had two children — Honoria and Valentinian, born respectively in 418 and 419. The daughter seems to have been, in her way, as silly and as intractable as was the son — perhaps spoilt as well as naturally sentimental and squilibrata. At Ravenna the young Augusta — for this supreme title was given her in early life — had got into trouble when about sixteen years of age. She was therefore sent (c. 434) by her mother to Constantinople, where she spent some fourteen years 'in the irksome society of the sisters of Theodosius [Pulcheria and her two younger sisters] and their chosen virgins, whose monastic assiduity of prayer, fasting, p95and vigils she reluctantly imitated'; for the imperial Byzantine court had been converted into something very like a monastery, in which the ladies, who admitted no male visitors but priests and bishops, divided their time between needlework and religious exercises, and the Emperor himself — a strenuously inert, well-meaning, vacillating, aesthetic, and somewhat fanatic5 person — lived the life of a quasi-artistic, sport-loving, and strictly orthodox Philistine. 'Hunting,' says Gibbon, 'was the only active pursuit that could tempt him beyond the limits of his palace; but he most assiduously laboured, sometimes by the light of a midnight lamp, in the mechanic occupations of painting and carving, and the elegance with which he transcribed religious books entitled the Emperor to the singular epithet of Calligraphes, or Fair Writer. . . . Thus the ample leisure which he acquired by neglecting the duties of his high office was filled by idle amusements and unprofitable studies.'

So maddened was Honoria by these surroundings that by means of a trusty messenger she sent (c. 448) a ring to Attila, begging him to claim her and add her to the number of his wives.6 At first he treated her appeal with a disdainful ridicule, but on reflexion it seemed to him a good pretext for demanding together with the person of the imperial Augusta a considerable portion of the Empire as her dowry. And the existence of this pretext saved him the trouble of inventing others when he decided to invade not only the Eastern Empire but also Italy herself.

In connexion with this escapade of Honoria the following description7 of Attila's person and character will be interesting. p96It is translated from the Latin chronicler Jordanes, who, as we have already seen, wrote a compendium of the lost Gothic History of Cassiodorus, and Cassiodorus probably obtained his materials for the portrait from Priscus, who visited the Hun king and wrote an account of his visit. 'Attila,' says Jordanes, 'was a man born for the desolation of nations and as a terror to the world; who, I know not by what ruling of destiny, struck panic into all men by the dread-inspiring fame that proceeded forth from him. He walked with haughty step, turning his eyes hither and thither as if to show his pride and power even by the movements of his body; a lover of war, but temperate in conduct; exceeding strong in council; complaisant to suppliants; ever the protector of him whom once he had admitted into his confidence; short of stature, with broad chest, large head, small eyes, a thin beard sprinkled with grey, squash nose, pallid complexion — all characteristic of his race.'

Among the many embassies that passed between Attila and Theodosius one is of unusual interest to us because we possess a full account of this visit of Roman envoys to the residence of the Hun king — in the Nibelungenlied called Etzelnburg, i.e. Attila's stronghold — which was evidently8 either on the site of modern Pesth, or Buda, or somewhere between the Danube and Theiss. Attila had sent to Constantinople two envoys, Edeco and Orestes (for whom see pp. 16, 17), to demand Hun fugitives and through their interpreter9 a plan for murdering Attila had been suggested to them by some court official. They pretended to accept the proposal and did accept a large bribe, a 'weighty purse of gold,' but resolved to reveal the plot to their king. With them, on their return, went as envoys, and of course unconscious of the plot, a p97'respectable courtier' named Maximin (afterwards Marcian's minister) and his friend Priscus, the historian above mentioned, of whose Latin diary fragments have survived. They found the country northwards all devastated by Attila's incursions. Sardica (Sofia) and Naissus (Nissa, birthplace of Constantine the Great) were destroyed and deserted, except for a few sick folk crawling about amid the ruins. They traversed the hilly region of what is now Serbia, finding the country strewn with human remains; they crossed the Danube in dug-out canoes and arrived at Attila's camp.

But Attila was incensed at only receiving seventeen deserters. He insisted on the envoys proceeding further northward — some 250 miles further — to his great central camp, or stronghold, where his palace stood. They therefore followed guides, by many a long detour, through interminable forests and over innumerable rivers (tributaries of the Theiss, and the Theiss itself) till they arrived. Attila's great palace was built of wood, and, like the dwelling of an African chieftain, was surrounded by a stockaded and turreted rampart, within which his numerous wives had separate houses. The sole building of stone in the encampment was a hot‑bath-house, erected by a Roman architect. The envoys were entertained at a feast in the banquet-hall of the palace. Attila with his son and two barbarian magnates sat on a raised daïs apart, while the guest were seated at small tables — the imperial envoys having to take the lower room and yield precedence to various Gothic and other barbarian officials. Wine was served to all others in cups of gold and a variety of food on silver dishes, but on the royal table were only wooden cups and platters, and flesh alone was served, for, to cite a peculiarly Gibbonian phrase, Attila never tasted the luxury of bread. Nor did he, as did his chief warriors, adorn his weapons and the trappings of his horse with precious metals and stones; he proudly distinguished himself from others by the simple garb and customs of his nomad ancestors, allowing no ornament or bright colour to appear in his dress and accoutrements. When the treacherous design against his life was revealed to p98Attila, he behaved with no little dignity and generosity, accepting the assurances of the imperial envoys that they were entirely innocent and sending them back unharmed. Moreover, when Theodosius — to whom he forwarded a message of withering scorn and reprimand — sent other envoys to deprecate his wrath, he did not condescend to insist on the punishment of the guilty courtiers. He even made some important concessions, liberating Roman captives and giving up territory south of the Danube.

In 450, the year in which Galla Placidia died, Theodosius was thrown from his horse and killed. Marcian, who succeeded him as the nominal husband of Pulcheria (p11), was of a very different character. One of his first acts was to put to death with approval of Pulcheria (Pulcheriae nutu, says a contemporary writer10) the court satellite Chrysaphios, who had plotted the assassination of Attila. But this act of justice, prompted perhaps by the barbarian king's generous: Quiescenti munera largiturum, bellum minanti viros per arma objecturum — 'If he kept quiet he would confer liberal gifts on him, but if he threatened war he would meet him with warriors and with arms.'

Attila threatened, fiercely and insolently — but he hesitated; and while he hesitated whether to attack Constantinople or Ravenna news reached him from the far west and north — perhaps, too, from the far south — which determined his course.

A new barbarian power had come on the scene — that of the Franks, a tall, flaxen-haired, blue-eyed race, which had settled on the Lower Rhine and Maas and in the country of the ancient Belgae. On the death of their king Clodion his two sons (or nephews) quarreled. One appealed to Attila for aid; the other, Meroveus (perhaps Merowig, who gave his name to the Merovingian dynasty), sought help from Aëtius. Attila determined to seize the opportunity of invading the Gallic p99provinces of the Empire. Possibly he reckoned also on the co-operation of the Visigoths, whose great kingdom in South Gaul and Spain was ruled by Theoderic (the son, perhaps, of Alaric). But the Visigoths were at that time intensely indignant against Gaiseric, the Vandal king in Africa, who had sent his son's bride, Theodoric's daughter, back to Toulouse with her nose and ears cut off — having accused her of trying to poison him. Theoderic was hoping to secure the sympathy and help of Aëtius and his Romans against the Vandal king, and the Vandal king not unnaturally appealed to Attila and begged him to attack Theoderic and Aëtius, promising to land forces in the south of Gaul.

Attila therefore with his Huns and his Ostrogoths joined forces with the Franks on the Neckar and, trusting to the co-operation of the Vandals, crossed the Rhine near Speyer and laid waste the Gallic provinces. Metz and Reims were sacked. Troyes was saved, it is said, by its bishop, St. Lupus, who seems to have exerted some strange influence on Attila such as we shall find so difficult to explain in the case of Pope Leo.11 From Paris (Lutetia) St. Geneviève, either by acting the part of a Joan of Arc or by somehow influencing Attila, or the Fates, diverted the march of the barbarian marauders. Orleans was besieged, and the walls were already yielding to the battering-rams when, in answer, it is said, to the prayers of the bishop, Anianus, the combined army of Aëtius and of Theoderic appeared.

Attila retreated to the vicinity of Troyes, and here, on the Catalaunian plains (i.e. the champaign of Catalaunum, or Châlons), between the Seine and the Marne, was fought (451) a battle which probably saved all Western Europe from Hunnish supremacy and from the overthrow, perhaps the extinction, of Roman civilization and Christianity.12 The battle is described by Jordanes in his riassunto of the Gothic History of Cassiodorus (c. 500), and Cassiodorus had doubtless conversed p100with veterans who had fought on one side or the other. It was 'so fierce, manifold, bloody, and obstinate' (atrox, multiplex, immane, et pertinax) 'that all antiquity could afford nothing similar.'

The slain, says this writer, amounted to 162,000, not counting 15,000 Franks and Gepidae killed in a preliminary encounter. This may be exaggeration — to say nothing of the 300,000 of another writer — but that the fight was long and terrible and bloody there can be no doubt. Attila, it is said, had erected a pyre of wooden saddles and other equipments with the intention of offering himself (and probably others) as a burnt-offering to his gods in case of defeat — as the Carthaginian Hamilcar is said to have done nine centuries before at Himera; but his defeat was not a rout. Both sides had suffered very severely, and the Visigoth king, Theoderic, had been slain by the javelin of an Ostrogoth. Attila was therefore able to withdraw his forces unpursued beyond the Rhine, for Aëtius (who was afterwards, like Stilicho, on this account accused of treason) shrank from attacking 'the wounded lion in his lair,' as Jordanes expresses it.

The wrath and resentment of Attila can be imagined. Once more he sends imperious demands for the hand and dowry of Honoria. He collects a still vaster army and in the spring of the next year (452) sweeps down like a typhoon upon Italy. His ultimate object was doubtless Rome, but first he meant to reward his Huns and avenge their Gallic defeat by the devastation and pillage of Northern Italy. Aquileia, which had now become the richest and most populous city of the North Adriatic coasts, was beleaguered by him for three months and assaulted, says Jordanes, with all kinds of siege-engines. But his efforts were in vain, and he had determined to abandon the enterprise when, it is said, as he rode round the walls, he observed the storks, accompanied by their young, were leaving the city,13 whence he inferred that there was no more food to be obtained. The siege was therefore p101continued, and ere long Aquileia was taken by storm and razed to the ground, so that less than a century later, in the days of Jordanes, as happened to Sybaris in the days of Herodotus, scarcely a vestige of the city was to be seen [. Susan note] Later it was rebuilt and became the seat of a powerful anti [-Susan note] papal patriarchate. But after its destruction by Attila all its inhabitants fled for refuge to Grado, on the seashore, or to those lagune-islands14 which later formed a federation and elected tribunes and then a supreme Duke (Doge), the permanent site of whose palace was ultimately the Rivo Alto (Rialto, or 'Deep Stream') of Venice.

From Aquileia the Huns spread westwards. Altinum and Padua were burnt to the ground. Verona, Vicenza, and Bergamo were sacked. Even Milan and Pavia were probably occupied and plundered. Then Attila seems to have collected his forces near Lake Benacus (Lago di Garda) with the intention of crossing the Apennines15 and assailing Rome.

The feeble and cowardly Valentinian had fled from Ravenna to Rome; but also at Rome panic prevailed, for there was no efficient army to stay the coming of Attila, and Aëtius had sent word that his Visigoth allies and his Gallic forces refused to march to the relief of Italy. It was therefore decided to send an embassy to deprecate the wrath of the king of the Huns, and doubtless also to offer him a very large bribe — probably under the conciliatory disguise of the oft-demanded dowry of Honoria, or rather a douceur for her loss, since she had been long ago, says Gibbon, married to some obscure and nominal husband before being immured in a perpetual prison to bewail her follies.

As chief envoy was chosen Avienus, a senator of high rank, and the Bishop of Rome, Leo the First (and the Great), accompanied the embassy, which crossed the Apennines in 452. They found Attila and his vast army encamped near the place p102where the river Mincio flows out of Lago di Garda — where Pescheria now stands — not far from 'olive-silvery' Sirmio, nigh which the villa of Catullus once stood, nor far from the country, sacred to all lovers of Virgil, where the hills slope gently down towards Mantua, and where 'with windings slow wandereth the broad Mincius and borders his banks with soft reeds.'

What took place at the conference is not known for certain, but certain it is that after the conference, to the astonishment of all Europe, Attila countermanded the march to Rome and withdrew his army over the Alps towards Pannonia. Catholic tradition ascribes this marvel to the effect which Leo, as the Head of the Church and the vicegerent [Susan note] of the Deity, produced on the awestruck mind of the pagan monarch; and the case, already mentioned, of St. Lupus at Troyes is adduced as supporting the belief that some supernatural influence was at work, although perhaps nowadays the apparition of the air-borne Apostles, which is asserted by a later legend and has been so grandly depicted by Raffael, may find few believers.16 Possibly Attila's conduct may be explained without recourse to the supernatural. Aëtius possessed a powerful army, even without his Visigoth allies, and Attila, had he pushed southwards, might have found himself in a trap. The fate of Alaric, moreover, who died so suddenly after sacking Rome, doubtless floated as an ominous spectre before the superstitious imagination of the Hun, and we may well believe that Leo did not attempt to exorcise this spectre. Lastly, there can be no doubt that the almighty influence of gold, or its equivalent, contributed largely to the result. At the same time it is undeniable that the personal influence of a strong character, inspired by absolute faith in the rightness of a cause and in the favour of heaven, sometimes verges on the miraculous; and such a character was Pope Leo the Great — straightforward, robust, inexorably firm, imperturbably convinced of the supernatural powers of the Church and of its divine foundation by the agency of St. Peter and St. Paul, whom he used to call the Romulus and

fig. 8 POPE LEO AND ATTILA

INSERT FIG 8 p103Remus of Christian Rome. These qualities come out in his writings. In his Discourses, as Villari says, he avoids all abstruse theological questions. All is simple, clear, and precise. Scarcely ever does he mention the saints or the Virgin, but speaks a great deal about Jesus Christ. The universal spiritual sovereignty of the Church — that is, of the Roman Church — was the one object towards which all his thoughts and actions tended; but temporal power he leaves wholly to lay authorities.

The fate of Alaric had perhaps deterred Attila from his intended sack of Rome. But Attila's renunciation did not save him from a similar fate. Shortly after his conference with the Roman envoys — where or when is uncertain, but probably in the next year (453) after his arrival in Pannonia, or perhaps at Etzelnberg — he died suddenly, at night, from the bursting of a blood-vessel, after the festal banquet that celebrated his marriage with a maiden named Idlico, the last of his very numerous wives. A vague and probably ill-founded report attributed to Idlico the crime, or glory, of having acted the rôle of a Judith.

'The body of Attila,' says Gibbon, 'was solemnly exposed in the midst of the plain, under a silken pavilion, and chosen squadrons of the Huns, wheeling round in measured evolutions, chanted a funeral song to the memory of the hero. The . . . remains were enclosed within three coffins of gold, of silver, and of iron, and were privately buried in the night; the spoils of nations were thrown into his grave; the captives who had opened the ground were inhumanly massacred.'

After the death of Attila the great Hun Empire seems to have broken up and melted rapidly away. Ere forty years had elapsed the Ostrogoths, led by the great Theoderic, were making themselves master of Italy, and the name of the Huns is seldom heard again.17 p104It may be interesting if I here note the tradition that Leo, on his return, set up as a thank-offering for the help of the great Apostle the bronze statue of St. Peter — once perhaps the statue of Jupiter Capitolinus, renamed after the saint, or recast into his likeness. The figure, which is seated and has the big toe of its extended foot worn with the kisses18 of millions, was first brought to St. Peter's (from the demolished monastery of S. Martino) about the year 1610. It is believed by some sceptics to be a product of the thirteenth century, a period when imitations of classical work began; but although is may not be a recast of the Capitoline Jupiter, which was probably destroyed or carried off by Gaiseric, it may date from the days of the early Empire, for it is certainly not Byzantine work and we hear of it about 725, during the Iconoclastic conflict.

In the year after Attila's death (454) Aëtius visited Rome and was killed by Valentinian, as has been told in the Historical Outline. The assassination of Valentinian himself, which took place early in the succeeding year and was quickly followed by the sack of Rome by Gaiseric the Vandal, may very reasonably be regarded as the real end of the Western Roman Empire. But during the next twenty years the title of Augustus was conferred, at intervals, on their protégés by the powerful commanders of the Roman army, some of which commanders were of pure barbarian origin. The main events of this inglorious period have been already related and do not merit further consideration. I shall therefore, after casting a brief retrospect at the rise of the African empire of Gaiseric, which was almost contemporary with that of Attila's empire in Central Europe, describe somewhat fully the capture of Rome by the Vandals, and then pass on to the deposition of Romulus Augustulus by Odovacar.

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The Author's Notes:

1 Quell' Attila che fu flagello in terra . . . (Dante, Inf. xii.134 et seq.). The epithet Dei flagellum is not found in contemporary writers. The modern Hungarians, who (falsely) claim descent from the Huns, assert, according to Gibbon, that the title was given to Attila by a hermit in Gaul, and that he adopted it.

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2 This is rejected as gross exaggeration by Niebuhr and others. Perhaps 'alliances' would be truer than 'conquests.'

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3 Attila's messengers were bidden to use the formula, 'Attila, my lord and thy lord, commands thee . . . ,' and on one occasion he called Theodosius a 'wicked slave that was conspiring against his master.' There is a story that at Milan Attila, seeing a picture of Huns or Scythians kneeling before an Emperor, commanded a painter to reverse their positions.

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4 Hodgkin's Italy and her Invaders.

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5 It is to him that we owe the destruction of many Greek temples, e.g. those at Olympia. Note that his wife, the beautiful but lowly born Athenaïs, who at her baptism had taken the name of Eudocia, and was mother of Valentinian's wife Eudoxia, was already in exile in Palestine.

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6 In the Nibelungenlied and the Waltarilied (known to readers of Scheffel's Ekkehard) Attila, or Etzel, has one (chief?) wife, Helche by name. On her death he sues for Kriemhild, the Burgundian princess, who goes to Etzelnburg to marry him. Priscus makes Cerca his chief wife — one of many.

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7 An amplified paraphrase is given by Gibbon (ch. xxxiv). The modern Hungarians, proud of their (entirely imaginary) descent from the Huns, trace Attila's pedigree back to Ham.

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8 This seems confirmed by the Nibelungenlied, in which Kriemhild, coming from Worms, joins Etzel (Attila) and travels with him through Vienna, and takes ship at Wieselburg and descends the Danube to Etzelnburg. The great palace and banquet-hall are described in the poem.

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9 The Huns despised Greek, preferring Gothic or Latin when not using Hunnish. Latin was the official and military language in much of the Eastern Empire. Edeco was probably a Herulian or Scirian, and Orestes an Illyrican of Roman descent.

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10 The cronachista arido, Marcellino Conte, as Count Balzani calls him (Le Cronache italiane del medio evo (Susan note)). Gibbon cites him as 'Count Marcellinus.'

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11 Attila is said to have once remarked: 'I know how to conquer men, but a wolf and a lion have known how to conquer the conqueror.'

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12 Written (in Germany) some months before September 1914. History repeats itself!

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13 Before the usual time, I suppose; at least storks and their young leave Southern Germany every year about the end of August.

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14 These islands had long been inhabited. For the story of Venice see Part III, ch. iii. Aquileia is now a village of some nine hundred inhabitants.

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15 Dante wrongly states that Florence was refounded 'on the ashes left by Attila' (Inf. xiii.149). Attila was often confused with Totila, who did occupy Florence, though he probably did not sack it.

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16 See Fig. 8 and explanation.

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17 The Avars (perhaps descendants of the Huns, or else new Turkish invaders) soon after occupy the Hun country. In 558‑59 they with other Orientals assault Constantinople. Two centuries and a half later they are conquered by Charles the Great, and about 900 the Magyars arrive from the East and occupy the whole land of Hungary.

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18 Cicero (In Verrem) tells something similar of a bronze statue of Hercules at Agrigentum.

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