Attila
Attila was the king of the Huns - a people originating from the steppes who had settled in the Danubian plain - and reigned according to Roman historiography from 434 to 453.
The following years 435-440, under the reign of Bleda, were marked by the triumph of the Huns against the Eastern Empire. This triumph is above all diplomatic and Bleda's policy towards the Romans is peaceful. A doubling of the tribute paid by Constantinople and the imperial promise to no longer ally itself with the barbarian enemies of the Huns (with the Germanic peoples who remained independent) gave Bleda a free hand. Also, the Huns extend their empire to the Alps, the Rhine and the Vistula.
Summary
1 Attila's rise to power 2 Attila and the Roman Empire 2.1 The loss of the Eastern tribute 2.2 The episode of Honoria 2.3 The invasion of Gaul 2.4 The end 3 The legendary image of Attila
Attila's takeover
However, from 440, taking advantage of the opportunity offered by the invasion of Roman Armenia by the Sassanid Persians, an invasion which temporarily diverted the attention of Constantinople from the Huns, Bleda again attacked the Eastern Empire. At this time, Attila only helps his brother as a last resort, having entered into talks with the Empire on his side. He probably only does this to avoid being aggrieved over the sharing of the loot.
Attila's separate policy during the war of 441-442 is mainly explained by his desire to negotiate with the Romans for the surrender of the Hun heir princes who had taken refuge in the empire at the death of Ruga, from 435. They would have inherited the kingdom in the event of his brother's death.
At the end of 444 or beginning of 445, aided by his Germanic vassals, Attila succeeded in a coup against his brother Bleda. Two Germans subjected to the Huns:the Skire Edika and the king of the Gepids Ardaric, indeed provided the necessary forces for the assassination of Bleda which took place in the ordu of the latter.
Attila then becomes Grand King of the Huns. His reign lasted eight years and was marked by a collapse of the power of the Huns, until then patiently built on the recognition of the Hunnic Empire by the Eastern Roman Empire and on the financial manna of tributes and ransoms paid by Constantinople. .
In reality, it seems that from the end of the assassination, the Germanic allies of Attila influenced him by favoring the propensity he had to believe himself destined to reign over the entire universe. So, with the help of a cow and her keeper, they find for Attila the sword of the god of war, Mars, pointing out of the ground. However, in the spiral that will lead the Huns to acquire more power, Attila quickly finds himself forced into new wars to reward and above all to keep his faithful Germans.
Also, Attila is designated Europæ Orbator (Emperor of Europe) and seized from 445-446 the Roman province of Pannonia-Savia (the rest of Pannonia was already held by the Huns). To maintain the fiction of the Roman administration, he is still named master of the militia by the emperor. [edit]
Attila and the Roman Empire
From the Danubian basin where he was permanently installed, Attila then threatened the Roman Empire.
But, on January 27, 447, an earthquake destroyed a large part of the Theodosian wall of Constantinople and caused a major famine. This weakness of the Eastern Empire allows the Western Empire to be temporarily spared from the aims of Attila. [edit]
The loss of the eastern tribute
Attila, taking advantage of the event, throws his army on the Eastern Empire. He gets bogged down there:in reality, the empire does not pay its tribute and the payments of the sums previously due are interrupted. The peace negotiations last for several years, without any benefit for the Huns.
However, at the very moment when they are about to end, the tributes paid by the East dry up definitively. Emperor Theodosius II dies in a riding accident and the "party of the blues" (party of senators and aristocrats) triumphs:it is fiercely opposed to the idea of paying the barbarians to buy peace.
Having been unable to invade or subjugate the East, Attila found himself caught up in the diplomatic game of the West in 450.[edit]
The Honoria episode
The episode concerns Honoria, co-empress of the West whom her younger brother, Valentinian III wants to force to take the veil to preserve imperial unity. In 449, a scandal broke out and Honoria was sent to Constantinople so that her "virginity" could be better guarded.
She then sends her ring to Attila to ask for help. Attila takes the matter seriously and accepts the jewel as a "dowry", before asking for Gaul as an imperial inheritance due to his "fiancée".
His demands are naturally met with a refusal.
Stuck in the East, faced with Valentinian's refusal and following the disappearance of Honoria, Attila found himself forced in the fall of 450 to declare war on the Western Roman Empire, which also put an end to the tribute paid by the West. . [edit]
The invasion of Gaul
At the head of a Hunno-Germanic coalition army, Attila set out in the spring of 451 against Gaul. This army brings together Gepids (the most numerous), Ostrogoths (led by 3 brother kings including the father of the future Theodoric the Great), Skires, Suevi, Alamans, Heruli, Thuringians, Franks, Burgundians, Alans, Sarmatians, it is mainly Germanic and the Huns make up only a tiny part of it. The tactics that previously made them successful against the "civilized" are therefore no longer on the agenda. On April 7, Attila burns Metz.
Gaul resisted him, first in Paris at the instigation of Saint Geneviève, then in Lyon, at the instigation of Saint Aignan.
Attila is definitively defeated by another barbarian army, led by the Roman patrician Aetius representing the emperor Valentinian III, but above all a great connoisseur of the great king.
In Orleans, where he intends to cross the Loire, the Hun king finds against him the Visigoths of Theodoric I and the Roman army of Aetius, in reality composed of all the peoples established in Gaul at that time:Alans, Franks, Burgundians , nice Sarmatians, Saxons, Letes (barbarian settlers), Armoricans and even Bretons from across the Channel...
The Huns are pushed back and it is 5 Roman miles (7.5 km) from Troyes that the final battle takes place, probably less than a fortnight later, in fields near the village of Maurica or Mauriacus (Latin campus mauriacus , incorrectly identified later as the “catalaunian fields” near Châlons-en-Champagne).
Following the carnage, Attila remains in Gaul for a while; then retreats to the Rhine. In the spring of 452, he attacked again in Italy. Attila's army takes Aquileia, Padua, Verona, Milan, Pavia and moves towards Rome. Valentinian decides to negotiate.
Led by Pope Leo I, by the prefect Trigetius who had already dealt with the Vandals of Genséric, and by the consul Aviennus, a Roman delegation went to meet the king of the Huns and obtained an armistice. [edit]
The end
At the same time, the troops of the new eastern emperor, Marcian, have crossed the Danube and threaten the heart of the Hunnic Empire. Also, Attila retreats to Pannonia.
Back in his ordu , the great king died suddenly, in the spring of 453, possibly poisoned, no doubt from a haemorrhage following a feast given to his court for his last wedding.
Attila receives a royal funeral and is buried in a triple coffin, probably under the bed of the Tisza river (in present-day Hungary), temporarily diverted for the occasion. His son Ellac succeeds him. [edit]
The legendary image of Attila
Attila is best known in historiography and in Western Christian tradition for being the scourge of God , which gave it a darker image.
In reality, this son of the king of one of the most powerful peoples of his time has become in the eyes of Western Europeans the emblematic image of the nomadic warrior-sovereign, merging in the popular imagination with the traits that will be attributed later to Genghis Khan:bloodthirsty, fond of war and looting above all, cruel and cunning.
However, this vision is largely inaccurate:not only were the Huns of Attila a Turkish people who welcomed many Germans into its midst, to such an extent that the latter were largely in the majority in the coalition of the campus mauriacus , but also the court of Attila was undoubtedly one of the most refined of its time, which had taken over many Roman customs.
However, the time in which Attila lived - towards the end of the Western Empire, his opposition to General Aetius, otherwise named the last of the Romans and the origin of his people have struck the collective imagination and contributed to making Attila the typical figure of the barbarian opposing civilization, which is apparent in the many films or works in which the latter appears.
In the song of the Nibelungen (based on the crushing of the Burgundians by the Huns and popularized in the 19th century by Richard Wagner), known in a 12th century version, Attila appears as Etzel, a noble and generous ally. He is also depicted in Germanic legends as Atli, cruel and thirsty for gold.
These two aspects show what the different facets of truth can be. Finally, due to national historiography, it should not be forgotten that Attila , a name of Germanic origin and more precisely of Gothic origin, has disappeared everywhere except in present-day Hungary, where this name is still as popular as ever.
Attila is the title of one of the last tragedies by Pierre Corneille, then on the decline. The weakness of this play compared to his greatest masterpieces prompted the following comment from Boileau (the previous tragedy by Corneille was titled Agesilaus ):“I saw Agesilaus, alas! - But after the Attila, hola! »
Inspired by the recent work of historians, The Shaman of Attila , a novel by the Hungarian writer Tibor Fonyodi (published in French by Pygmalion in 2005) depicts the civilization of the Huns in a new way. He underlines the fundamental role of spirituality in their culture, a civilization in the true sense of the term, of which the Hungarians were the heirs and which is still undoubtedly that of the peoples living in the Eurasian steppes today. The author stated in an interview that his goal had been, with The Shaman of Attila , to write a fantasy novel, a sort of Lord of the Rings drawing on the mythology of the Huns.