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Attila Biography

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ATTILA, (Ger. Etzel; Hung. Ethele, conjectured to have been originally a title of honor). A King of the Huns, the son of Munzuk, a Hun of the royal blood. In 434 A.D. he succeeded his uncle, Roas, as chief of countless hordes scattered over the north of Asia and Europe. His brother, Bleda, or Blödel, who shared with him the supreme authority over all the Huns, was put to death by Attila in 444 or 445. The Huns regarded Attila with superstitious reverence; Christendom held him in superstitious dread, as the "scourge of God." He was believed to be armed with a supernatural sword, which belonged to the Scythian god of war and which must win dominion over the whole world. It is not known when the name "scourge of God" was first applied to Attila. He is said to have received it from a hermit in Gaul. The Huns as a race were regarded in the same light; in an inscription at Aquileia, written a short time before the siege of that city in 452, they are described as imminentia peccatorum flagella (the threatening scourges of sinners). The Alani, Ostrogoths, Gepidæ, and many of the Franks fought under his banner, and in a short time his dominion extended over the people of Germany and Scythia--i.e., from the frontiers of Gaul to those of China. In the first years of his reign Honoria, the granddaughter of Theodosius II, because of an intrigue with an officer of the palace, appealed to Attila for help, and offered herself to him in marriage. Though he did not marry her, he used her appeal as one of the grounds of his attacks on the Empire. In 447, after an unsuccessful campaign in Persia and Armenia, he advanced through Illyria and devastated all the countries between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Those inhabitants who were not destroyed were compelled to follow in his train. The Emperor Theodosius II collected an army to oppose the inundation of the barbarians, but in three bloody engagements fortune declared against him. Constantinople owed its safety solely to its fortifications and the ignorance of the enemy in the art of besieging; but Thrace, Macedon, and Greece were overrun; 70 flourishing cities were desolated, and Theodosius was compelled to cede a portion of territory south of the Danube, and to pay tribute to the conqueror, after treacherously attempting to murder him. In 451 Attila turned his course to the west, to invade Gaul, but was here boldly confronted by Aëtius, leader of the Romans, and by Theodoric, King of the Visigoths, who compelled him to raise the siege of Orleans. He then retired to Champagne, and in the wide plain of the Marne--called anciently the Catalaunian Fields--waited to meet the enemy. Here the army of the West, under Aëtius and Theodoric, encountered the forces of the Huns. The engagement is known in history as the battle of Châlons. Both armies strove to obtain the hill of moderate height which rises near Mury and commands the field of battle; and after a terrible contest the ranks of the Romans and their allies, the Visigoths, were broken. Attila now regarded victory as certain, when the Gothic prince, Thorisimond, immediately after his father had fallen, assumed the command and led on the brave Goths, who were burning to avenge the death of Theodoric. Their charge from the height into the plain was irresistible. On every side the Huns were routed, and Attila with difficulty escaped into his encampment. This, if old historians are to be trusted, must have been the most sanguinary battle ever fought in Europe; for it is stated by contemporaries of Attila that not fewer than 252,000 or 300,000 slain were left on the field. Attila, having retired within his camp of wagons, collected all the wooden shields, saddles, and other baggage into a vast funeral pile, resolving to die in the flames rather than surrender; but by the advice of Aëtius, the Roman general, the Huns were allowed to retreat without much further loss, though they were pursued by the Franks as far as the Rhine. In the following year Attila recovered his strength and made another incursion into Italy, devastating Aquileia, Milan, Padua, and other cities, and driving the terrified inhabitants into the Alps, the Apennines, and the lagoons of the Adriatic Sea, where they founded Venice. The Roman Emperor was helpless, and Rome itself was saved from destruction only by the personal mediation of Pope Leo I, who visited the dreaded barbarian, and is said to have subdued his ferocity into awe by the apostolic majesty of his mien. This deliverance was regarded as a miracle by the affrighted Romans; and old chroniclers relate that the Apostles Peter and Paul visited the camp of Attila and changed his purpose. By 453, however, Attila appears to have forgotten the visit of the two beatified apostles, for he made preparations for another invasion of Italy, but died of hemorrhage on the night of his marriage with the beautiful Ildiko (or Hilda). His death spread consternation through the host of the Huns. His followers cut themselves with knives, shaved their heads, and prepared to celebrate the funeral rites of their King. It is said that his body was placed in three coffins, the first of gold, the second of silver, and the third of iron; that the caparison of his horses, with his arms and ornaments, was buried with him; and that all the captives who were employed to make his grave were put to death, so that none might betray the resting-place of the King of the Huns.

The Gothic historian Jornandes describes Attila as having the Mongolian characteristics--low stature, a large head, with small, brilliant, deep-seated eyes, and broad shoulders. There can be little doubt that circumstances conspired, in the case of Attila, to give a certain largeness to his barbaric conceptions, which made him a most formidable foe to the civilization of Europe. Consult: Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (London, 1854-55); Thierry, Histoire d'Attila (Paris, 1874).

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. II (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 347.