HUNS
I. Origin
• Some scholars believe they originated from the nomad Xiongnu people.
• Other historians believe the Huns originated from Kazakhstan, or
elsewhere in Asia.
• They arrived in southeastern Europe around 370 A.D. and conquered
one territory after another for over 70 years.
II. Huns in Life and in Battle
• They learned horsemanship as early as age three and, according to
legend, their faces were cut at a young age with a sword to teach them
to endure pain.
• They lived off the land as hunter-gatherers, dining on wild game and
gathering roots and herbs.
• They were expert archers who used reflex bows made of seasoned
birch, bone and glue.
• They also used battering rams to break through Roman defense walls.
• The Huns killed men, women and children alike and decimated almost
everything and everyone in their path.
III. Huns Reached the Roman Empire
• The Huns came on the historical scene in Europe during the late 4th century
A.D
• By 370 A.D., they crossed the Volga River and conquered the Alans, another
civilization of nomadic, warring horsemen.
• By 376 A.D., the Huns had attacked the Visigoths (the western tribe of
Goths), and forced them to seek sanctuary within the Roman Empire.
• By 395 A.D., they began invading Roman domains.
IV. The Huns Unite
• By 430 A.D., the Hun tribes had united and were ruled by King Rugila
and his brother, Octar. But by 432, Octar had been killed in battle and
Rugila ruled alone.
• At one point, Rugila formed a treaty with the Roman Emperor Theodosius
• In the 5th century, the Huns changed from a group of nomadic warrior tribes
to a somewhat settled civilization living in the Great Hungarian Plain in
eastern Europe.
V. Attila the Hun
• King Rugila died in 434 and was succeeded by his two nephews—brothers
Attila and Bleda
• Attila negotiated a peace treaty with the Eastern Roman Empire in which
the Romans paid him gold in exchange for peace
• Eventually the Romans reneged on the deal and in 441, Attila and his
army stormed their way through the Balkans and the Danubian frontier.
• Another peace treaty was forged in 442, but Attila attacked again in 443,
killing, ransacking and pillaging his way to the well-fortified city of
Constantinople and earning the nickname, “the scourge of God.”
• Attila formed another peace agreement: he would leave Constantinople alone
in exchange for an annual tribute of 2,100 pounds of gold, a staggering sum
• In 445, Attila murdered Bleda—supposedly to prevent Bleda from
murdering him first—and became sole ruler of the Huns
VI. Battle of the Catalaunian Plains
• Attila invaded Gaul, which included modern-day France, northern Italy
and western Germany, in 451
• Romans had wised up and allied with the Visigoths and other barbarian
tribes to finally stop the Huns in their tracks
• The foes met on the battlefield in the Catalaunian Plains of eastern
France
• The Romans and Visigoths had learned much from previous encounters
with the Huns and fought them hand-to-hand and on horseback
• It was Attila’s first and only military defeat
• Attila and his army returned to Italy and continued ravaging cities
VII. Death of Attila
• When Marcian, the new emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, refused to
pay Attila a previously-agreed-to annual tribute in 453, Attila regrouped and
planned to attack Constantinople
• Before he could strike, he was found dead—on his wedding night after
marrying his latest bride—by choking on his own blood while in a
drunken stupor
• Attila had made his oldest son Ellac his successor, but all his sons
fought a civil war for power until the Hun Empire was divided between
them
• Without Attila at the helm, however, the weakened Huns fell apart and were
no longer a major threat
• By 459, the Hun Empire had collapsed, and many Huns assimilated into the
civilizations they’d once dominated, leaving their mark throughout much of
Europe
