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Attila the Hun: Roman Empire
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When Attila crossed the Rhine, he claimed that he merely sought by force what was his by right of betrothal. The two forces, Hun and Roman clashed in a massive battle somewhere in Champagne called the Catalaunian Plains or locus Mauriacus in June, 451 AD. The ensuing battle lasted all day with the Romans and Visigoths only gaining the upper hand toward the end of the day throwing the Huns back down the hill. Theodoric, the Visigoth king, was killed and angered by his death, the Visigoths hit the Huns with renewed energy. Many of the Huns and their allies fled with Attila and the body of his army retreated behind the wagons of their encampment.
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The Huns' first major raid under Attila was launched across the Danube in 440 against the Eastern Empire. Whether by coincidence or design, it coincided with the Vandals' siege of Carthage. Roman troops that had been dispatched to forestall the Carthage threat had to be recalled by Emperor Theodosius to defend the capital. As a result, Carthage and Africa were lost. Attila's warriors sacked Belgrade and numerous other centers--70 according to historian Edward Gibbon--defeating Roman armies three times in succession and penetrating as far as the outskirts of Constantinople itself. Thrace and Macedonia were ravaged, but in spite of an earthquake that leveled part of its mighty land walls, the Eastern capital itself was left untouched.
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The Scourge of God - Attila and his Huns have been called this from the first time they exploded onto the historical scene. Attila maintained his image as a barbaric outsider long after Germanic warlords had been incorporated into the Empire, instead he became the archetypical Barbarian.
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When Attila the Hun crossed the Rhine with the Huns in 451, he threatened a tottering relic of power. The Western Roman Empire had already been ravaged by Visigoths, Vandals, Suebi, Alamanni, Burgundians and other Barbarian tribes. Visigoths had an independent kingdom in Aquitaine, and Vandals occupied North Africa with a capital at Carthage. Roman rule in many parts of Gaul and Spain was merely nominal. Although Aetius had waged his own personal fight against the tide of the times, he had not been able to hold back the wave of invasions that had rolled over the West ever since Alaric and the Visigoths had sacked the city of Rome in 410.
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In the next year after the retreat from Italy, Attila died an appropriately barbarian death. He took a new, young, beautiful bride, a damsel named Ildico, though he already had a coterie of wives. The wedding day was spent in heavy drinking and partying, and the King of the Huns took his new bride to bed that night in drunken lust. The next morning it was discovered that he had died--drowned in his drunkenness in his own nosebleed. The new bride was found quivering in fear in the great man's bedquarters. The empire of the Huns dissipated nearly as quickly as its most famous leader.
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Known throughout history as the "Scourge of God," Attila the Hun commanded one of the greatest mounted armies in history. Attila terrorized and controlled a vast area between Gaul and the Caspian Sea, and from Greece to northern Europe. His great reputation commanded tributes of more than a ton of gold a year from the Romans - a payment which insured that Attila would not attack Roman territories. When the Romans neglected to pay the tribute, Attila unleashed his wrath. In his 20 years of power, Attila was defeated only once.
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