attila and the huns (1915)

8/12/2019 Attila and the Huns (1915)

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ATTILA AND THE HUNS


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Digitized by the Internet Archivein 2011 with funding from

University of Toronto

http://www.archive.org/details/attilahunsOOhutt


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ATTILAAND THE HUNS

BYEDWARD HUTTONAUTHOR OF RAVENNA

LONDONCONSTABLE & COMPANY LTD.

1915


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'JUN ] 9 iwn\57oZ


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TOBELOVED ITALYWITH WHOMIN THIS HOUR

OF RENEWED PERILONCE MOREWE FIGHT

THE BARBARIANSA.D. 401-1915


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INTRODUCTION There is a race on Scythia's verge extremeEastward beyond the Tauris' chilly stream.The Northern Bear looks on no uglier crew ;Bare is their garb, their bodies foul to view,Their souls are ne'er subdued to sturdy toilOr Ceres' webs. Their sustenance is spoil.With horrid wounds they gash their brutal browsAnd o'er their murdered parents bind their vows. . .

IN these words, Claudian the poet of theDecline and Fall of the Roman Empire,describes the Huns of the fifth century, thebrood of Attila to whom the German Kaiserappealed before the whole world when he senthis brother to China to meet the Boxers :

When you meet the foe you will defeathim. No quarter will be given, no prisonerswill be taken. Let all who fall into yourhands be at your mercy. Just as the Huns athousand years ago under the leadership ofAttila gained a reputation in virtue of whichthey still live in historic tradition, so may thename of Germany become known in such amanner in China that no Chinaman will everagain dare even to look askance at a German.

141Hi


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viii ATTILA AND THE HUNSThese words will never be forgotten, for

they have since been translated into actionnot only upon the Chinese but upon the bodyof Europe, upon the Belgians and the peopleof Northern France as upon the long martyredpeople of Poland.That appeal to the Hun startled Europe,

and yet had we remembered the history ofPrussia, had we recalled the ethnology of thatrace we ought not to have been surprised, forthe Hun and the Prussian have certainly muchin common even racially, and Attila, or Etzel,as the Germans call him, has ever played hispart in the Nibelungenlied and the legends ofthe Prussian people.We know so little of the Huns of the fifthcentury : who they were, whence indeed theycame and whither they went, that it is im-possible definitely to assert or to deny thatthe Prussians of to-day are their actual de-scendants. We must, it seems, give up theold theory which Gibbon took from De Guignesthat this savage people were identical withthe Hioung-nou whose ravages are recordedin the history of China ; but of this at leastit seems we may be sure, that they were aTuranian race, a race to which the Finns,Bulgarians and Magyars also belong as well


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INTRODUCTION ixas the Croatians and the Turks. Can wewith any certainty claim that the Prussiansalso are of this family ?

Quatrefages has demonstrated that thepopulation of the Prussias is by its ethnolo-gical origin essentially Finno-Slavian. Inevery respect, he asserts, and history bearshim out, Prussia is ethnologically distinctfrom the peoples she now rules over underthe pretence of a unity of race with them.Identity of language may mask this truth,but it cannot alter it, for the difference isreal and fundamental.

Teutonic Germany has accepted Prussia asits sovereign, and no one can question herright to do so ; but being what she is, she hasbeen led astray by an anthropological error.Not content with subordinating herself tothese Finno-Slavs the real Germany hasadopted their hatred and worked out thebrutal instincts of these strangers whose ironyoke she has placed upon her nobler spirit.Her union with Prussia has been founded bythe sword and by blood, cemented by warand crowned by spoliation. It is a crime notless than the crime of that Attila to whomPrussia appeals as her true and original hero,and now, as then, we have the right to believe


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x ATTILA AND THE HUNSin a divine Nemesis. What shall it profit aman if he gain the whole world and lose hisown soul ?

It would seem, then, that as well physicallyas spiritually the Prussians in so far as theyare Finnic 1 are of the same Turanian stock towhich the Huns belonged and if only thusrelated to them. That the relationship iscloser still a thousand things of which we arewitnesses to-day, as for many hundred yearspast, would lead us to surmise. And if theyare not the same Barbarians, their barbarismis the same.

It was at any rate Attila's name thatKaiser Wilhelm II flung across an astonishedworld a decade ago as the French might cryout upon Charlemagne or Blessed Joan of Arcor Napoleon. And since he has appealed tothe Huns, to the Huns let him go.

For us there remain these facts to be con-sidered, if, as is so difficult, we are to benefitfrom the lessons of History.Rome always defeated the Barbarians, but1 Godron says with truth: The Prussians are neither

Germans nor Slavs ; the Prussians are the Prussians. Butone must remember that they were of Finno-Slavonic race,not Teutonic, and were subject to the King of Poland tillcomparatively recent times. They remained heathen longafter the rest of Germany was Christianised.


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INTRODUCTION xinever succeeded in destroying their power torenew the attack. Stilicho defeated Alaricwhenever he met him, yet Alaric at lastentered Rome. Aetius broke Attila repeatedly,yet Attila at last was able to threaten Italy.Belisarius and Narses broke Vitiges and Totila,yet these Barbarians ruined the peninsula.In >spite of defeat the attack was alwaysrenewed, because Rome had never really brokenthe Barbarian power. And if we to-day sparethe Germanies the uttermost price and the last,if we fail to push this war to the bitter andthe necessary end, in twenty years or in fiftythey will fall upon us again and perhapsin an hour for us less fortunate. Delenda estCarthago.

It was perhaps not within the power ofRome to break once and for all the advance ofthe Barbarians. Time has been upon ourside. To-day if our courage and our endur-ance are strong enough, if we set our face likea flint, we may once for all rid Europe of thisBarbarian peril, which, now as always intenton the destruction and the loot of civilisation,pleads necessity, invokes its gods, and knowsneither justice nor mercy.Rome could not mobilise : we can. Inthe old days the Barbarians could break off


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xii ATTILA AND THE HUNSfirst the point, as it were, of civilisation, thena little more, and so on till the butt chokedthem. They can no longer do that. The rail-way and the automobile, the telegraph and thetelephone have endowed us with such apower of mobilisation that we can compel theBarbarians to meet the butt of civilisationfirst instead of last. If we have the will wemay destroy once and for all the power of theBarbarians, who have attempted to destroycivilisation, not only under Alaric, Attila,and Totila, but under Frederick of Hohen-staufen and Luther, and having finally over-come them we may erect once more in Europethe Pax Romana and perhapswho knows ?even the old unity of Christendom.

May, 1915.


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CONTENTSCHAPTER I

PAGEThe* Empire and the Barbarians ... 3

CHAPTER IIThe Huns and Attila ..... 21

CHAPTER IIIAttila and the Eastern Empire ... 37

CHAPTER IVThe Imperial Embassy at the Court of Attila 61

CHAPTER VThe Attack upon the West .... 77

CHAPTER VIAttila's Advance from the Rhine to Orleans 93

CHAPTER VIIThe Retreat of Attila and the Battle of

the catalaunian plains . . . .111


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xiv ATTILA AND THE HUNSCHAPTER VIII

PAOEAttila's Attack upon and Retreat fromItaly ....... 127

CHAPTER IXAttila's Home-coming ..... 145

MAIN SOURCESI. Ammiani Marcellini Rerum Gestarum,

Liber XXXI . . . . .153II. Ex Historia Byzantina Prisci Rhetoris

et Sophistae . . . . .159Ex Historia Gothica Prisci Rhetoris et

Sophistae...... 170III. Jornandes : De Rebus Geticis . . 207IV. Ex Vita MS. Sancti Aniani Episcopi

Aurelianensis . . . . . 225


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I

THE EMPIRE AND THE BARBARIANS


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THE EMPIRE AND THE BARBARIANSAT the opening of the fifth century of ourii. era the Roman Empire had long been

not only the civilised world but Christendom.The four centuries which had passed since thebirth of Our Lord had seen in fact the founda-tion of Europe, not as we know it to-day amosaic of hostile nationalities, but as oneperfect whole in which all that is worth havingin the world lay like a treasure. There wereborn and founded that they might alwaysendure, the culture, the civilisation and theFaith which we enjoy and by which we live.There were established for ever the great linesupon which our art was to develop, to changeand yet not to die. There was erected thesupremacy of the idea that it might alwaysrenew our lives, our culture, and our polity,that we might always judge everything byit and fear neither revolution, nor defeat nordecay. There we Europeans were establishedin the secure possession of our own souls; so


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4 ATTILA AND THE HUNSthat we alone in the world develop from withinto change but never to die, and to be, alonein the world, Christians.The outward and visible sign of the Empire,

which above everything else distinguished itfrom the world which surrounded it, as anisland is surrounded by an unmapped sea, wasthe Pax Romana. This was domestic as wellas political. It ensured a complete andabsolute order, the condition of civilisation,and, established through many generations,it seemed immutable and unbreakable. Alongwith it went a conception of law and ofproperty more fundamental than anything weare now able to appreciate, while free exchangewas assured by a complete system of com-munication and admirable roads. There isindeed scarcely anything that is really funda-mental in our lives and in our politics that wasnot there created. It was there our religion,the soul of Europe, was born and little bylittle became the energy and the cause of allthat undying but changeful principle of lifeand freedom which rightly understood isEurope. Our ideas of justice, our ideas oflaw, our conception of human dignity and thestructure of our society were there conceived,and with such force that while we endure they


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EMPIRE AND THE BARBARIANS 5can never die. In truth, the Empire which ithad taken more than a millennium to buildwas the most successful and perhaps the mostbeneficent experiment in universal governmentthat has ever been made.The Empire fell. Why ?We cannot answer that question. The

causes of such a catastrophe, spiritual andmaterial, are for the most part hidden from usin the darkness that followed the catastrophe,in which civilisation in the West all but perished.All we can do is to note that the administra-tion of this great State became so expensivethat when Alaric came over the Alps in 401 itwas probably already bankrupt and in conse-quence the population was declining ; and thatthe military problem before the Empire, thedefence of its frontiers against the outer welterof barbarism, was so expensive and so naturallyinsecure that it was difficult to ensure and im-possible with due economy. Finally we oughtto be sure that though the Empire decayedand fell, it was not overthrown by the Bar-barians. As in this book we are concernednot indeed with the Barbarian invasions as awhole but nevertheless with the most fright-ful and perhaps the most destructive amongthem, we shall do well to consider more


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6 ATTILA AND THE HUNSparticularly here for a moment one of thecauses of that fall, though not the chief one aswe have said ; the insecurity of the frontiers,namely, and the problem this proposed whichthe Empire was, alas, unable to solve.The Empire was confined on the west by

the ocean, on the south by the desert ofAfrica, on the east by the Caspian Sea and thePersian Gulf, on the north by the Rhine andthe Danube, the Black Sea and the Caucasus.

It was that northern frontier which was afundamental weakness and which at leastfrom the middle of the third century con-tinually occupied the mind of the Romanadministration. How to hold it ?Beyond that frontier lay a world largely un-

known, a mere wilderness of barbarians, tribesalways restless, always at war, always pressingupon the confines of civilisation. Within layall that is worth having in our lives, the hopeof the world. It was this which, then as now,had to be defended and against the sameenemybarbarism. For barbarism does notbecome less barbarous when it becomeslearned, a savage is a savage even in profes-sorial dress. For this cause it is writtenchange your hearts and not your garments.The defence, then, of the frontier had been


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EMPIRE AND THE BARBARIANS 7the chief problem of the Empire perhaps fromits foundation by Augustus and certainly fortwo hundred years before Alaric crossed theAlps. Its solution was attempted in variousways, before, in the year 292, Diocletianattempted to deal with it by the revolutionaryscheme of dividing the Empire. But thedivision he made was, and perhaps unavoid-ably, rather racial than strategic, the twoparts of the Empire met at a critical point onthe Danube and by force of geography theeastern part was inclined to an Asiatic outlookand to the neglect of the Danube, while thewestern was by no means strong enough to holdthe tremendous line of the two rivers. Never-theless the West made an heroic attempt tofulfil its too onerous duty. The capital of thevicariate of Italy was removed from Rome toMilan. This tremendous act was purelystrategical. It was thought, and rightly, thatthe frontier would be more readily securedfrom Milan, which held, as it were, all the passesof the Alps in its hands, than from Rome inthe midst of the long peninsula of Italy. Itwas a change more amazing than the removalof the capital of the British Empire from Lon-don to Edinburgh would be ; but it was notenough. In 330, seventeen years after Chris-


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8 ATTILA AND THE HUNStianity had become the official religion of theEmpire, Constantine the Great for the samereasons of defence removed the seat of theEmpire to Byzantium, the new Rome on theBosphorus, which he renamed Constantinople.That move, which has been so strongly con-

demned, would seem in any right apprehensionof what followed to have saved what could besaved out of the foreseen and perhaps inevit-able debacle. Constantinople remained till1453 the secure capital of the Eastern Govern-ment and of a Roman civilisation ; it endured,and in more than one critical period held upthe citadel of the WestItalyin its hands.It may be that nothing could have securedthe West; that the foundation of Constanti-nople saved the East is certain. Because theWest was the weaker and the richer, becausethe name of Rome was so tremendous, theWest, as we know, bore the full brunt of theBarbarian assault. That assault was a muchlooser and more haphazard affair than we havebeen wont to believe. The West was ratherengulfed than defeated. For a time it waslost in a sea of barbarism ; that it emerged,that it rearose, and that we are what we are,we owe to the foundation of Constantinopleand to the Catholic Church.


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EMPIRE AND THE BARBARIANS 9I say that the Empire was rather engulfed

than defeated. Let us consider this.In the year 375 the frontiers were secure ;

nevertheless before then the defence hadfailed. Long before then it had becomeobvious that the vast hordes of Barbariansbeyond the Rhine and the Danube could notbe held back if anything should occur to drivethem on. If they came on they would have tobe met, not beyond, or even upon the rivers,but within the Empire itself.

If anything should occur to drive them on.. . . In the year 375 this befell. AmmianusMarcellinus, the contemporary Roman his-torian, writing of the incursions of the Bar-barians, asserts that all the evils which befellthe Empire at that time were due to one peoplethe Huns. In the year 375 the Huns werefinally victorious over the Goths who in 376 inutter despair appealed to the Eastern EmperorValens for protection. Suppliant multitudesof that warlike nation, we read of the Goths, whose pride was now humbled in the dust,covered a space of many miles along the banksof the Danube. With outstretched arms andpathetic lamentations they loudly deploredtheir past misfortunes and their present dangeracknowledged that their only hope of safety


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10 ATTILA AND THE HUNSwas in the clemency of the Roman Govern-ment ; and most solemnly protested that ifthe gracious liberality of the Emperor wouldpermit them to cultivate the waste lands ofThrace they would ever hold themselves boundby the strongest obligations of duty andgratitude to obey the laws and guard the tenetsof the republic. Their prayers were grantedand their service was accepted by the ImperialGovernment. They were transported over theDanube into the Roman Empire. In someways this act and its date 376 are among themost momentous in the history of Europe.

Undisciplined and restless this nation ofnear a million Barbarians suddenly introducedinto civilisation was a constant anxiety anddanger. Ignorant of the laws they had swornto keep, as well as of the obligations andprivileges of civilisation, the Goths were at themercy of their masters, who exploited themwithout scruple, till driven to madness theyrevolted and began the fatal march throughMoesia, entering Thrace at last not as theguests of the Empire but as its victoriousenemy. They encamped under the walls ofHadrianople which presently they besieged,laying waste the provinces ; and it was not tillTheodosius had ascended the Imperial throne


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EMPIRE AND THE BARBARIANS 11that they were successfully dealt with, forcedto submit, and settled in Thrace and AsiaMinor.But such a result could not endure. The

Barbarians but awaited a leader, and when heappeared, as he did in the person of Alaric,after the death of Theodosius, they turned onConstantinople itself, which they were able toapproach but not to blockade. In 396 Alaricmarched southward into Greece ; from Ther-mopylae to Sparta he pursued his victoriousway, avoiding Athens rather from super-stition than from fear of any mortal foe.Early in 396, however, Stilicho, who was laterto win such fame in the Italian campaign, setsail from Italy, met Alaric in Arcadia, turnedhim back and seemed about to compel hissurrender in the prison of the Peloponnesus.In this, however, he was not successful. Alaricwas able to cut his way out and by rapidmarches to reach the Gulf of Corinth and totransport his troops, his captives and his spoilto the opposite shore. There he succeeded innegotiating a treaty with Constantinoplewhereby he entered its pay and was declaredMaster General of Eastern Illyricum. Thisbefell in 399.The intervention of Stilicho, successful


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12 ATTILA AND THE HUNSthough it had been, had proved one thingbefore all others ; the political separation ofthe East and the West. The sailing of Stilichoand his army was the intervention of theWest to save the East, for it was the Eastthat was then in danger. The West wasbetrayed. The East made terms with theBarbarian and employed him. It behovedthe West to look to itself, for it was obviousthat the East would save itself at last bysacrificing the West.The West was ready. A scheme of defence

had been prepared which, as we shall see, wasthe best that could in the circumstances havebeen devised. With a directness and a clarityworthy of Rome the advisers of Honorius,then in Milan, determined to sacrifice every-thing if need be to the defence of the Europeancitadel, of Italy that is ; and, after all, con-sidering the position of Alaric in Illyricum, itwas that which was chiefly threatened. If itfell it was certain that the whole of the Westmust collapse.The problem before the advisers of Honorius

was not an easy one. To solve it with cer-tainty enormous sacrifices were necessary, butto solve it meant the salvation of the world.It was therefore determined to abandon the


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EMPIRE AND THE BARBARIANS 13Rhine and the Danube, for already Alaric waswithin those lines. It was determinedandthis was the decisive thingto abandon theAlps, to make, that is to say, Cisalpine Gaul,or as we say the Lombard Plain, the battle-field, and to hold Italy proper along the lineof the Apennines. I have examined and ex-plained this strategy at length elsewhere ;here it is only necessary to say that its amazingsuccess justified a policy so realistic.The theory of the commanders of Honorius

was that the Apennines were by nature im-pregnable save at one place, the narrow passbetween them and the Adriatic, which theyhad long designed Ravenna to hold. Theirintention to hold this line was determined notonly by this theory, but by this, too, that theywere something more than uncertain of theattitude of the Eastern Empire. Theirstrategy meant the abandonment of the richestprovince south of the Alps, the richest and themost ancient ; but if the military theorywhich regarded the Apennines as impassablewere right it meant the certain and immediatesalvation of the soul of the West and theeventual salvation of the whole.

Honorius and his ministers had not long to1 See my Kavenna (Dent, 1913), pp. 1-10).


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14 ATTILA AND THE HUNSwait. Having looted the provinces of Europewithin the dominion of the Eastern Emperor,Alaric tempted by the power, the beautyand the wealth of Italy . . . secretly aspiredto plant the Gothic standard on the walls ofRome, and to enrich his army with the accumu-lated spoils of an hundred triumphs.

In November, 401, Alaric entered Venetiaby the Julian Alps and passed by Aquileiawithout taking it, intent on the spoil of theSouth. As he came on Honorius retired fromMilan to Ravenna ; the gates of Italy werebarred. Then came Stilicho over the CisalpinePlain, met Alaric, who had crossed the Po,at Pollentia, and defeated him and, followinghis retreat, broke him at Asta so that he com-pelled him to recross the Alps. In 403 Alaricagain entered Venetia. Stilicho met him atVerona and once more hurled him back. Thebarred gates of Italy had scarce been ques-tioned.

It was not Alaric, after all, but anotherBarbarian, Radagaisus, who was first to demandan entrance. In 405 he traversed the sameAlpine passes as Alaric had used, passedAquileia, crossed the Po and shunning theVia Emilia, which led through the passRavenna barred, adventured over the Apen-


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EMPIRE AND THE BARBARIANS 15nines which the Roman generals had con-ceived as impassable by a Barbarian army.They were right. When Radagaisus saw theSouth he was starving. Stilicho found himat Fiesole and cut him to pieces. But theremnant of his army escaped as Alaric haddone, it was not annihilated ; it returnedthrough Cisalpine Gaul and fell upon Gaulproper. Then in 408 Stilicho was murderedin Ravenna by order of the Emperor.

This last disaster was the cause of whatimmediately followed. When in 408 Alaricinvaded Venetia he looted and destroyed ashe wished, for there was no one to meet him.He took the great road southward and foundthe gate open ; passed Ravenna withoutopposition, marched to Rome and after threesieges entered and pillaged it and was on hisway southward to enjoy and to loot the Southand Sicily, Placidia, the Emperor's sister, acaptive in his train, when he died at Cosenzain 410. His brother-in-law Adolphus, erectedas king upon the shields of the Gothsthereby the monstrous grave of his predecessorconcluded a peace with Honorius similar tothat which years before Alaric had made withConstantinople. He was received into theImperial service, consented to cross the Alps,


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16 ATTILA AND THE HUNSand, what was to become a precedent for a yetmore outrageous demand, received the handof Placidia, the Emperor's sister, in marriage.Thus the retreat of the Barbarian was secured,the peace of Italy restored and a repose ob-tained which endured for some forty-twoyears.

It is interesting to observe the extraordinarylikeness between Alaric's attack upon theEast and his invasion of the West. Indeed,the only difference between them is the factthat Constantinople was never really in danger,whereas Rome was entered and looted. Theintention of both invasions was the sameloot ; the result of both was the sametributeand service in return for the evacuation ofthe immediate provinces by the Barbarian.The Imperial failure East and West was a

failure in morale and in politics ; it was notrightly understood a military failure : Alarichad always been defeated when he was attacked.It was the failure of the West to attack himthat gave him Rome at last. The Imperialadvisers perhaps thought they had solved thequestion he had propounded to them, when,after Alaric's death, they had obtained the re-treat of the Barbarian across the Alpsa retreathe was as glad to carry out as they to order,


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EMPIRE AND THE BARBARIANS 17for he was in a sort of trapand had securedat least his neutrality by admitting him intothe service of the Empire. But the peace ofmore than a generation which followed theiract was as illusory as it was contemptible.The whole Empire had received from Alaric

a moral blow from which it was never reallyto recover. It is true that much whichhappened in the years that immediatelyfollowed the retreat of Adolphus was fortunate.Placidia the spoil and the bride and later thefugitive widow of Alaric's successor returnedin triumph to Ravenna to be the unwillingbride of her deliverer Constantius. Largelythrough her influence, after the death ofHonorius, when she ruled in Ravenna with thetitle of Augusta as the guardian of her son, theyoung Caesar Valentinian, between East andWest, a new, if unsubstantial, cordiality ap-peared. Italy at least was restored to pros-perity, while in Aetius she possessed a generalas great as the great Stilicho. But if Italywas safe the provinces were in peril and sheherself saw Africa betrayed by Boniface andravaged by and lost to the Vandals underGenseric. Nor was the domestic state of herhousehold and court such as to inspire herwith confidence in the future. If her son


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18 ATTILA AND THE HUNSValentinian was a foolish and sensual boy,her daughter Honoria was discovered in alow intrigue with a chamberlain of the palace,and when in exile at Constantinople sent, per-haps longing for the romantic fate of hermother, her ring to the new and youthfulKing of the Huns, soon to be famous as Attila,inviting him to carry her off as Adolphus, theGoth, had carried off Placidia.Such was the condition of things in the

royal household of the West. In Constanti-nople things were not more promising. Theo-dosius, the young Emperor, called the Calli-grapher, was a dilettante of the fine arts, nota statesman. Those who surrounded himwere mediocrities intent rather on theologicalcontroversies than on the safety of the State,or sunk in a cynical corruption in which every-thing noble was lost. No one East or Westseemed able to grasp or to realise that therewas any danger. Had the Imperial Govern-ments failed altogether to understand thefundamental cause of the Gothic advance, theVandal attack, indeed of all their embarrass-ments ? Had they failed to remember whatwas there beyond the Rhine and the Danube ?Had they forgotten the Huns ?


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II

THE HUNS AND ATTILA


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IITHE HUNS AND ATTILA

THE people called the Huns, scarcelymentioned in other records, are fullydescribed by that Ammianus Marcellinus 1whom I have already quoted. He lived at theend of the fourth century, was a Romanhistorian born of Greek parents at Antioch,and after fighting in Gaul, in Germany and theEast, settled in Rome and devoted himself tohistory. He describes the Huns as livingbeyond the Sea of Azov on the borders of theFrozen Ocean. And adds that they were apeople savage beyond all parallel. He thengives us the following careful description ofthem :

In their earliest infancy deep incisions aremade in the cheeks of their boys 2 so thatwhen the time comes for the beard to growthe sprouting hairs may be kept back by the

1 In the thirty-first book of his History of Rome : seeAppendix I.2 The Prussian student is even to-day famous for the

scars on his face inflicted in the duels at the Universities.21


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22 ATTILA AND THE HUNSfurrowed scars, and therefore they grow toold age as beardless as eunuchs. At the sametime all have strong and well-built limbs andstrong necks ; they are indeed of great size,but so short-legged that you might fancy themto be two-legged beasts, or the figures whichare hewn out in a rude manner with an axeon the posts at the end of bridges. 1 They do, however, just bear the likenessof men (horribly ugly though they be), butthey are so little advanced in civilisation thatthey make no use of fire, nor of seasoned food,but live on roots which they find in the fields,or on the half raw flesh of any animal whichthey merely warm a little by placing it betweentheir own thighs and the backs of their horses.

They do not live under roofed houses butlook upon them as tombs and will only enterthem of necessity. Nor is there to be foundamong them so much as a cabin thatched withreed ; but they wander about over the moun-tains and through the woods training them-selves to bear from their infancy the extremesof frost and hunger and thirst.

They wear linen clothes or else the skins1 Cf. the physique of the ordinary Prussian at its most

characteristic in Von Hindenberg, who really seems to havebeen hewn out of wood.


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THE HUNS AND ATTILA 23of field mice sewn together, and this both athome and abroad. When once such a tunic isput on, it is never changed till from long decayit falls to pieces. Their heads are covered withround caps and their hairy legs with goatskins and their shoes which are ignorant ofany last are so clumsy as to hinder them inwalking.

For this cause they are not well suitedfor infantry ; but, on the other hand, they arealmost one with their horses, which are poorlyshaped but hardy ; often they sit them likewomen. In truth they can remain on horse-back night and day ; on horseback they buyand sell, they eat and drink, and bowed onthe narrow neck of their steeds they evensleep and dream. On horseback too theydiscuss and deliberate. They are not, how-ever, under the authority of a king, but arecontent with the loose government of theirchiefs.

When attacked they sometimes engage inregular battle formed in a solid body and utter-ing all kinds of terrific yells. More often,however, they fight irregularly, suddenly dis-persing, then reuniting and after inflictinghuge loss upon their enemy will scatter overthe plains hither and thither, avoiding a


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24 ATTILA AND THE HUNSfortified place or an entrenchment. It mustbe confessed that they are very formidablewarriors. . . .

None of them ploughs or even touches aplough-handle ; for they have no settled abode,but are alike homeless and lawless, continuallywandering with their waggons which indeedare their homes. They seem to be ever inflight. . . . Nor if he is asked can any one tellyou where he was born ; for he was conceivedin one place, born in another far away, andbred in another still more remote.

They are treacherous and inconstant andlike brute beasts are utterly ignorant of thedistinction between right and wrong. Theyonly express themselves with difficulty andambiguously, have no respect for any religionor superstition, are immoderately covetous ofgold, and are so fickle and cantankerous thatmany times in a day they will quarrel withtheir comrades without cause and be recon-ciled without satisfaction. *Such were the people who according to

Ammianus were the original cause of all1 It was a modern and famous German who not long since

declared that the Prussians were such quarrelsome and dis-agreeable brutes that it was only their propensity to drinkbeer and that continually that mollified them sufficiently tobe regarded as human beings.


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26 ATTILA AND THE HUNSthreaten Christendom and its capitals, Con-stantinople and Rome.It was not till the two brothers Attila andBleda ascended the Hunnish throne, if throneit can be called, in the year 423, that the Hunsreally became immediately and directly danger-ous to civilisation.That civilisation already half bankrupt andin transition had, as we have seen, been be-

wildered and wounded by the actual incursionof Barbarian armies south of the Danubeand the Rhine, nay within the heart of theEmpire, within reach of Constantinople, withinthe very walls of Rome. It was now to beassaulted by a savage horde, wholly heathen,intent on murder and rape, loot and destruc-tion.The contrast between the two attacks, the

attack of Alaric and that of Attila, is verystriking. To admire Alaric, even to defendhim, is obviously not impossible, since somany historians have been found ready to doboth. No voice unless it be Kaiser Wilhelm'shas ever been raised in behalf of Attila.Here was the Empire, Christendom ; he fellupon it like a wild beast. At least theGoths were Christianthough AriantheHuns were pagan heathen. At least Alaric


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THE HUNS AND ATTILA 27had revered the Roman name and sought toassume it ; Attila despised and hated it andwould have destroyed it utterly. But if thereis this moral contrast between the Gothicand the Hunnish attacks upon the Empire,militarily they are alike in this above all thatboth were directed first upon the East and wereonly turned upon the West after a sort offailure. Happily for us the attacks of Attila,while infinitely more damaging, were not nearlyso dangerous as those of Alaric. The Empirewas assaulted by an assassin ; it was delivered.The Roman system with regard to the

Barbarians had long been established whenTheodosius II ascended the Eastern throne.It consisted not only in employing Barbariansas auxiliariesthus Uldis and his Huns hadfought under Stilicho against Radagaisus atthe battle of Fiesole ; but in setting thedifferent Barbarian tribes and races one againstanother. The Huns especially had beenfavoured by the Empire in this way, Stilichoknew them well and Aetius who was at lastto defeat them upon the Catalaunian plainsowed them perhaps his life in the crisis thatfollowed the death of his rival Boniface in433. But that policy, always dangerous, andthe more so if it were inevitable, was already


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28 ATTILA AND THE HUNSbankrupt. The dispersal through the provincesof the Goths, the Vandals, the Alani, Sueviand other tribes left the Empire face to faceupon its northern frontier with the real forcewhich had driven them on. In 432 we findRoua, King of the Huns, in receipt of an annualsubsidy, scarcely to be distinguished from atribute, of 350 pounds' weight of gold. Heit was who perhaps first broke the old Romanpolicy. When the Empire, according to itscustom, made alliances with certain Barbariantribes his neighbours, he claimed them as hissubjects and immediately swore that he woulddenounce all his treaties with the Empire unlessthe Emperor broke off these alliances. More-over, he demanded that all those of his sub-jects then within the Empire should be restoredto him ; for many had entered the Romanservice to escape his harsh rule. These de-mands could not be ignored or refused. In433 Theodosius was on the point of sendingan embassy to treat with Roua, when he heardthat he was dead and that his two nephews,still young men, Attila and Bleda, had suc-ceeded him. It was they who received theImperial ambassadors.The conference met on the right bank of the

Danube within the Empire, that is near the


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THE HUNS AND ATTILA 29Roman town of Margus or Margum, a city ofMoesia, where the Danube and the Moravameet. The place was known as the Margumplanum on account of the character of thecountry, and was famous as the spot whereDiocletian had defeated Carinus. 1The Byzantine historian Priscus has left us

an account of this strange meeting. The Hunsit seems came on horseback and as they refusedto dismount the Roman ambassadors alsoremained on their horses. It was thus theyheard the arrogant demands of the Hunnishkings : the denunciation by Theodosius ofhis alliance with the Barbarians of the Danube,the expulsion of all the Huns serving in theImperial armies or settled within the Empire,an undertaking not to assist any Barbarianpeople at war with the Huns, and the paymentby the Empire as tribute, tributi nomine, ofseven hundred pounds' weight of gold insteadof the three hundred and fifty given hitherto.To all these demands the ambassadors wereforced to agree as Attila insisted either upontheir acceptance or upon war, and Theodosiuspreferred any humiliation to war. The famous

1 It is curious to remember that this first encounter ofAttila with the Imperial power took place in what is nowServia only fifty miles further down the Danube than Bel-grade.


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30 ATTILA AND THE HUNSconference of Margus was thus a completevictory for the Huns, a victory Attila neverforgot.That Theodosius was ready to accept any

terms which Attila might insist upon is provedby the fact that he immediately delivered upto him his two guests, young princes of theHuns, and made no protest when Attila cruci-fied them before the eyes of his ambassadors.

This act seems to symbolise at the outsetthe character of Attila and his reign. He wasthen, we may suppose, between thirty andforty years old, and although the youngeralways the master of his brother Bleda, whomhe was soon to murder. Of the place of hisbirth we know nothing, 1 but he grew up onthe Danube and there learned the use of arms,perhaps in the company of the young Aetius,who had been a Roman hostage of Roua andwho was one day to conquer Attila. If we lookfor a portrait of him we shall unhappily notfind it in any contemporary writer ; butJornandes, probably repeating a lost passageof some earlier writer, perhaps Priscus him-self, tells us that he was short, with a mighty

1 It has been suggested that his name Attila is that ofthe Volga in the fifth century and that therefore he was bornupon its banks ; but as well might one say that Roua was bornthere because one of the ancient names of that river was Rha.


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THE HUNS AND ATTILA 31chest, a large head, eyes little and deep-set,a scant beard, flat nose and dark complexion.He thrust his head forward as he went anddarted his glances all about, going proudlywithal, like one destined to terrify the nationsand shake the earth. Hasty and quarrelsome,his , words, like his acts, were sudden andbrutal, but though in war he only destroyed,and left the dead unburied in their thousandsfor a warning ; to those who submitted tohim he was merciful, or at least he sparedthem. He dressed simply and cleanly, ate assimply as he dressed, his food being served onwooden dishes ; indeed his personal temper-ance contrasted with the barbaric extravagancehe had about him. Nevertheless he was aBarbarian with the instincts of a savage.Constantly drunk he devoured women with aferocious passion, every day having its victim,and his bastards formed indeed a people. Heknew no religion but surrounded himself withsorcerers, for he was intensely superstitious. 1As a general he was seldom in the field, hecommanded rather than led and ever pre-ferred diplomacy to battle.2 His greatest

1 For all this seo Appendix : Jornandes, R. Get., 35 andespecially for his dress and food, Priscus, infra.

2 Cf. Jorn., R. Get., 36: Homo subtilis antequam armagereret, arte pugnabat. ...


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32 ATTILA AND THE HUNSweapon was prevarication. He would debatea matter for years and the continual embassiesof Theodosius amused without exhaustinghim and his patience. He played with hisvictims as a cat does with a mouse and wouldalways rather buy a victory than win it. Hefound his threat more potent than his deed, andin fact played with the Empire which had somuch to lose, very much as Bismarck playedwith Europe. Like Bismarck too his businesswas the creation of an Empire. His idea, anidea that perhaps even Roua had not failed tounderstand, was the creation of an Empire ofthe North, a Hunnish Empire, in counterpoiseagainst the Roman Empire of the South, tothe south that is of the Rhine and the Danube.For this cause he wished to unite the variousBarbarian tribes and nations under his sceptre,as Bismarck wished to unite the tribes of theGermans under the Prussian sword. He wasto be the Emperor of the North as the RomanEmperors were Emperors of the South. Hadhe lived in our day he would have understoodthat famous telegram of the Kaiser to the Tsarof Russia the Admiral of the Atlantic . . .

It was the business of Theodosius to preventthe realisation of this scheme, nor did he hesi-tate to break the treaty of Margus to achieve


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THE HUNS AND ATTILA 33this. His emissaries attempted to attach tothe Empire the Acatziri, a Hunnish tribe thathad replaced the Alani on the Don. Theirchief, however, fearing for his independence, orstupidly handled, sent word to Attila of theRoman plot. The Hun came down at the headof a great army, and though he spared theAcatziri, for their chief was both wily and aflatterer, he brought all the Barbarians ofthat part within his suzerainty and, returning,soon found himself master of an Empire whichstretched from the North Sea to the Caucasus,and from the Baltic to the Danube and theRhine, an Empire certainly in extent compar-able with that of Rome.

It was in achieving this truly mighty pur-pose that Attila exhibits two of his chiefcharacteristics, his superstition and his cruelty.

It seems that the ancient Scythians on theplain to the east of the Carpathians had foridol and perhaps for God a naked sword, itshilt buried in the earth, its blade pointed sky-ward. To this relic the Romans had giventhe name of the sword of Mars. In the courseof ages the thing had been utterly forgotten,till a Hunnish peasant seeing his mule golame, and finding it wounded in the foot, onseeking for the cause, guided by the blood,


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34 ATTILA AND THE HUNSfound this sword amid the undergrowth andbrought it to Attila who recovered it joyfullyas a gift from heaven and a sign of his destinedsovereignty over all the peoples of the earth.So at least Jornandes relates. 1The other episode exhibits his cruelty. In

founding his empire Attila had certainly mademany enemies and aroused the jealousy ofthose of his own house. At any rate he couldnot remember without impatience that heshared his royalty with Bleda. To one ofhis subtlety such impatience was never with-out a remedy. Bleda was accused of treason,perhaps of plotting with Theodosius, andAttila slew his brother or had him assassin-ated ; and alone turned to enjoy his Barbaryand to face Rome.

1 See Appendix, Jornandes, R. Get., 35.


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IllATTILA AND THE EASTERN EMPIREWHEN Attila had achieved the hege-mony of the North he turned hisattention upon the Empire ; and it is curiousfor us at this moment to note the coincidencethat this first attack upon civilisation wasdelivered at the very spot upon the Danubewhere the Germanic powers in August, 1914,began their offensive. Attila directed hisarmies upon the frontiers of modern Servia atthe point where the Save joins the Danube,where the city of Singidunum rose then andwhere to-day Belgrade stands.The pretext for this assault was almost as

artificial and manufactured as that whichAustria put forward for her attack uponServia. Attila asserted that the Bishop ofthat same frontier town of Margus, on theMorava, where he had made treaty with theEmpire, had crossed the Danube, and havingsecretly obtained access to the sepulchre ofthe Hunnish kings had stolen away its trea-

37


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38 ATTILA AND THE HUNSsures. The Bishop, of course, eagerly deniedthis strange accusation, and it seemed indeedso unlikely that he was guilty that Theodosiuswas exceedingly reluctant to sacrifice him.The people of Moesia clamoured for a decision ;if the Bishop were guilty then he must bedelivered to Attila, but if not Theodosiusmust protect both him and them. For Attilahad waited for nothing ; he had crossed theDanube before making his accusation and hadoccupied Viminacium, one of the greater townsupon the frontier.Meanwhile the Bishop, seeing the hesitation

of Theodosius and expecting to be sacrificed,made his way to the camp of the Huns andpromised in return for his life to deliverMargus to them, and this he did upon thefollowing night. Then, dividing his forcesinto two armies, Attila began his real attackupon the Empire.The first of these armies was directed uponSingidunum, the modern Belgrade, which wastaken and ruined, and when that was achievedit proceeded up the Save to Sirmium, theancient capital of Pannonia, which soon fellinto its hands. The second crossed the Danubefurther eastward and besieged Ratiaria, aconsiderable town, the head-quarters of a


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ATTILA AND EASTERN EMPIRE 41Roman Legion and the station of the fleet ofthe Danube.Having thus, with this second army, securedthe flank, Attila marched his first army fromSingidunum up the Morava to Naissus (Nisch),precisely as the Austrians tried to do butyesterday. They failed, but he succeeded andNaissus fell. Thence he passed on to Sardicawhere he was met by his second army which hadtaken Ratiaria. Sardica was pillaged and burnt.

Attila thus possessed himself in the year441 of the gateways of the Balkans, almostwithout a protest from Theodosius. Fiveyears later, in 446, he was ready to advanceagain. In that year and the next he destroyedtwo Roman armies, took and pillaged someseventy towns, and pushed south as far asThermopylae, and eastward even to Gallipolionly the walls of Constantinople saved thecapital. Theodosius was forced to buy a dis-graceful peace at the price of an immediatepayment of 6000 pounds' weight of gold, anannual tribute, no longer even disguised, of2000 pounds, and an undertaking that theEmpire would never employ or give refuge toany of those whom Attila claimed as hissubjects.

It was easier to agree to such terms than


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42 ATTILA AND THE HUNSto fulfil them. The provinces were ruined,the whole fiscal system of the East in con-fusion, and even what wealth remained was,as Priscus tells us, spent not in nationalpurposes, but on absurd shows and gaudypageants, and all the pleasures and excessesof a licentious society such as would not havebeen permitted in any properly governedState, even in the midst of the greatestprosperity. Attila, who marked the decayand the embarrassment of the Imperial Govern-ment, forewent nothing of his advantage. Hebecame more and more rapacious. When hedid not obtain all he desired he sent anembassy to Constantinople to intimidate thegovernment, and this became a regular meansof blackmail with him, a means more humiliat-ing than war and not less successful.The first of these embassies arrived in

Constantinople immediately after the termsof peace had been agreed upon. It madefurther demands, and was treated with themost extravagant hospitality. Three timeswithin 'a single year other embassies arrived ;they were a means of blackmail and wereassured of an ever-increasing success.The most famous and the most important

of these embassies was that which arrived in


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ATTILA AND EASTERN EMPIRE 43Constantinople in 449. The ambassadors thenemployed by Attila are worthy of notice, forin them we see not only the condition of thingsat that time, but also the naive cunning of theHun. The two chief legates whom Attiladispatched to Constantinople upon this occa-sion were Edecon and Orestes. Edecon was aScythian or Hun by birth, a heathen ofcourse, and a Barbarian, the commander ofthe guard of Attila, and the father of Odoacer,later to be so famous. Orestes, on the otherhand, who was one of Attila's chief ministers,was a Roman provincial of Pannonia, born atPetavium (probably Pettau on the Drave),who had made a fortunate marriage as ayoung man when he allied himself withRomulus, a considerable Roman personage ofthat province. He had, however, deserted theImperial service, certainly open to him, forthat of the Barbarians, and had made hisfortune. Nor was his part in history to beplayed out in the service of Attila, for his sonRomulus was to be the last of the WesternEmperors, contemptuously known to historyas Romulus Augustulus.Orestes was then an adventurer pure andsimple, but in sending him with the BarbarianEdecon, we see the system of Attila in his


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44 ATTILA AND THE HUNSblackmail of the Empire. The employmentof a Roman provincial was a check upon theBarbarian envoy. A bitter jealousy sub-sisted between them, each spied on the other,and thus Attila was well served. The fact thatthe Hun was able to command the servicesof such as Orestes is a sufficient comment uponthe condition of the frontier provinces.

It was these two jealous envoys that, in theearly months of 449, appeared in Constanti-nople bringing, of course, new demands. Theirmission, indeed, was the most insolent thatAttila had so far dared to send. It demandedthree main things ; first, that all the countryto the south of the Danube as far as Naissusshould be regarded as a part of the HunnishEmpire ; second, that in future Theodosiusshould send to the Hunnish court only themost illustrious ambassadors, but if this weredone Attila for his part would consent to meetthem on the frontier at Sardica ; third, thatthe refugees should be delivered up. Thislast demand was a repetition of many that hadgone before it. As before Attila threatened if hisrequests were not granted he would make war.The ambassadors Edecon and Orestes came

to Constantinople where a Roman namedVigilas acted as their guide and interpreter, an


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ATTILA AND EASTERN EMPIRE 45indiscreet and vulgar fellow of whom we shallhear more presently. Received in audienceby Theodosius in the famous palace on theBosphorus, the ambassadors with the inter-preter later visited the chief minister, theeunuch Chrysaphius. On their way theypassed through the noble halls of Constantinedecorated with gold and built of marble, thewhole a vast palace, perhaps as great as theVatican. Edecon, the Hun, was stupefied byso much splendour, he could not forbear toexpress his amazement; Vigilas was not slowto mark this naive astonishment nor todescribe it to Chrysaphius, who presentlyproposed to put it to good use. TakingEdecon apart from Orestes as he talked hesuggested to him that he also might enjoysuch splendour if he would leave the Hunsand enter the service of the Emperor. Afterall it was not more than Orestes had done.But Edecon answered that it would be despic-able to leave one's master without his consent.Chrysaphius then asked what position he heldat the court of Attila, and if he was so muchin the confidence of his master as to have accessfreely to him. To which Edecon answeredthat he approached him when he would, thathe was indeed the chief of his captains and


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46 ATTILA AND THE HUNSkept watch over his person by night. Andwhen Chrysaphius heard this he was contentand told Edecon that if he were capable ofdiscretion he would show him a way to growrich without trouble, but that he must speakwith him more at leisure, which he would dopresently if he would come and sup with himthat evening alone without Orestes or anyfollowing. Already in the mind of the eunucha plan was forming by which he hoped to ridthe Empire once for all of the formidable Hun.Edecon accepted the invitation. Awaiting

him he found Vigilas with Chrysaphius, andafter supper heard apparently without astonish-ment the following amazing proposal. Afterswearing him to secrecy, Chrysaphius explainedthat he proposed to him the assassination ofAttila. If you but succeed in this and gainour frontiers, said he, there will be no limitto our gratitude, you shall be loaded withhonours and riches.The Hun was ready in appearance at least

to agree, but he insisted that he wouldneed money for bribery, not much, but atleast fifty pounds' weight of gold. This heexplained he could not carry back with himas Attila was wont upon the return of hisambassadors to exact a most strict account


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ATTILA AND EASTERN EMPIRE 47of the presents they had received, and sogreat a weight of gold could not escape thenotice of his own companion and servants.He suggested then that Vigilas should accom-pany him home under the pretext of returningthe fugitives and that at the right moment heshould find the money necessary for theproject. Needless to say, Chrysaphius readilyagreed to all that Edecon proposed. He doesnot seem either to have been ashamed to makeso Hunnish a proposal or to have suspectedfor a moment that Edecon was deceiving him.He laid all before Theodosius, won his consentand the approval of Martial his minister.

Together they decided to send an embassyto Attila, to which the better to mask theirintentions Vigilas should be attached as inter-preter. This embassy they proposed to makeas imposing as possible, and to this end theyappointed as its chief a man of a high, but notof consular rank, and of the best reputation.In this they showed a certain ability, for asit seemed to them if their plot failed theycould escape suspicion by means of the reputa-tion of their ambassador. The man theychose was called Maximin, and he fortunatelychose as his secretary Priscus, the Sophist,to whose pen we are indebted for an account


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48 ATTILA AND THE HUNSof all these things. He asserts, and probablywith truth, that neither Maximin nor hehimself was aware of the plot of assassination.They conceived themselves to be engaged in aserious mission and were the more impressedby its importance in that its terms were farless subservient to the Hun than had been thecustom in recent times. Attila was told thathenceforth he must not evade the obligationsof his treaties nor invade at all the Imperialterritories. And with regard to the fugitiveshe was informed that beside those alreadysurrendered seventeen were now sent but thatthere were no more. So ran the letter. ButMaximin was also to say that the Hun mustlook for no ambassador of higher rank thanhimself since it was not the Imperial customtowards the Barbarians ; on the contrary,Rome was used to send to the North anysoldier or messenger who happened to beavailable. And since he had now destroyedSardica his proposal to meet there any ambas-sador of consular rank was merely insolent.If indeed the Hun wished to remove thedifferences between Theodosius and himselfhe should send Onegesius as ambassador.Onegesius was the chief minister of Attila.Such were the two missions, the one official,


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ATTILA AND EASTERN EMPIRE 49the other secret, which set out together fromConstantinople.The great journey seems to have been

almost wholly uneventful as far as Sardica,350 miles from Constantinople, which wasreached after a fortnight of travel. Theyfound that town terribly pillaged but notdestroyed, and the Imperial embassy boughtsheep and oxen, and having prepared dinnerinvited Edecon and his colleagues to share itwith them, for they were still officially withinthe Empire. But within those ruins, evenamong the ambassadors, peace was impossible.Priscus records the ridiculous quarrel whichfollowed. The Huns began to magnify thepower of Attila,was not his work aroundthem ? The Romans knowing the contentsof the letter they bore sang the praises of theEmperor. Suddenly Vigilas, perhaps alreadydrunk, asserted that it was not right to com-pare men with the gods, nor Attila withTheodosius, since Attila was but a man. Onlythe intervention of Maximin and Priscusprevented bloodshed, nor was harmony re-stored till Orestes and Edecon had receivedpresents of silk and jewels. Even these giftswere not made altogether without an un-toward incident. For Orestes in thanking


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50 ATTILA AND THE HUNSMaximin exclaimed that he, Maximin, was notlike those insolent courtiers of Constantinople who gave presents and invitations to Edecon,but none to me. And when Maximin, ignorantof the Chrysaphian plot, demanded explana-tions, Orestes angrily left him. Already theplan of assassination was beginning to fester.The ambassadors went on from ruinedSardica to desolate Naissus (Nisch) utterly

devoid of inhabitants, full only of horror andruins. They crossed a plain sown with humanbones whitening in the sun, and saw the onlywitness to the Hunnish massacre of theinhabitantsa vast cemetery. We found,Priscus tells us, a clean place above the riverwhere we camped and slept.

Close to this ruined town was the Imperialarmy, commanded by Agintheus, under whoseeagles five of the seventeen refugees to be sur-rendered had taken refuge. The Roman general,however, was obliged to give them up. Theirterror as they went on in the ambassadorial traintowards the Danube may well be imagined.The great river at length came in sight ; its

approaches lined and crowded with Huns, thepassages served by the Barbarians in dug-outs,boats formed out of the hollowed trunks oftrees. With these boats the whole Barbarian


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ATTILA AND EASTERN EMPIRE 51shore was littered as though in readiness for theadvance of an army. Indeed, as it appearedAttila was in camp close by, and intent onhunting within the Roman confines to the southof the river, a means certainly of reconnaissanceas habitually used by the Huns as commercehas been for the same end by the Germans.We do not know with what feelings Maximinand Priscus saw all this and crossed the great

river frontier at last and passed into Barbary.To their great chagrin, for they had made theway easy for the Hunnish ambassadors on theroad through the Imperial provinces, Edeconand Orestes now left them brusquely enough.For several days they went on alone but forthe guides Edecon had left them, till one after-noon they were met by two horsemen whoinformed them that they were close to thecamp of Attila who awaited them. Andindeed upon the morrow they beheld from ahill-top the Barbarian tents spread out in-numerable at their feet, and among them thatof the King. They decided to camp thereon the hill ; but a troop of Huns at oncerode up and ordered them to establish them-selves in the plain. What, cried they, will you dare to pitch your tents on theheights when that of Attila is below ?


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52 ATTILA AND THE HUNSThey were scarce established in their ap-

pointed place when to their amazementEdecon and Orestes and others appeared andasked their business, the object of theirembassy. The astonished ambassadors lookedat one another in amaze. When the questionwas repeated Maximin announced that hecould not disclose his mission to any otherthan Attila to whom he was accredited.Scotta, the brother of Onegesius, then an-nounced angrily that Attila had sent them andthey must have an answer. When Maximinagain refused the Huns galloped away.The Romans, however, were not left long

in doubt of the reception they were to get.Scotta and his friends soon returned withoutEdecon, and to the further amazement ofMaximin repeated word for word the contentsof the Imperial letter to Attila. Such, saidthey, is your commission. If this be all departat once. Maximin protested in vain. Nothingremained but to prepare for departure. Vigilaswho knew what Chrysaphius expected wasparticularly furious ; better have lied than toreturn without achieving anything, said he.What to do ? It was already night. Theywere in the midst of Barbary, between themand the Danube lay leagues of wild unfriendly


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ATTILA AND EASTERN EMPIRE 53country. Suddenly as their servants loadedthe beasts for their miserable journey othermessengers arrived from the Hun. Theymight remain in their camp till dawn. Inthat uneasy night, had Vigilas been less of afool, he must have guessed that Edecon hadbetrayed him.

It was not the barbarous Vigilas, however,who found a way out of the difficulty, for atdawn the command to depart was repeated,but that Priscus who has left us so vivid anaccount of this miserable affair. He it waswho, seeing the disgrace of his patron, soughtout Scotta, the brother of Onegesius, the chiefminister of Attila, in the Hunnish camp.With him went Vigilas as interpreter, and socleverly did the Sophist work upon the am-bition of Scotta, pointing out to him not onlythe advantages of peace between the Hunsand the Romans, but also the personal advan-tage Scotta would gain thereby in honour andpresents, and at last feigning to doubt Scotta'sability to achieve even so small a matter asthe reception of the embassy that he had hisway. Scotta rode off to see Attila, Priscusreturned to his patron, and soon after Scottareturned to escort them to the royal tent.The reception must have been a strange


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54 ATTILA AND THE HUNSspectacle. The tent of Attila was quite sur-rounded by a multitude of guards ; within,upon a stool of wood, was seated the greatHun. Priscus, Vigilas and the servants whoattended them bearing the presents remainedupon the threshold. Maximin alone wentforward and gave into Attila's hands theletter of Theodosius saying : The Emperorwishes Attila and all that are his health andlength of days. May the Romans receiveall they desire for me, replied the instructedBarbarian. And turning angrily to Vigilas hesaid : Shameless beast, why hast thou daredto come hither knowing as thou dost theterms of peace I made with thee and Anatolius.Did I not then tell thee that I would receiveno more ambassadors till all the refugees hadbeen surrendered Vigilas replied that theybrought seventeen fugitives with them andthat now there remained no more within theEmpire. This only made Attila more furious : I would crucify thee and give thee as food forthe vultures but for the laws regarding envoys,cried he. As for the refugees, he declaredthere were many still within the Empire, andbade his people read out their names, and thisdone he told Vigilas to depart with Eslas, oneof his officers, to inform Theodosius that he


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ATTILA AND EASTERN EMPIRE 55must forthwith return all the fugitives whohad entered the Empire from the time ofCarpilio, son of Aetius, who had been hishostage. I will never suffer, said he, thatmy slaves shall bear arms against me, uselessthough they be to aid those with whom theyhave found refuge, . . . What city or whatfortress have they been able to defend when Ihave determined to take it ? When he hadsaid these words he grew calmer ; informedMaximin that the order of departure onlyconcerned Vigilas, and prayed the ambassadorto remain and await the reply to the letter ofthe Emperor. The audience closed with thepresentation and acceptance of the Romanpresents.

Vigilas must surely have guessed now whathis dismissal meant. Perhaps, however, hewas too conceited and too stupid to notice it.At any rate he did not enlighten his companionsbut professed himself stupefied by the changeof Attila's demeanour towards him. Thewhole affair was eagerly discussed in theRoman camp. Priscus suggested that Vigilas'unfortunate indiscretion at Sardica had beenreported to Attila and had enraged him.Maximin did not know what to think. Whilethey were still debating Edecon appeared and


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56 ATTILA AND THE HUNStook Vigilas apart. The Hun may well havethought he needed reassurance. He declaredthat he was still true to the plan of Chrysaphius.Moreover, seeing what a fool Vigilas was, hetold him that his dismissal was a contrivanceof his own to enable the interpreter to returnto Constantinople and fetch the moneypromised, which could be introduced as neces-sary to the embassy for the purchase of goods.Vigilas, however, can scarcely have believedhim, at any rate for long ; a few hours laterAttila sent word that none of the Romanswere to be allowed to buy anything but thebare necessities of life from the Huns, neitherhorses, nor other beasts, nor slaves, nor toredeem captives. Vigilas departed with theorder ringing in his ears, upon a mission hemust have known to be hopeless.Two days later Attila broke camp and set

out for his capital, the Roman ambassadorsfollowing in his train under the direction ofguides appointed by the Hun. They had notgone far on their way northward when theywere directed to leave the train of Attila andto follow another route, because, they weretold, the King was about to add one more tohis innumerable wives, Escam, the daughterof a chief in a neighbouring village.


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ATTILA AND EASTERN EMPIRE 57Very curious is Priscus' description of the

way followed by the patron and his embassy.They journeyed across the Hungarian plain,across horrible marshes and lakes which hadto be traversed sometimes on rafts ; theycrossed three great rivers, the Drave, theTemes, and the Theiss in dug-outs, boats suchas they had seen on the Danube hollowed outof the trunks of trees. They lived for themost part on millet which their guides broughtor took from the wretched inhabitants, theydrank mead and beer, and were utterly at themercy of the weather, which was extremelybad. On one occasion, indeed, their campwas entirely destroyed by tempest, and hadit not been for the hospitality of the widowof Bleda they would perhaps have perished.For seven days they made their way into

the heart of Hungary till they came to avillage where their way joined the greaterroute by which Attila was coming. Therethey were forced to await the King, since theymust follow and not precede him. It was inthis place that they met another Romanembassy, that of the Emperor in the West,Valentinian III, who wras quarrelling withAttila about the holy vessels of Sirmium. Itseems that the Bishop of Sirmium in 441,


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58 ATTILA AND THE HUNSseeing his city invested, had gathered hischalices and patens and plate, sacred vesselsof his church, and had sent them secretly to acertain Constantius, a Gaul, at that timeAttila's minister. In case the city fell theywere to be used as ransom, first of the Bishop,and in case of his death of any other captives.Constantius was, however, untrue to the trustplaced in him by the Bishop, and sold orpawned the plate to a silversmith in Rome.Attila hearing of it when Constantius wasbeyond his reach claimed the booty as hisown. It was upon this miserable businessthat Valentinian had sent an embassy toAttila from Ravenna.

It is certainly a shameful and an amazingspectacle we have here. In that little villageof Barbary the ambassadors of the Emperors,East and West, of the Courts of Constanti-nople and Ravenna, of New Rome and of Old,wait in a marsh the passage of a savage thatthey may be allowed to follow in his train andhumbly seek an audience. Surely Attila him-self had arranged that meeting, and as he rodeon to his capital, the two embassies followingin his dust, he must have enjoyed the out-rageous insult to civilisation, the triumph ofbrute force over law.


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IVTHE IMPERIAL EMBASSY AT THE

COURT OF ATTILA


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IVTHE IMPERIAL EMBASSY AT THE

* COURT OF ATTILATHE entry of Attila into his capital waswitnessed by Priscus and has beenrecorded by him with much naive care, for itevidently excited his curiosity and interest.The Hun was met by a procession of maidenswho passed in groups of seven under longveils of white linen, upheld by the matrons oneither side of the way, singing as they passedScythian songs. So they went on towards thepalace past the house of the chief ministerOnegesius, where the wife of the favourite,surrounded by her servants and slaves, awaitedthe King to present him with a cup filled withwine, which he graciously consented to receiveat her hands. Four huge Huns lifted up atray of silver loaded with viands that the Kingmight eat also, which he did without alightingfrom his horse. Then he passed on to his ownhouse. Maximin pitched his camp, it seems,

61


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62 ATTILA AND THE HUNSbetween the house of Onegesius and the palaceof the King.

This palace, built on an eminence, com-manded the whole town or village, and wasremarkable on account of its high towers. Itseems to have consisted of a vast circularenclosure within which were many houses,that of the King and those of his wives andchildren. All was of wood, both enclosures andhouses, but admirably built and polished andornamented with carving. The harem was ofa lighter construction from the palace andhad no towers, but was on all sides ornamentedwith carvings. Not far away from the royalenclosure stood the house of Onegesius,similarly constructed but not so large and fine.But here the minister, a remarkable personage,had constructed, and that in stone, a bath onthe Roman model. It seems that in the sackof Sirmium an architect had been takencaptive. Now Onegesius forced him to buildin the manner of the Romans a completebalnea, and this the captive did as speedily aspossible hoping for his freedom. Stone wasbrought from Pannonia and all was contrivedand finished ; but when the builder claimedhis liberty, Onegesius, seeing that no oneamong the Huns understood the use of this


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THE IMPERIAL EMBASSY 63thing, appointed him balneator, so that thewretched architect was forced to remain toserve the bath he had built.

Onegesius had only just returned from animportant expedition when Attila arrived inhis capital with the Imperial envoys. He hadbeen engaged in finishing the conquest ofAcatziri and was immediately closeted withthe King on his return, so that Maximin wasnot received by him on that first day. In hisanxiety the ambassador grew impatient, andvery early upon the following morning hedispatched Priscus with presents to wait uponthe minister. Priscus found the enclosureshut and no one stirring and while he waitedfor the house to awake he walked up and downin the dawn to keep himself warm. Suddenlyhe was greeted with the Greek salutationXalpe, Hail, or, as we should say, Goodmorning. Startled to hear a civilised tonguein the midst of Barbary he returned thegreeting. And there followed one of the mostinteresting discussions of which we have anyrecord, of the respective merits of civilisationand barbarism, a debate that must have filledin the minds of many at that time. Priscusat last asked the stranger how he was come tobe amongst the Barbarians. Why do you ask


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64 ATTILA AND THE HUNSme ? answered the unknown. Because youspeak Greek like a native, answered Priscus.But the stranger only laughed. Indeed, saidhe, I am Greek. I came for the sake of businessto Viminacium on the Danube in Moesia, andthere I lived many years and married a richwife. But when the Huns stormed the city Ilost all my fortune and became the slave of thisOnegesius whom you are waiting to see. Forit is the custom of the Huns to give the richestto their princes. My new master took me tothe wars where I did well not without profit. Ihave fought with the Romans and the Acatziriand have bought my liberty. I am now becomea Hun, I have married a Barbarian wife andhave children by her ; I am often the guest ofOnegesius, and to tell you the truth I considermy present station preferable to my past. Forwhen war is over one lives here decentlywithout worries, one enjoys one's own. Warnourishes us ; but destroys those who liveunder the Roman Government. Under Romeone has to trust to others for one's safety,since the law forbids one to bear arms even inself-defence, and those who are allowed tofight are betrayed by the ignorance and cor-ruption of their leaders. And even so the evilsof war under the Romans are as nothing to


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THE IMPERIAL EMBASSY 65the evils of peace, the insupportable taxations,the robbery of the tax-gatherers, and theoppression of the powerful. How can it beotherwise since there is there one law for therich and another for the poor ? If a rich mancommits a crime he knows how to profit by itbut if a poor man transgresses the law, perhapsin ignorance, he knows not the formalities andis ruined. Justice can only be obtained at agreat price, and this in my opinion is the worstof evils. You must buy an advocate to pleadfor you, and only after depositing a sum ofmoney as security can you plead at all or obtainsentence.Thus for a long time the renegade from

civilisation defended himself and the Bar-barians, and when at length he was silentPriscus begged him to listen patiently while hedefended what, after all, was the future of theworld. What appears most to have excitedthe animosity of the apostate was, as we mightexpect, the Roman law and its processes, andit is these that Priscus first defends. Heexplains the division of labour and responsi-bility peculiar to civilisation, the structure ofthe Roman State and society, divided, accord-ing to him, into three classes ; those concernedwith the making and administration of the law ;


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66 ATTILA AND THE HUNSthose concerned with national and publicsafety ; and those who till the soil. He defendsall this nobly and eloquently, the logic andclarity of its complexity against the appal-ling promiscuity and confusion of Barbariananarchy. He shows the individual as a part ofsociety, and in the main his view of civilisationis ours, we can applaud and understand it.Even the apostate stranger is moved at last.There in the Hunnish land at dawn one morn-ing, carried back by the eloquence of Priscus toall he had lost, he weeps and exclaims : Thelaw of the Romans is good ; their Republicnobly ordered, but evil magistrates havecorrupted it. He might have said more butthat just then a servant of Onegesius ap-peared and Priscus left him never to see himagain.

In instructing Maximin especially to nego-tiate with Onegesius, Theodosius and Chry-saphius doubtless hoped to win this man bydiplomacy as they thought they had wonEdecon, by corruption. Their calculationswere doomed to disappointment ; for bothOnegesius and Edecon seem to have beenloyal to their master, and Edecon had alreadyacquainted him with the plot against his life.It might seem certain that Onegesius also was


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THE IMPERIAL EMBASSY 67now aware of this. Having accepted thepresents sent him, and learnt that Maximindesired to see him, he decided to visit him atonce, and without delay repaired to the Romanencampment. There Maximin opened hisbusiness. He explained the necessity forpeace between the Huns and the Empire, thehonour of establishing which he hoped toshare with Attila's minister, to whom heprophesied every sort of honour and benefit ifhe should succeed. But the Hun was not con-vinced. How can I arrange such a peace ? he asked. In short, by deciding the pointsin dispute between us with justice, as naivelyreplied Maximin. The Emperor will acceptyour decision. But, answered Onegesius, I have no will but that of my master. He didnot understand the difference between civilisa-tion and barbarism any more than the modernGerman sees the gulf fixed between Civilisationand Kultur. Slavery, said he, wouldbe sweeter to me in the kingdom of Attilathan all the honours and all the wealth of theRoman Empire. Then as though to softenwhat he had said, he added that he couldserve the cause of peace which Maximin hadat heart better at the Court of Attila than atConstantinople.


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68 ATTILA AND THE HUNSBut it was now time to present the Queen

a favourite wife of Attilawith her gifts. Thisembassy was again entrusted to Priscus. Hefound her in her apartments seated on cushionssurrounded by her women and slaves on eitherside, the women at work embroidering clothesfor the men. It was on coming out from theseapartments that Priscus saw Attila for thefirst time since his arrival. Hearing a greatnoise he went to see what was the cause andsoon perceived the Hun with Onegesius onthe way to administer justice before the gateof his palace. There too within the enclosurehe found the Roman ambassadors fromRavenna. With them he compared notes, andsoon learned that they had been no moresuccessful than Maximin. But presentlyOnegesius sent for him and informed him thatAttila was determined to receive no moreambassadors from Theodosius unless they wereof consular rank, and he named three personswho would be acceptable. Priscus naivelyanswered that thus to designate ambassadorsmust necessarily render them suspect to theirown Government, forgetting that Maximinhad done the same but a few hours before.But Onegesius answered roughly : It must beso or there will be war. Much disheartened


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THE IMPERIAL EMBASSY 69Priscus made his way back to the Romancamp and there found Tatallus, the father ofOrestes, who had come to inform Maximinthat Attila expected him to dine with him.

This dinner to which the ambassadors ofValentinian were also invited took place in alarge salone furnished with little tables forfour or five persons each, at three o'clock inthe afternoon. Upon the threshold the ambas-sadors were offered cups of wine in which todrink the health of the King, who reclined inthe midst before a table, on a couch set upona platform or dais, so that he was set upabove his guests ; beside him but lower satEllak his heir, who dared not lift his eyesfrom the ground. Upon his right wereOnegesius and two other sons of the King,upon his left were placed the ambassadors.When all were assembled Attila drank toMaximin who stood up to acknowledge hiscondescension and drank in return. A likeceremony was performed by all the ambas-sadors in turn. Then the feast was servedupon plates and dishes of silver and the winein cups of gold ; only Attila ate and drankfrom wooden dishes and a wooden cup. Beforeeach course the drinking ceremony of saluta-tion was performed again, and as the banquet


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70 ATTILA AND THE HUNSlasted well on into the darkness, when torcheswere lighted and Hunnish poets sang orchanted their verses in the Barbarian tonguecelebrating the glories of war and victory tothe delight of the assembly whose eyes shonewith emotion, the young with tears of desireand the old with fright, few can have beensober when a buffoon and then the famousdwarf Zercan began to set the tables in a roar ;though Attila remained grave and unmoved.So the days passed without anything being

accomplished. The impatient ambassadorswere compelled to attend a similar dinnergiven in their honour by the Queen Kerka, andagain they dined with Attila ; but nothingwas discussed or decided. Several times,indeed, Attila spoke to Maximin of a matterhe apparently had at heart, namely, themarriage of his secretary Constantius, whosome years earlier had been sent to Constanti-nople, and whom Theodosius had promised arich wife on condition that peace was notbroken. The wife chosen, however, wasspirited away and this had become a grievance,Attila being so enraged that he sent word toTheodosius that if he could not keep order inhis own house, he, Attila, would come andhelp him. Of course Constantius was promised


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THE IMPERIAL EMBASSY 71another and a richer heiress, and it was thismatter that Attila preferred to discuss withMaximin rather than the letter he had broughtfrom the Emperor.At last, in despair, Maximin demanded leave

to depart, and this appears to have beengranted as soon as Attila knew that Vigilaswas on his way back from Constantinople.It is possible that the Hun had only detainedthe ambassadors as hostages, or to satisfyhimself that they were ignorant of the plotagainst his life. They went at last withoutsatisfaction, but not empty-handed. Attilahad them loaded with presents, skins, horses,embroideries, nor was their journey backwithout incident. A few days' march on theirway, near the frontier, Priscus tells us theysaw the horrid and ill-omened spectacle of arefugee crucified beside the road. A littlefurther on they saw two Romans put to deathwith every sort of barbarous cruelty beforetheir eyes. These were the reminders ofAttila. Not far from the Danube they metVigilas and his Hunnish companion, in realityhis guard, Esla.

This conceited fool, for indeed he was asmuch a fool as a villain, had with him twicethe weight of gold promised to Edecon, and,


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72 ATTILA AND THE HUNSmoreover, he brought also his only son, a youthof six-and-twenty years. He had altogetherdelivered himself into Attila's hands. LeavingMaximin and his embassy to make their wayback to Constantinople Vigilas went on intoBarbary, intent on the assassination of Attila,and had no sooner set foot in the Hunnishcapital than he was seized, his baggage openedand the gold discovered. When asked toexplain these riches, he answered that theywere for his own use and that of his entourage,and that he proposed to ransom the Romancaptives and to purchase horses, skins andembroideries. Evil beast, shouted Attila, thou liest, but thy lies deceive none. Thenhe bade seize the youth Vigilas' son, andswore to have him killed there and then if thefather did not confess. Then Vigilas, seeinghis child in so great a peril, became dementedand cried out : Do not kill my son, for he isignorant and innocent of all ; I alone amguilty. And he confessed all the plot to killAttila that Chrysaphius had devised withhim. And Attila heard him out, and seeingwhat he said agreed with the report of Edeconhe knew he heard the truth. After a little hebade loose the youth and sent him back toConstantinople to bring him another hundred


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THE IMPERIAL EMBASSY 73pounds' weight of gold for the ransom of Vigilashis father, whom he loaded with chains, andflung into prison. And with the young manhe sent two ambassadors, Orestes and Esla,with his demands to the Emperor.They came to Constantinople ; they had

audience of Theodosius. Round the neck ofOrestes hung the sack in which Vigilas hadbrought the price of assassination to Barbary.Esla, as he stood there, demanded of Chry-saphius if he recognised it, and when heanswered not, turned to the Emperor andsaid, Attila, son of Moundzoukh, and Theo-dosius are two sons of noble fathers ; Attilahas remained worthy of his parent, butTheodosius has betrayed his because in payingtribute to Attila he has owned himself hisslave. Nor as a slave has he been faithful tohis master, nor will Attila cease to proclaimhis iniquity, for he has become the accompliceof Chrysaphius the eunuch since he does notdeliver him to punishment as he deserves.

There was no answer. Plumiliated andafraid the Emperor did everything accordingto the bidding of Attila, save only he refusedhim the head of Chrysaphius. The greatestofficers of the Empire were sent as ambassadorsand Attila humiliated them at his pleasure ; a


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74 ATTILA AND THE HUNSrich widow was found for Constantius, goldand silver were poured out at Attila's feet.Yet he demanded the head of Chrysaphius.At last, in the year 450, two Gothic messengers,it is said, arrived from the Hun, the one atConstantinople, the other at Ravenna. Uponthe same day and at the same hour theyappeared before Theodosius and Valentinianand delivered this message : Attila, mymaster and thine, bids thee prepare a palacefor him. Imperat per me Dominus meus etDominus tuus Attilas, ut sibi palatiuminstruas.That insolent message, if indeed it was ever

delivered, fell upon deaf ears. Upon July 25,450, Theodosius died, and three months laterPlacidia the mother and good genius ofValentinian, the real ruler of the West, diedalso. A new Emperor, Marcian, reigned atConstantinople. Chrysaphius was put to death,and Marcian, an old soldier, at once faced Attilawith something of the ancient Roman energy.The Barbarian turned away to consider howhe might loot the West.


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t

THE ATTACK UPON THE WEST


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attila and the huns (1915)

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