Attila the Hun - The Entire History (Audio Podcast)

Welcome to flashpoint history time periods that changed the world i'd like to thank everybody for listening to this podcast today this is going to be the first of a three-part series on attila the hun one of the hardest parts to this podcast was to determine exactly where to begin if you look up attila online or in any type of book he's immediately portrayed as this mass murdering villain someone who blitzed his way through europe raised cities to the ground murdered countless times someone who if you look him up online you're gonna immediately be blasted by

images of one of the most evil men in history a barbarian someone that the roman catholic church at the time called flagellum day the scourge of god obviously not the type of person that you want to invite home for dinner and to some extent the historical record is accurate this was after all a man who threatened not just the eastern but also the western roman empire he raised cities he treated life as if it was the lowest common denominator and now this completely Goes against what i was originally planning for this podcast i was going

to start with the idea that the huns never actually had their own written history that most of the information that we have on them comes from the romans who are obviously not going to portray him in a very good light and i was hoping to start with something kind of akin to braveheart where you talk about how the huns under the leadership of attila rose from relative obscurity to take on the largest empire of its time and in the process obtain its own niche in the grand scheme of civilization what i guess you could call

a sense of glory but this was not going to be a braveheart story there was no heroic noble character and kind of sad to say there was no beautiful french princess for him to fall in love with however the more research i did into making this podcast the more i realized that there was actually a better story there than just kind of what met the eye this was a story of a large civilization's hubris the hubris of the roman empire a story of civilization versus the nomad rome versus the barbarian this turned out to be

a Story about what happens when a civilization becomes over extended and whose decline is so profound that it allows for the rise of men like attila it's kind of like that old adage nature abhors a vacuum and in this situation it's very true so with this i think the place that we need to begin is with the late roman empire for those of you out there that want to hear about the blitzkrieg that i had mentioned earlier through europe you're going to have to wait till the second part of this podcast but i recommend you

listen to how this developed and keep those themes that i had mentioned in mind as we kind of go along and so what was the late roman empire truly like because this no longer was the empire that was established by julius caesar and consolidated under the rule of caesar augustus nor was it the empire that was expanded under emperors such as trajan hadrian or even marcus aurelius this was a roman empire of the fourth and fifth century a civilization that was in decline i personally like to make comparisons to the roman empire to the german

vermont in world War ii it was no longer a blitzkrieg fast-moving all-conquering civilization but rather one that had developed fortifications that was surrounded by enemies and was rife with internal descent now first and foremost the roman empire was no longer under the command of one particular under the reign of an emperor by the name of diocletian in the late part of the 3rd century early part of the 4th century the roman empire had come under the governance of two co-emperors diocletian and maximian and they adopted sons who would be considered augusta and so this was

a time period where you had literally four people running the empire or what they would call the tetrarchy and so with this division in leadership you also had a physical division of the actual empire itself the eastern roman empire which later historians would call the byzantine consisted of places like greece egypt asia minor the middle east whereas the western roman empire would consist of gaul which is france england and spain and the original idea was that all of these realms were to help one another in times of crisis but in actuality what you had was

the perfect recipe for Civil war which became an endemic part of roman life from that period onwards now with any type of power struggle there is always going to be one that is going to slowly claw their way to the top and in this situation a man by the name of constantine who will later be known to historians as constantine the great and this is a man that probably deserves an entire podcast onto himself but he came to power he fought against his rivals in the year 312 on october 28th he fought a battle called

the battle of the milvian bridge which he was able to win but the interesting aspect of this battle was that just prior to this battle he had a vision where he saw the christian symbol the chai and the row looks kind of like a p with an x through it this presented itself to him and he was told by a voice in hawk signo vinces which i'm probably murdering this latin but it means in this sign he will conquer and so he told all of his soldiers to paint that symbol on their shield and even

though they were outnumbered they marched into battle and they won and of course this sets into motion a series of events which will cause another profound Shift in the roman empire as christianity slowly becomes into the limelight and indeed in the year 313 constantine passes the edict of milan which grants christianity official recognition in 321 sunday is identified as the official rest day and between may 12th and june 19th of 325 the council of nicea was held to establish a formal creed for all christians to believe in but constantine also does something which causes yet

another profound shift in the roman empire he moves the capital he establishes the city of constantinople in the year 330 a.d and he establishes the city on an area called the helles point which is a area of land that sticks out into the bosphorus it's surrounded by water it's extremely defensible territory it's on the edge of europe and asia and it becomes not only the capital of the eastern roman empire but it becomes a city that will preserve knowledge and western civilization for the next thousand years and so the roman empire becomes fragmented you have

two capitals and by the way going back to rome it no longer was really a capital milan became much more important and eventually ravenna Took that role whereas rome became as christopher kelly wrote in his book the end of empire a crumbling mausoleum it became a boneyard of temples and triumphant arches and a relic of former glory and this divided late roman empire was no longer truly expanding it was surrounded by enemies the persian empire which had kind of waxed and waned in power had started assuming its dominance of the middle east and instead of

leading campaigns of conquest like if you read back about julius caesar taking over gaul the romans had now adopted a policy of building fixed fortifications which of course was nothing really new the romans always had fortifications as they went along their cities all had walls but at this point the rhine river valley had a series of walls the danube had a series of fortifications if you go to england and you go almost to the border of scotland you can see the remnants of hadron's wall which was built to keep out the northern barbarians and to

be perfectly fair the romans did have a couple of series of reconquests of their former empire when they lost territory to other civilizations but as a whole The civilization was starting its slow and gradual decline behind these aforementioned fortifications were lands that were filled with nomadic and semi-nomadic people that were slowly coming together and becoming organized and they were posing more and more of a threat to rome itself now in most situations up until this time period if there was any major threat to the borders of the roman empire usually the romans could assemble an

army and send it into place and neutralize whatever type of threat was out there but it was coming to a time period where internal dissension and the division of the empire along with the emergence of persia and increasing barbarian hordes were no longer something that rome could easily contend with and it is into this world that we begin to hear about people such as the vandals the ostrogoths the visigoths the vikings and eventually the huns now as i mentioned to you before the huns never had their own written history a good deal of what we

know of the huns actually comes from the romans and i'd like to start by giving you a quote from that time period and when you listen to this I think this is going to be a quote that really will appeal to the cynics in the audience because it doesn't come across necessarily as just history it comes across as propaganda this is a quote from a man by the name of am iannus marcelinus and again i'm probably getting that name wrong but in any case he was a soldier and he was a historian and he gives

one of the best accounts of the huns and i quote the huns exceeded any definition of savagery although the huns have the shape albeit repellent of human beings they are so wild in their way of life they have no need of fire or pleasant tasting food but eat the roots of uncultivated plants in the half raw flesh of all sorts of animals huns are never sheltered by buildings not even a hut thatched with reeds can be found among them rather the huns roam freely in the mountains and woods learning from their earliest childhood to endure

freezing cold hunger and thirst they wear garments made of linen or stitched together from the pelts of mice found in the wild once they have put on a tunic it is not changed or even taken off until it has been reduced to tatters by a long process of decay and Falls apart bit by bit the huns are not subject to the direction of a king but are satisfied with the improvised leadership of their chief men and batter their way through anything in their path in agreeing truces they are faithless and fickle swaying from side to

side in every breeze like unthinking animals they are completely ignorant of the difference between right and wrong they burn with an unquenchable lust for gold and are so capricious and quick to anger that often without any provocation they quarrel with their allies more than once on the same day fired with an overwhelming desire for seizing the property of others these swift moving ungovernable people make their destructive way amid the pillage and slaughter of those who live around them end quote this sounds like very bad journalism very one-sided sounds like the purpose of this is not

necessarily to give a history but to demonize someone in order to make that person easier to subdue and kill but with any history there is always some degree of truth in what is being said marcelinus also goes on to talk about the huns and i quote huns are not well adapted to battle On foot but are almost glued to their horses which are certainly hearty but also ugly from their horses by day and night they buy sell eat and drink slumped over their horse's narrow necks they relax into a deep sleep no one in their

country ever plows like refugees all without permanent settlement homes law or a fixed way of life they are always on the move with their wagons in which they live end quote now remember what i had mentioned earlier about one of the motifs of this talk was this concept of civilization versus the nomad and again in this last quote marcelinus mentions those qualities which he feels are the redeeming quality of rome the idea of civilization and fixed settlement the idea of roman law and that it was ubiquitous and what's more it was something that could be

brought to uncivilized people quote unquote in order to enlighten them and it is this that he uses as the yardstick for which he compares all of these barbarians and in my opinion i think this represents a certain degree of hubris because as these barbarians make further and further inroads into roman territory It becomes harder and harder for the romans to justify their defeat to these people who they otherwise thought of as being inferior to themselves now historians and anthropologists have looked into the world of the hun to try to figure out exactly what their side

of the story was and again unfortunately there's not that much information there the general consensus from what i could find was that the huns were a group of people that came from the asiatic step which was east of the volga river they were people that were especially blessed with the ability to ride horses and to use the composite bow in order to attack their enemies with lightning speed and then disappear into the wilderness their original homeland is not very well known different historians come up with different ideas some have even mentioned that they were possibly

even mongolian in origin that they came from a group of people known as the zhong nu which fought against the han empire in china others feel that their homeland was in present-day kazakhstan but i think the real question is Why did they leave and unfortunately i don't think we're going to get a good answer to that but if there's any of you out there that have a good explanation for this please by all means let me know i'd love to hear from you on this now let's go back to the late roman empire again it's

divided up into multiple fragments you have emperors in the east emperors in the west rome is no longer that big of a city as it once was christianity is gaining a strong foothold and fortifications along various areas in the roman empire are starting to come under siege the initial story of the huns plays out like some sort of space opera you have this mighty civilization the roman empire with its imperial cities you have these barbarian hordes kind of on the fringes that are pushing their boundaries and yet they're all fleeing from something something that was

horrible and dark on the horizon that it's slowly making its way westward up until the year 370 there aren't that many reports of huns whatsoever what you have are all these other groups people like the vandals and the visigoths that are Trying to get away from another entity and as they make their way west they are fleeing into the roman empire our story truly begins on the banks of the danube river now for those of you who have traveled to europe it's probably one of the largest rivers in the world its fast-moving waters provide a

natural barrier and it's this that the romans use as their northern boundary they set up various fortifications they patrol it they even have ships that go up and down to protect their territory and prevent people from crossing it's on to these banks that a man by the name of fritigern arrives now fritigern isn't by himself he is the leader of a group of people known as the trevengi which is a group of goths he arrives on the banks in the year 376 with approximately 80 000 people and they're all fleeing they're all running away they

had come under pressure from the huns they were refugees and they literally had no other place to go now the emperor of the east of constantinople of the eastern roman empire was a man by the name of valens and in 376 fritigern and valen come to an arrangement the goths are allowed passage into the roman empire now on paper this Makes complete and total sense to valance he has people that he can settle that can work the fields that he can tax and if needed he has manpower in which he can draft into the roman

army now as a side note when i was in school my history teachers would always say that one of the marks of decline in a civilization is when that civilization starts using mercenary forces in order to defend itself i would say this point is up for debate but i personally can see the truth behind it in any case the romans in their attempt to bring these 80 000 people across the danube is a process that is immediately botched by valen's subordinates for a civilization that was renowned for its efficiency and for its ability to get

the job done i feel that there may be a certain degree of prejudice from the romans towards these barbarians again this roman hubris that contributed to this poor maneuver now let me give you an account of exactly what i mean again i'm going back to christopher kelly's the end of empire who gives a very dramatic account of this crossing and i quote for several days and nights the trevingi were ferried across the danube at one Of its narrowest points near the garrison town of durastorm 60 miles west of the black sea this was a dangerous

operation made more difficult by the fast-flowing river still swollen by spring rains many trevingy frustrated by the slow progress and distrustful of roman military supervision ventured across in canoes made from hollowed-out logs the most desperate decided to swim some were drowned when overcrowded rafts capsized darkness brought only greater confusion the shouts of terrified family separated in the crush to board the boats the wash of dead bodies against the bank and the harsh orders barked by unsympathetic soldiers the situation was way beyond the roman commander on the frontier without warning he was faced with 80 000

refugees crammed together in makeshift camp the overflowing latrine trenches threatened an outbreak of disease the stench drifted into nearby dura storm half starved goths crowded around the grain wagons whose infrequent deliveries were made under heavy guard some paid huge sums of food on the black market others were able to buy dog meat only by selling their children as slaves the going rate was said to be one child for each Dog end quote the romans of course don't end here the treatment of the goths becomes a subject for a debate but they are essentially reduced to

the level of slaves they're denied weapons they're given almost starvation rations and shortly after that aforementioned crossing roman soldiers invite the leaders of the goths to come and talk at which point they attempt to have them assassinated now they're not entirely successful fritigern manages to escape and this turns out to be one of the biggest mistakes that the eastern roman empire would make again this kind of brings to mind that beginning scene of braveheart where the leaders of the scottish tribes were all hung in the barn for those of you who haven't seen the movie

i recommend it it's not exactly historically accurate but it does kind of set the mood for what i'm talking about now as it turns out fritigern is not just a leader of his people he is also a very skilled politician and he is a keen strategist he starts to gather his people together and starts training them become a fighting force he then goes on to start incorporating other tribes and other peoples that Have been displaced by the romans and by the huns into his army as well he even reaches out to a group of people

known as the guru thungi now the guru thungi were a group of people that were actually denied entrance into the roman empire if you recall valons allowed the goths to cross into roman territory but he purposely kept these people out he didn't want to over populate his lands with quote unquote barbarians so if you could imagine yourself as these people running from your lives trying to escape with what little you had and arriving at the gates of the roman empire only to have those gates slammed shut in your face that is what they had to

deal with and they were only too willing to join fritigern and his army as it was slowly increasing in size now surprisingly enough in the year 377 there are reports that portions of the huns are actually signing up as mercenaries for fritigern's army now these are the exact same people that ferdigurn and his goths were actually running from in the first place but fritigern must have realized that old adage the enemy of my enemy must be my friend and so He employs them he doesn't employ a whole bunch of them just maybe about a thousand

or two thousand but still enough to reinforce his ranks and then with this army he starts marching towards constantinople and when emperor valens hears about this army encroaching onto his capital city he has no choice he builds up an army of his own and he calls to the western roman empire demanding help the western roman empire at this time is run by a man by the name of gratian who is very slow in responding because grayson has his own problems to contend with the fortifications along the rhine river and all the tribes of germany are

starting to act up and he's got to keep a portion of his forces there to contend with them but in either case he drags tail when it comes to sending reinforcements to help out emperor valons so fritigern and his goths are given a free hand to rape and pillage and destroy everything in their path on their march towards constantinople and so finally valens decides to move on his own he sends out scouts to search out and find this army and to determine how big it is and they return with reports That the army is not

that big but the problem is is that they did not see everything all they had seen was fritigern's infantry what they failed to notice are that group of people known as the gruthungi that we had mentioned earlier because they were cavalry people that were on horseback and they were off grazing their horses and this was not picked up by the roman scouts and so when these scouts return back to valons he feels that he has numerical superiority and he decided to march out and confront this army and he makes the mistake of not waiting for

reinforcements from the western roman empire to appear some people say that one of the reasons he did it was because he wanted to have all the glory of defeating the goths all to himself and so in the middle of summer he sets out his forces in order to engage this enemy rebel goth army and he marches westward and finally arrives at the city of adrenopal where he sets up camp but he still believes that he has numerical superiority and and wanting to really get at the enemy he doesn't even allow his troops to truly have

Time to rest the day is august 9th in the year 378 ce valens gets word that the goth army is only approximately eight miles to the north of adrenopal and so he accumulates his forces and starts marching them into battle now the standard military tactic of roman infantry and cavalry was that the infantry were slower moving so they stayed in the middle and they created these lines of men that had shields defend one another and they would slowly march forward on their flanks both to the left and to the right of the infantry would be

the cavalry because these were faster moving units that could engage and disengage the enemy and what's more they could protect the infantry now the purpose of warfare at this time was not to do just a direct confrontation even though that was usually what happened but a truly skilled commander was able to attack the enemy's flank and if you were very good at what you did you could actually get into the enemy's rear and if you could attack them either by the flank or the rear in most situations you could actually route an enemy force from

the field of battle now take a second And imagine yourself as a roman infantry grunt you had just marched all the way from constantinople all the way to adrenopal and now in the middle of the summer heat you had all your equipment and you were marching again to the north to take on the enemy you were exhausted you were dehydrated and finally when the enemy does come into view you notice that he is up on top of this hill he has taken all of his wagons and encircled them to create a fixed fortification and it's

into this that you have to attack now fritigern and the goths knew that the romans were coming he actually commanded his troops to set off brush fires along the path that the romans were marching these fires created dust they created smoke and they exacerbated the dehydration and the fatigue that the romans were already suffering from now most importantly the smoke served the purpose of inhibiting the romans line of sight they couldn't see very far beyond it and they didn't realize that they were marching into a trap in the early afternoon at approximately two to three

pm emperor valens sends the roman cavalry into a flanking maneuver to attack what he thinks is Only infantry at the top of the hill we actually have a first-hand account of what that maneuver was like it was recorded by ammanaeus marcelinus the same historian and soldier who gave us that horrendously awful account of the huns which i had mentioned earlier he stated and i quote our left wing had advanced actually up to the wagons with the intent to push on still further if they were properly supported but they were deserted by the rest of the

cavalry and so pressed upon by the superior numbers of the enemy that they were overwhelmed and beaten down and by this time such clouds of dust arose that it was scarcely possible to see the sky which resounded with horrible cries and in consequence the darts which were bearing death on every side reached their mark and fell with deadly effect because no one could see them beforehand so as to guard against them end quote as a member of the roman infantry you would have expected your cavalry to go forth and bring a decisive blow to the

enemy but what you would have seen if you were there was a very peculiar sight because you see your cavalry was not bringing you victory it Was instead running from the field of battle and as it ran it was exposing your own flank the real question was why was it running but that question would soon be answered because directly on the heels of the roman imperial cavalry were the cavalry forces of the goths it was the gruthungi the very same people that valons had barred entry into the roman empire it was the same people that

allied themselves to fritiger and his army to gain some sense of revenge it was they that the roman scouts had failed to detect and now they were descending on the flanks of the roman army but this was a realization that came too late for emperor valens the goth cavalry had gained the initiative they had routed the imperial cavalry from the field of battle and what's more it allowed fritigern and his infantry to have a free hand to smash directly into the roman infantry's front line when the dust settled from this battle the roman army had

been annihilated now the actual number of casualties vary depending on which source that you read some sources state that the romans lost about ten thousand men other sources that i've read state that the number Could be as high as twenty thousand but what is known for sure is that amongst all that carnage amongst all those dead and dying bodies was the body of emperor valens himself the battle of adrenopal as this became known as was by far not the first major defeat in roman history looking back if you look at the year ce9 when the

romans were taking on the germanic tribes in present-day germany they had a tremendously awful defeat at the battle of teutenberg forest if you look back even further in the year 216 bce when rome was taken on the carthaginians they had a decisive defeat at the battle of cani which was actually on roman soil itself it was the masterpiece of a military genius a carthaginian general by the name of hannibal a man who in my opinion i i believe probably deserves a podcast really all onto himself but going back to the battle of adernopol this is

a battle that historians to this day debate about its true significance some historians claim that this really was the nail in the roman coffin it was the beginning of the end it was from this point onward that the romans really lost the initiative Against the barbarians and from that time onward they were just kind of lambs to the slaughter whereas more contemporary historians that i've read kind of rewrite the history on that they kind of say yeah it was a pretty bad battle and you know the romans lost and it was kind of a bad

thing but it really wasn't that bad in the grand scheme of things and they claimed that later roman emperors people like justinian were able to really reconquer a great portion of territory this is the topic that i would love to hear from the audience because the true significance of this battle varies so dramatically but depending on which type of historian you hear from so if anybody has a good opinion on this i'd again love to hear from you but in my opinion the battle of adrenal was a milestone and it was a milestone for the

following reasons number one i do feel that the roman empire lost the initiative they had to rebuild that army they needed more infantry and more cavalry they even needed a new emperor number two the barbarians that had fought against the romans had clearly demonstrated that not only had they been able to cross the danube and settle in roman lands But they were able to defend that territory and thus establish a very strong foothold and number three which i think is probably the most important reason the battle of adrenal was a psychological milestone because you have

to understand that the roman empire at this time period was truly the superpower of its time it was feared or at least respected by most of its neighbors and this battle proved that roman armies and roman emperors were no longer in violet they could be defeated on the field of battle and so we enter into a time period that i'd like to call the post-adrenal world this is a time when you see more activity coming from the barbarians specifically the huns as they make more inroads into the roman empire what you also have is a

very profound struggle between both the eastern and western roman empires for dominance and so we should go back to the aftermath of the battle of adrinople again the year is 378. fritigern his goth army his hun and guru thunky reinforcements are left victorious however they're not able to exploit this victory because his army lacks the sophistication of siege tactics and so as they come to other roman cities That have walls around them they simply can't get inside of those walls now there's only so much pillaging that a rebel goth barbarian army can do before they

simply run out of things to pillage and so as their food runs low and they don't have very good logistical supply their army begins to fall apart this buys the eastern roman empire some time to start rebuilding of course the first order of business is to bring in a new emperor and so a man by the name of theodosis theodosius the first is placed in command of the eastern roman empire and one of the first things that he does in almost standard roman pompous rhetoric is to vow vengeance against the goths and he creates an

army and he ventures forth to reclaim his territory but what happens is is basically four years of stalemated fighting and so finally in 382 when theodosis realizes that he's not getting anywhere and he's not able to throw the goths off his land he's forced to make a shift in his foreign policy he allows the goths and the huns and the trevengi and the gruthungi and other groups to settle within roman lands he does this with the expectation that these groups will provide Manpower for his army but in the process what he creates is a hun

toehold within the roman empire theodosis even goes so far as to have his own advisors come up with propaganda to justify to his people why he's allowing the barbarians to settle within roman lands this is a quote by a man by the name of themistius who was one of theodosis advisors he states and i quote for such are the victories of reason and humanity not to destroy but rather to improve the lot of those who are responsible for the suffering was it then better to fill the danube provinces with the dead or with farmers to

make it full of tombs or of men to travel through a wilderness or cultivated fields to count up the number of slain or of those who work the land unquote this is obviously not the rhetoric of an empire in its best days let's make a comparison once in life i recommend to all my listeners that they need to travel to rome this is a city that is replete with history and in my opinion is probably one of the most fun and exciting cities anyone can travel to in europe when you get there go to the

very heart of the City and near the roman forum you're going to find a column that is dedicated to the emperor trajan this is a monument that was built in the year 113 ce and when you look at it closely what you're going to notice is trajan's army on the march this is a victorious army this is an army that appears strong and defiant it shows an army moving into battle and destroying their enemy this was a tribute to emperor trajan during what was known as the dacian wars which was a time period when the

roman empire was expanding and strong and the peoples of those conquered lands were soon incorporated into the empire itself to stare at this column is to stare into the very heart of roman military glory this in my opinion is a far cry from theodosis who just really couldn't seem to get the job done against the goths and had to instead settle for a brokered piece instead but perhaps i'm being hard on the guy i mean after all he was a military leader he was a general in the roman army he led several successful campaigns before

he was elected as the emperor of the eastern roman empire and it's this military background that's going to be Needed very soon because shortly after he becomes emperor and by that i mean a couple of years the western roman empire starts to fragment most of the civil unrest begins in the year 383 the emperor of the west and progression is assassinated and shortly thereafter several usurpers attempt to claim the throne the roman provinces of britain and gaul break off and decide to elect their own emperor and in the capital of the western roman empire a

man by the name of eugenius lays claim to the emperor ship this of course gives theodosius the perfect excuse to raise an army and try to march west in order to reunite the empire which is exactly what he does but when he's raising this army he quickly realizes that the forces that he has may not be adequate enough to do the job and so he starts employing the huns and the gods the same people that he had settled south of the danube now if you recount from earlier he expected these people to provide manpower in

the situation of war and so they arise to the occasion they join his army and he marches to the west now i'm going to save the details of this particular civil war Granted to say that it did last for quite a bit of time and it eventually culminated in the year 394 against eugenius and his forces at a battle by the name of frigidus i want to emphasize the battle of frigidus because what happens at this battle sets into motion a series of events which eventually leads to our next milestone another nail into the coffin

of the western roman empire again the year was 394 emperor theodosis is marching into an area of modern day slovenia most modern historians agree that this happened in the vipava valley and as he marches into this valley he sets up almost no reconnaissance he doesn't send his scouts out to figure out what's going on but he just kind of blindly marches into battle he makes it a point to place his mercenaries at the very forefront of his army particularly the goth he puts them just way up at the front and when he attacks eugenius and

his army he soon realizes that the position that he's attacking is almost completely impregnable his forces are decimated particularly the goths who are at the front and they suffer just horrendous losses however despite this setback Theodosius is able to regroup his forces and the very next day he sends them back into battle some historians go so far as to claim that he had some sort of divine wind that was blowing dust and smoke into the faces of his enemies and blinding them so his troops could be victorious either way he wins he manages to round

up eugenius and all his supporters and immediately puts them to death and then shortly thereafter he is able to reunify both the eastern and western roman empires his mercenaries however are extremely upset they realize just how easily the roman empires are willing to sacrifice their lives in order to achieve political and military goals and in my opinion rightfully so one man in particular had a great deal of resentment he was a leader of the goths he led approximately 20 000 of his fellow troops into this battle and some historians claim that he had approximately 50

percent losses to him the battle of frigidis was not this unifying glorious thing but rather it was a bloodbath my sympathy goes out to this particular man because at this point in history he was going to be kicked around a lot he was Kind of like that little kid on the playground that gets a lot of sand thrown in his face but he was going to rise up beyond this point in life and eventually he is going to accomplish something that no goth no hun nobody up until this point in history was able to do

his name was alaric and it's worth remembering because he really does set the next milestone in our story but before we can get into alaric or his accomplishments we have to go back to emperor theodosius the first and the aftermath of the battle of frigidus because you see emperor theodosis the first was the last man he was the last emperor to rule over a united roman empire but this rule was going to be very short-lived a few months after the battle in january of 395 he passes away he dies in the city of milan which

is the capital of the western roman empire and he makes the decision and i was going to say a mistake because this is to me a big time mistake but he makes the decision to divide the empire under the control of his two very young sons this effectively ensures that there's going to be a power struggle between the eastern and western Roman empires and this struggle is going to decide which side is going to go into decline and which side is going to make it i'm going to take this time to apologize because this next

part is going to be a little confusing there's going to be a lot of names and dates and for the sake of clarity i tried to leave out as much minutia as possible so to the die-hard historians out there that are wondering why i haven't put in every minute detail that's why the best method that i could come up with is going to be the following if you take a piece of paper and you draw a line right down the middle of it on the left side of the page is going to be the western

roman empire and on the right side is going to be the eastern roman empire after theodosis passes away he places his son honoris in charge of the west and his son arcadius in charge of the east but their children they're too young to effectively rule and so regents and advisors kind of come into play and they are truly the power behind the throne so to speak in the west you have a man by the name of stiliko and in the east you have a man by the name of eutropias who becomes arcadius's closest advisor The

play for power begins in the west which kind of held the initiative at the start stillico pulls out a piece of paper which he proclaims to everyone was given to him by theodosis on his deathbed stating that not only was he meant to be regent of the western roman empire but also of the east now this is something that the eastern roman empire immediately states is a falsehood and under the control of eutrophius they completely reject him thus you have the beginning of the division lines into this developing mess we're going to be throwing alaric

you can go back to that piece of paper and kind of stencil him in on the left side of the page because at this point he has just gotten done fighting for theodosius he's still in the western roman empire but alaric and stiliko do not come to terms they're constantly kind of grinding heads and eventually alaric has had enough in 395 he rebels which leads to a series of military confrontations between him and stiliko but stiliko gains the upper hand and effectively tosses alaric out of the western roman empire so you can kind of go

back to that piece of paper and cross them out On the left side of the page and draw them in on the right the eastern emperor arcadius and his advisor eutropius immediately seize on this opportunity they actually hire alaric some claim they do this because they want to irritate the west but as it just so happens in the year 379 a group of huns that were coming in off the asiatic step now these are not the same huns that are nicely settled south of danube they're actually a new wave of huns again there's this kind

of impending wave after wave of hun that's slowly moving its way across into eastern europe this new group of hun is hell-bent on pillaging and destroying everything in their path and they make their way down through that strip of land between the black and the caspian sea into what is present-day northern and central syria the roman emperor and his associates realize that albert just simply wants a piece of land which is a lot better than these huns who are just kind of coming in to pillage and destroy everything in their path so alaric is given

the contract he is sent out after the huns and he is told to kick them out he's actually very successful with This in fact in the year 398 he accomplishes exactly that he sends the huns packing but of course it's not alaric who receives any type of commendation for this it's utropius he's brought back to constantinople to a triumph and alaric and his men are kind of for the most part forgotten in fact it gets so bad that in the year 401 arcadius again the emperor of the eastern roman empire who is now no longer

just a child reneges on any agreement that he has with alaric and then goes so far as to hire another group of huns with the sole purpose of kicking alaric out what is notable for this particular action is that for the first time in recorded history we actually have the name of a hun king a man by the name of olden i mean up until this point we didn't even realize that the huns even had a king but again the history of the huns is mostly written by the romans alaric immediately sees the writing on

the wall realizes he doesn't really have a chance of establishing a home in the eastern roman empire and so he packs up his stuff with all his men and they go back to the west again if you go back to that sheet of paper now you can cross them off On the right side of the page and put them back on the left side of the page you can understand why my sympathy goes out to the man i mean he was basically being used as a ping-pong at this point in the west stillico is of

course waiting for alaric the two men fight in several battles and eventually in 405 silico is forced to sign a treaty with alaric because he has other issues that he needs to contend with most important of which is the fact that the rhine defenses have started to fall apart and there has been a massive flux of barbarians across the rhine into roman-held territory stiliko goes so far as to even hire alden again the king of the huns to come to the western roman empire in order to contend with this problem initially stiliko and his new

hun mercenaries are successful they're actually able to hold back or at least capture a great deal of the barbarians that are crossing over the rhine but things start going very badly for stillico in the year 406 you have a new group of people trying to cross over the rhine this time the vandals the goths and now the allens are crossing over in ever increasing numbers and stillico can do very little To actually stop them i want to emphasize that these peoples that are crossing over the rhine are actually being displaced by incoming wave of huns

that are coming off the european step and slowly making their way into western europe now they're not the same group as alden there are already huns that are actually settled south of the danube and some of them are actually in roman territory but these are a new group that are actually coming in it's kind of like this black cloud of doom that's slowing making its way westward in a certain sense if you think about it it almost takes on like a biblical plague-like quality now if trying to keep the barbarians out of roman territory and

on their side of the rhine is not bad enough for stilico things get even worse in 407 england and france decide to break off they secede a new emperor kind of comes into power up there and again steliko can do very little this of course angers the emperor of the western roman empire honoris who is also no longer a child in 408 he has still a co rounded up and then shortly thereafter he has him summarily executed let's talk about a norris for a second I challenge my listeners to go out there and see if

you can find an article or a phrase or a book or something that actually talks about a norris in a very positive light i don't think you're gonna find it this man is regarded almost universally as one of the biggest failures in roman civilization some of his actions go beyond just simple stupidity they go into that realm of complete and total insanity and i'm going to give you a good example of this now take into account that most of the roman army at this point in time consisted of troops that were outside of italian descent

there were troops inside of stellico's army who are the defenders of rome who were goth in origin what's more many of these troops had families wives and children that were living within the roman empire and that was primarily the reason why they didn't defect or rise up against the roman army shortly after honoris has stilico arrested and then killed he passes an edict that states that all members of goth origin are to be executed this order gets misinterpreted by the roman court and before you know it it's not just the troops that are targeted but

it's also the families of These troops that are massacred i'm not talking about just soldiers i'm talking about men women and children that were killed and killed in the very name of a norris these very same goth troops who had served as the very backbone of the roman army and and also the defense of rome itself have no place else to go they have to flee from an aorus and they flee directly into the waiting arms of alaric some sources indicate that approximately thirty thousand troops swelled the ranks of al rick's army and now he's

no longer the small kid on the playground he's got a formidable army he's on italian soil he is within striking distance of rome and he knows it but alaric does not want to simply just destroy and pillage everything in his path what he really wants is a nation-state for his own people or at least a piece of land within the roman empire that can be protected away from the marauding bands of huns and other groups that are coming off the asiatic and european steps he actually admired the romans he admired their accomplishments and he wanted

that for his people and so he begins negotiations with honoris in order to Accomplish this but the problem is that he is dealing with a complete and total incompetent and norris has this prideful stupidity that he just can't see beyond the tip of his nose he can't see alaric as being anything more than a simple barbarian and so honoris kind of gives him the run around he gives them these fake treaties that he takes back and eventually alaric has had enough he realizes that the only way to convince the romans of accomplishing anything is going

to be at the tip of a sword and so he marches on rome edward gibbons in the decline and fall of the roman empire i think puts it pretty well he states and i quote his troops animated by the hopes of spoil follow the course of the flaming way occupied the unguarded passes of the aponine descended into the rich plains of umbria a lofty situation and a seasonable tempest of thunder and lightning preserved the little city of narnia but the king of the goths despising the ignoble prey still advanced with unabated vigor and after he

had passed through the stately arches adorned with the spoils of barbaric victories he pitched his camp under the walls of rome End quote this was going to be the beginning of a siege that was going to last for several months again alaric wasn't there simply just a pillage he was there to establish a negotiated settlement in almost the literal sense of the word he wanted space for his people to live in and what better way to accomplish this when you're dealing with a prideful and resenting enemy than to have your sword at their very next

at least that's what he thought but negotiations continued to fail and and here's another clip from edward gibbons which actually includes several of the interactions between some of the roman senators and alaric himself and i quote when they introduced into his presence they declared perhaps in a more lofty style than became their abject condition that the romans were resolved to maintain their dignity either in peace or war and that if alaric refused them a fair and honorable capitulation he might sound his trumpets and prepare to give battle to an innumerable people exercised in arms and

animated by despair his famous reply was the thicker the hay the easier it is mode laughing at the gall of the Romans in their pitiable position he set the ransom for breaking the siege at all the gold and silver in the city whether with a property of the state or of the individual all the riches and precious movables and all the slaves that could prove their title the name of barbarians the ministers of the senate presumed to ask in a modest and suppliant tone if such o king are your demands what do you intend to

leave us your lives replied the haughty conqueror they trembled and retired end quote now negotiations continue to fail on august 24th in the year 410 alleric had no choice he sounded his trumpets his forces marched on the very city of rome itself in the book the fall of rome by raphael lafferty he has a very good account of this he states at the time the salarian gate of rome was secretly opened by gothic slaves in the city the troops of alaric entered and their entry was signaled by a giant trumpet blast such as will never

be heard again until the last day and on the terrible blast of the gothic trumpet the world came to its end rome was pillaged for the next three days it's gold its artifacts its treasures were all boxed up And carted out of the city but as far as pillaging goes alright was perhaps one of the more benign conquerors he made it a point to spare the structures and the buildings he even extended his clemency to the people of rome itself and many of them took refuge in the basilica of saint peter's but of course with

any type of pillaging you're going to have some degree of destruction the story goes that if you travel to rome and you go to the actual forum itself and look at the bases of the columns the steps you're going to see circular imprints these are the imprints of coins that had been heated up by the conflagration that had engulfed the city coins that were heated up so hot by the flame that they had actually melted themselves into the very stone this was not the first time that rome was threatened nor was it going to be

the last time that rome would be either threatened sacked or pillaged i've actually compiled a list here and i hope you guys bear with me on this in the year 390 bce aaliyah of the gauls attacks the city manages to make it into various districts but is eventually pushed back by the roman army at This point in history rome didn't have a very good defensive wall structure approximately 800 years later in the year 410 ce just as we had mentioned alaric of the goth manages to sack the city in his benign quote unquote pillaging this

is of course followed by gesseric of the vandals who invades from north africa in 476 the germanic leader odo asser is able to overthrow the roman emperor romulus augustus who is the last emperor of the western roman empire and this is of course when historians claim is the end of the roman empire but i'd like to interject that it's probably the end of the western roman empire the eastern roman empire continued to thrive in 546 the ostrogoths under totila were able to attack the city in 846 there was an arab raid into the outskirts of

the city in 1084 robert gusgaard the father of the famed knight of the first crusade bohemond was able to sack the city and in 1527 charles v the holy roman empire was able to get into position to threaten the city as well this ends on june 4th 1944 when general clark of the american army is able to push the 10th german army out of rome and capture it for the allied cause now That all said the people that were living during that time period thought it was truly the end of the world a lot of

historians actually claimed that 410 was the beginning of the dark ages edward gibbons i think really summarizes very well in his decline and fall of the roman empire he has a great phrase in this that i want to relate to you and i quote the place and the object gave ample scope for moralizing on the vicissitudes of fortune which spares neither man nor the proudest of his works which buries empires and cities in a common grave and it was agreed that in the proportion to her former greatness the fall of rome was the more awful

and deplorable end quote we are now moving into a post-rome sacked world the psychological impact to the inhabitants of the roman empire was devastating if rome itself could fall perhaps even civilization could be threatened but history moves on the eastern and western roman empire continue to have their power struggles and the barbarians continue to increase in strength the huns continue their relentless move into europe let's start with the eastern roman empire Now like i've said before everybody should go to rome at least once if not twice in their life i should also point out that

everyone needs to go to constantinople which is of course modern-day istanbul it's of course essential to see the standard sites the hagia sophia the blue moss the top copy palace i'd even recommend the archaeological museum that's right next to the top copy palace but there's a site that a lot of tourists never get a chance to see if you go to the southern portion of the old city where it borders on the sea of marmara you can walk along the coast of the water with the city to your right side heading west and it takes

about two to three miles until you get to the edge of the ancient city and there you will find a series of fortifications a series of walls there's portions of these walls where you can pay to actually go inside and actually climb up onto the battlements and walk along the walls themselves to stand on these walls is to stand in the very footsteps of soldiers and ordinary citizens even emperors of the eastern roman empire as it later became known as the byzantine Empire and that these walls stood up against barbarian invasion for over a thousand

years now they're known as the theodosian walls they're named after theodosis ii he came to power in the year 408 when his father arcadius who was the previous emperor died he was only age seven and so of course he had a protector and he had a bunch of advisors of which the most important was a man by the name of anthemia who is the person who actually started reconstruction of this wall anthemius went so far as to also create a non-aggression pact with persia which was the eastern roman empire's biggest threat on its eastern border

and so even though the eastern roman empire was kind of surrounded by barbarians and threats for the most part it was able to hold its own this is more than we can say for the western roman empire which didn't have it quite so lucky after the sack of rome in 410 honoris has no other option he allows the goths to settle into a portion of france in the garonne valley and i'm probably saying that wrong but it's an area in southern france between modern day bordeaux and toulouse The western roman empire also has to deal

with another group of barbarians known as the vandals who have taken up residence in spain but they're slowly being displaced by the goths and the huns and so they decide to cross this strait of gibraltar and move into north africa this effectively diminishes power of the western roman empire over their provinces in north africa and eventually the vandal leader a man by the name of guess rick not only takes over all of north africa but he establishes a little empire down there and is able to fight off the romans in fact it gets so bad

that the western roman empire has to actually call on the eastern roman empire for help and in the year 432 they combined their forces together in order to send an army to north africa to deal with guessrick and his vandals but the romans are resoundly defeated but that's kind of a story for another time the western roman empire also had problems with internal descent and succession norris who was the emperor of the west dies in the year 423 now as i've said before he was not a very good leader and of course the nincompoop decides

to die without an Air as a result a power vacuum is created within the western empire and so you have all these contenders for the throne a war breaks out between honoris half-sister gala placidia and her son valentinian iii who she wants to put on the throne and a man who is known as john the usurper and of course he's called that because in this little contest to see who wins the throne of the western empire john loses and history is of course written by the victors john is brought back to the city in chains

gala placidia gets to sit in the imperial box and watches jon is mutilated and eventually killed slowly in front of her but that's roman soap opera for you sex semper tyrannus i suppose now out of this conflict there is actually a very important development that does occur because you see john the usurper before he died actually asked for the help of a roman general by the name of atheists flavius atheists as history will remember him is going to be a man that's going to go down as making a very impressionable mark in the annals of

history he was born in the year 391 he was the son of a roman general he was born into aristocracy he spent time in the roman court From childhood he was used as a bargaining chip he was actually traded off to the visigoths and then later to the huns as a hostage which was a negotiating tool to ensure that treaties and peace were established but he was a man that was actually able to straddle two different worlds from the roman side of things he learned logistics and how to run a roman army and from the

huns and the visigoths he learned about barbarian tactics he learned how they rode in their horses how they did hit and run tactics he learned about the use of the compound bow and he became very accurate with this weapon what's more was that he was a person that had connections with not only the imperial court but also with the huns and so when the civil war broke out in the western empire he raised an army of huns and marched it to the call of john the usurper who was asking for help but as fate would

have it atheists received this call a few days too late and by the time his hun army arrived at ravenna which was the capital john the usurper was already dead but this posed a huge problem for placida she now had this huge hun army sitting on her very doorstep The solution that she grudgingly came up to was to raise atheists to the level of roman commander giving him a very prominent position within the roman court this was a man whose star was definitely rising he was kind of like the ring in the tolkien trilogy he

was going to play a major role as history unfolded but for the time being i want you to just remember his name and so this is a post rome sacked world it's a world where the eastern roman empire while mildly diminished was still to some extent growing and flourishing it was improving its defenses but at the same time it was surrounded on all sides persia was still a major threat the barbarians north of the danube would make random incursions and were a force to be contended with and yet the eastern roman empire continued to prosper

this was also a world where the western roman empire was falling apart at the seams britain had been lost gaul and spain had been overrun the defenses along the rhine were destroyed and north africa was now under new management by the vandals this was a world that was ripe for takeover this was a time period where there was a power vacuum and there Were forces out there only too willing to take advantage of that void the huns were one of those forces they had moved from the asiatic to the european step and now had gone

into eastern europe by the early portion of the 5th century they had settled into an area known as the great hungarian plain now this is an area of land which comprises portions of modern day slovakia hungary serbia and even western romania and unlike its counterpart on the eastern european step this was the land that was very fertile and was very conducive for the development of settlements and villages and towns this combined population in a small area plus the land itself made two profound shifts in the way in which the huns dealt with their neighbors up

until now the huns whenever they wanted something or they wanted gold they would simply ride through an area pillage and destroy everything in their path and take everything and go but what they realized very quickly was that demanding tribute from the local population would actually make much more sense plus it was a much more reliable source of income the huns had realized that extortion and racketeering were really the way to go what's More this land provided the huns with a much more permanent base of operations from here they were easy striking distance to both the

eastern western roman empires and what's more delegates from either one of these empires could come to them and hire them after all the huns did have a skill set when it came to killing and that was a very useful thing when two massive empires are in decline and as the huns became better organized they began to learn to better exploit the weaknesses of their neighbors when theodosis ii in the year 420 declared war on persia over a matter of religion the huns were only too keen to seize on this opportunity to invade they sent their

army in the year 422 and theodosis ii realizing that he couldn't fight a two-front war had to make peace with the huns and eventually had to pay them tribute this tribute was small by later standards it was only about 350 pounds of gold per year but for the first time theodosius of the eastern roman empire had to pay the huns in order to keep the peace the huns of course wanted to continue with this extortion program but there was a bit of a catch to it hun's society consisted of various Factions and clans that were

held together by a powerful king as long as they had a powerful king they worked as a unified force and as long as they worked as a unified force the tribute would come in now there was one catch to being king of the huns and that's simply this you were only king as long as you were successful at what you did any form of weakness could have lethal consequences now this was a weakness within the han command structure that the romans were only too willing to exploit and use against them and they figured this out

very quickly a good example of this is when alden the king of the huns who worked as a mercenary both for the east and west approached the eastern court he demanded an exorbitant tribute from them the court figured out that they didn't necessarily have to pay alden this massive amount of tribute but rather what they could do is simply pay off a couple of his subordinates and this plan worked miraculously by the end of negotiations the bribes had gone to where they needed to go money had exchanged hands old and subordinates were each other's throats

and that evening alden was running for his life Across the danube as he had lost complete control of the huns the romans were keen to keep an eye on the huns and their kings as long as they had a king the threat level would be higher it was their version of kind of like a defcon the huns went through successive kings until you get to a man by the name of rua now depending on which textbook you read this name also comes down as rugilla rua was a hun king that really wanted to push the

huns to an all new level most historians agree that it was most likely rua that actually led the charge against the eastern roman empire in 422 again this was the same invasion that forced theodosis to pay the huns tribute in the year 434 rua really wanted to push the envelope he sent an envoy to the eastern roman court indicating to them that he was going to attack several small barbarian settlements what's more he wanted any of the barbarians that had fled these establishments into protective roman custody to be turned back over to him historians debate

whether or not he actually wanted to have these people or not some historians state that this was basically a test to see whether or not the Romans would capitulate but in either case the romans gave him the thumbs down and so a few months later after he made this statement he actually decides to march on constantinople itself now the citizens of the city were frightened they had a barbarian with a large army that was marching on their city but when rua arrived at the gates of constantinople and he saw the massive theodosian walls again the

ones that we had just talked about he realized that he wasn't going to get any further the most that he could do at this point was possibly lay siege to the city thus the romans dug in he dug in and they prepared for this to be a drawn-out affair the romans wouldn't have to worry for very long shortly after rua comes within sight of the city something happens and he passes away nobody knows exactly what some ecclesiastical scholars state that he was hit by a bolt of lightning and some form of divine retribution for invading

imperial and therefore christian lands but in either case the king of the huns was dead romans breathed a sigh of relief with the death of the hun king his forces would dissipate they would go back To becoming kind of nomadic barbarians it would go back to being this factionalized force and it was something that they wouldn't have to contend with for a little while but here was where they were wrong and wrong in a big way because rua had picked a successor before he died he had made it known to all of the other huns

that he had chosen his nephew a man by the name of bleda to be the next king of the huns and bleda had a younger brother and his name was attila this is gonna be part two of attila the hun and i'd like to thank everybody who listened to the first part for those of you who haven't listened to the first part i recommend you go back and you listen to it otherwise some of the people and places that i talk about may not make as much sense but if you're one of those people that

are very adept at actually jumping into the middle of things or if you are familiar with this particular period in time by all means continue on if you like what you hear please give me a like subscribe leave me a couple of good comments but either way thank you for your time and for listening I believe that there's a question that every major world leader has had to ask themselves at some point in time and i'm talking about the entire broad spectrum of human civilization and i think the question goes something like this what would

you do in order to achieve power and i'm talking about supreme power who would you compromise who would you leave at the wayside what morals what ethics would you disregard in order to accomplish those goals and once you achieve that power what would you do in order to maintain it i would even take this question a step further if you read machiavelli's the prince he asked the question what is better is it better to be loved or is it better to be feared and if you read them he states that a true leader is someone

who is able to actually balance out the two in order to achieve their goals but he also states that when your civilization undergoes a major point of strife when things become exceptionally difficult it is by far safer to be feared the early to mid 5th century was such a time period for the roman civilization rome had gone from being this giant this mighty colossus that bestowed the world If you want to quote shakespeare to being this fragmented civilization that now had two capitals and had two emperors the western portion of that empire was fragmented it

was losing provinces rome itself as a city had lost her importance she wasn't even the political capital anymore and in the year 410 she was actually sacked by barbarians and this wasn't going to be the last time that rome was going to be attacked because of course on almost all of her borders there were barbarians that were waiting waiting for an opportunity to take advantage of rome's weakness and faded glory rome was going to need real leadership at this time and it got it in the form of a man by the name of flavius atheists

this was a man who was a general and also a politician and in my opinion i don't believe you can tell the story of attila the hun without talking about flavius atheists because these were men that were almost mirror images of one another both men were very politically astute they had the ability to manipulate the system and other people to organize them in order to accomplish their goals they were exceptional strategists they had the insight to see the long Game but at the same time they had the fortitude in order to take great risks and

on the field of battle both men were extremely adept tactically they had what was required in order to achieve military victory surprisingly these were men that were friends they actually fought alongside one another in a campaign in gaul but because of their political affiliations these were men that were destined to confrontation but whereas atheists was fighting to save a dying civilization attila was pushing his civilization to its zenith and it was this contest that would determine the course of western civilization our story really begins on the great hungarian plain this is a portion of grassland

in eastern europe which is currently modern day hungary portions of serbia and portions of eastern romania it was onto this area that the huns migrated into after coming off the asiatic and then the european steppe as mentioned in my previous podcast the reason for their migration is still unknown but they found out quickly after moving to this area that the population density was much different than their homeland there were many more fixed settlements And they caught on the idea that instead of just pillaging and destroying these people it made much more sense to extort money

out of them and demand tribute within a few generations the huns had gone from being completely nomadic people to people who had a fixed base of operations within the hungarian plane they had come into contact with both the eastern and western roman empire and by doing so they were actually hired by both empires as mercenaries in order to fight in military campaigns now the roman account of these military endeavors again the huns didn't have their own written history so most of the information we know about the huns comes from the romans they state that the

huns were growing in number in size they were also growing an organization and before long roman historians actually point out that the huns had kings the first of which recorded was a man by the name of alden but there were soon to be many more eventually you get to a man by the name of rua who is also known as regilla depending on which text you read but he was the uncle of attila and his older brother bleda this was a man that was not to be outdone by his predecessors He gathered his army and

in the year 434 he marched on the eastern roman empire ruiz campaign blazed a path through the balkans eventually he and his army arrived at the very gates of constantinople which again was the capital of the eastern roman empire but once he got there he had to contend with the great theodosian walls which were a series of fortifications on the landward side of constantinople that were perhaps some of the most impregnable defenses of any city in the age of antiquity and the middle ages rua and his huns didn't have the technology to get past these

walls what he opted to do was try to lay siege to it surround it and starve the people out but according to ecclesiastical historians as he was laying siege a bolt of lightning and some form of divine retribution struck him down rua was never to come back from this campaign alive but his death did send shockwaves through the higher echelon of hun society it created a power vacuum that people like attila and his older brother bleddo were only too happy to exploit now the details of what these brothers did in order to secure the throne

is unknown but They must have had to move very quickly because not only did they have to take out all of the progeny of rua but they also had to take out any other rival for the throne as well what is known is by the end of the year 434 ce attila and his brother bleda were firmly in charge of the hun empire the part that surprises me was that bleda was the older brother and according to hun society it was the older brother that should inherit everything and make all the decisions i questioned why

wasn't attila found in some sort of shallow grave or drowned in a river but i think it speaks volumes about his character that he was actually able to secure for himself a position in this new empire what we know about attila and his early childhood is a little limited but what historians do state is that he was born approximately in the year 406 ce as christopher kelly writes in his book the end of empire he states and i quote attila the hun was no son of the steps as a member of the most powerful family

north of the danube attila had a highly privileged upbringing certainly he was not the homeless half-star barbarian child of amiens marcelinus's imagination The young attila spent most of his time in the company of his elder brother bleda together they were taught archery how to fight with sword and lasso and how to ride and care for a horse both were likely to have been taught to speak and perhaps to read goth and latin end quote there are even reports that in the year 418 ce when attila was approximately 12 years old he was sent to rome

as a political hostage during his time there he learned about roman culture roman civilization but most importantly he learned about the way in which the roman mind worked in retrospect what an incredible insight to have i always think of sun tzu and the art of war where he states that if you know yourself and you know your opponent you won't be imperiled in a hundred battles it's the same kind of insight that men like iso ruku yamamoto must have had he was the japanese admiral who came up with the attack on pearl harbor but before

that he had studied at harvard university he had spent time in america he was even a naval attache in washington dc and learned how to speak fluent english he tried desperately to convince his japanese superiors Not to plan the attack because he knew that the american response to a sneak attack would be nothing less than all-out war and that the american psyche and the american people would settle for nothing less than the unconditional surrender of the japanese but i digress attila was clearly not the mindless savage nomad that men like aminaeus marcelinus would have you

believe in my opinion he was the product of an evolving society a society that was on the verge of developing its own civilization and its own empire and he had the insight to actually visualize that edward gibbons has an account on attila and he states and i quote this savage hero was not inaccessible to pity his suppliant enemies might confide in the assurance of peace or pardon and attila was considered by his subjects as a just and indulgent master he delighted in war but after he had ascended the throne in a mature age his head

rather than his hand achieved the conquest of the north and the fame of an adventurous soldier was usefully exchanged for that of a prudent and successful general the effects of personal Valor are so inconsiderable except in poetry or romance that victory even among barbarians must depend on the degree of skill with which the passions of the multitude are combined and guided for the service of a single man end quote bleda and attila wasted no time in consolidating their power they began to incorporate other people into their army they began to expand their land base they

continued to demand tribute from the eastern roman empire in order to fund these operations i like to think of christopher kelly when he writes in his book the end of empire and i quote attila and bleda inherited an empire established by military force end quote it was going to be this guiding principle of military force that was going to guide their actions because both of them knew that a hun king or kings in this case only stay in power as long as they're able to prove their worth militarily now as they continue to consolidate their

power on the great hungarian plane about three to four hundred miles away in ravenna italy another man was also trying to assume power this was flavius atheist the man that i'd like to think of as attila's mirror Atheist was born in approximately 391 ce he was the son of a roman general and governor by the name of godentius thus when he was growing up he had the following three major advantages number one he was born into a position of privilege and he had the education that came with that position number two as his father was

a military leader he had insight not only into the way in which the political structure of rome worked but also in which the logistical system that comprised the roman army worked and number three he was also an aristocrat and as a result he was used as a political pawn in the year 405 he was sent to the visigots under their king alaric he stayed with him for approximately three years and when he returned he was sent away again but this time in 409 he was sent to alden who was the king of the huns and

his time with the huns was a profound learning experience he learned what type of weapons the huns used he learned the methods in which the huns used them he learned their tactics and what's more he learned the methodology that went behind the hun mind now let me ask you does this at all sound familiar Because it seems that both men had a very similar upbringing and what's more their essence of spirit seems to have been forged out of the same kind of mold they were both type a personalities when it came to military and political

conquest and it seemed like no matter what they achieved there was always one more thing that they wanted to grasp in a lot of ways it kind of reminds me of men like hernan cortes who in 1519 decided to forsake all his riches in the new world and decided to push on to meet up with the aztec with the intent to conquer them however that said atheist's rise to power was something out of a soap opera he was waiting in the wings for a moment to pounce and that opportunity came in the year 423 the

emperor of the western roman empire died he was a man by the name of norris which in my opinion is probably one of the worst emperors that the roman empire had ever had his death without an heir set off a power struggle within the western roman empire which was almost immediately assailed on by several different contenders for the throne now i'm going to save you the details but it came down to two people One was a woman by the name of gala placidia who was truly a battleship of a woman she was smart she was

intelligent she was extremely cunning politically and her contender was a man by the name of john the usurper and as you can tell by the name he didn't quite make it but before being executed for high treason john sent out a plea for military aid as atheists wanted to jump on the revolutionary bandwagon he went to the huns and using his connections with the upper echelon of hun society he actually created a hun army and in the year 425 he marched this army on the capitol but he arrived at ravenna just in time to realize

that he had backed the wrong man as one can imagine this was a bit of an impasse because on one end you have gala placidia and more importantly her son valentinian iii who are actually blood heir it was their responsibility and their right to assume command of the western roman empire and what's more they'd already put all their contenders to death all that atheists had was well an army of well-trained well-armed savage bloodthirsty huns at his disposal and in the days Of antiquity it's only leverage like that that can get you a position high within

the corporation so gala placidia did the only thing that was left to her she hired him she brought him in she raised atheists to the rank of magister militam pergolius which means commander-in-chief of all armies in gaul atheists would forever remain a deplorable despisable character in galla placidia's eyes she made it a point to surround him with enemies throughout the imperial court and every opportunity she had to usurp his power and belittle him she would take advantage of it i think that most people in atheists position would most likely have looked for another job but

atheists went right to work in 426 he gathered his forces and went into gaul for the purposes of reestablishing roman dominance in that province he declared war on theodoric who was the king of the visigoths and was actually able to send him and the visigoth army packing he returned to ravenna to a hero's welcome and gala had no other choice but to actually promote him again and this time he was made magistr militant which means commander-in-chief of all military forces But gala made a point to curb his power she gave the senior position to a

man by the name of flavius felix who she felt was much more loyal to her and for all military concerns she would favor another general by the name of boniface who was commander of all forces in north africa atheists response was a feat of political daring he immediately had false accusations brought up against flavius felix and had the man tried and executed along with his wife and son-in-law for boniface it was in north africa atheists had to get a little bit more creative he started by instilling the idea in gallipoli's head that boniface was starting

a revolt in north africa he wanted her to recall him to italy with the idea that if he came on his own accord he would prove his loyalty however right before this conversation was had he sent a note to boniface indicating to him that gala had already decided that he was going to be tried and executed as soon as he came back so naturally boniface didn't come back and as a result gala had no choice but to deem him a rebel and strip him of his military command Atheists must have truly thought at this point

hey i'm doing a pretty good job here one of my rivals is killed off the other one has been exiled north africa but as fate would have it in the year 429 another group of barbarians invaded north africa a group known as the vandals and boniface did his part to hold on to roman held territory in fact he did such a good job that his name was cleared gallup lasitia reinstated his command asked him to come back to italy to assume command of all military forces and then went so far as to give boniface the

honorary title of patrician now that last part was just an honorary title it doesn't necessarily mean anything except when it comes from a woman like gala placidia because her message was clear she wanted boniface to be numero uno and she would rather be dead than ever give a title like that to a cretan like atheists the writing was pretty clear on the wall atheists knew that his options were limited and that he would have to have direct confrontation with boniface if he was to achieve anything now i love christopher kelly's account of boniface's homecoming he

states and i quote Atheists on campaign in france hurried back to italy to challenge his newly promoted rival suspecting this gala had urged boniface never to travel without a large bodyguard the clash took place in late 432 outside the town of araminium which is modern day romania 30 miles down the coast from ravenna this was an intensely personal conflict in the middle of the battle the two roman generals faced each other it was later rumored that in an anticipation of confronting his rival atheists had ordered his lance to be lengthened so that he could attack

while remaining out of reach of boniface's sword atheists it was said had no intention of offering a fair fight especially if that meant compromising his chances of killing his opponent in the struggle boniface was fatally wounded an atheist forced to flee galla placidia had given boniface good advice his troops had defeated atheists men yet even she had not foreseen that in single combat atheists might cheat to win end quote less than honorable but as the old adage goes all's fair in love and war this actually brings to mind a story that i read about in

jeff shahira's book the rising tide He has a conversation between eisenhower and one of his subordinates where he's talking about patton and a war game exercise he states and and i'm paraphrasing here georgie commanded the second armor he won the day pulled a pretty neat trick got into the enemy camp took the prize the official observer said that what he did was impossible turned the whole event up on its ear nobody could figure out how he did it to which his subordinate says well how'd he do it eisenhower responds he cheated took his armor across

country outside the designated boundaries he'd made a deal with private gasoline stations along the country roads paid for the gas with his own money so i was told planned it all out in advance to which eisenhower's subordinate stands aghast and he asks he cheated to which eisenhower responds he won i think it was this kind of determination that atheists held in abundance because what he was about to do next would be even more daring he had lost control of his forces his army was decimated by boniface he had to flee and the place that he

fled to was into hun territory he made a gamble he was hoping that his hun connections Would allow him to raise yet another hun army and again march on the western roman empire rua was still the king of the huns at this particular point in time and he wanted nothing to do with atheists plan at the very most he gave atheists a small contingent force of cavalrymen and basically told him to go on his way so what happens when plan a fails well you go to plan b which in this case was probably the most

outrageous gamble of atheists life he took the small contingent force back to the roman empire and demanded a private audience with galla placidia atheists was calculating that his reputation for military prowess combined with his reputation for having close ties with the huns would be enough to convince galla placidia that he had yet another hun army under his sleeve when in reality his army consisted of the few horsemen that surrounded him gala placidia was no fool but i wonder what her thought process must have been like at this point in time because she truly had him

all she had to have done was done the proverbial imperial thumbs down her army would have jumped on top of him and by nightfall atheists could have been executed But for her there was always that nagging question of what if atheists might have been actually telling the truth and right behind him or around the corner there was a large hun army waiting to attack this comes across at least to me as if it was some sort of surreal fantastic game of poker except you don't win money you win the western roman empire and if you

lose you end up dead just the kind of game that a man like atheists love to play and he got lucky gala placidia bought into it she reinstated him as supreme commander of all military forces she even gave him the rank of patrician an atheist a man that not only likes to play games of luck and chance but he was also a guy who held grudges he made it a point to buy boniface's old house he actually married boniface's widow and then he proceeded to bed said widow in said house what a delightful way to

end a grudge no now this brings us up to the year 434 which is the year that attila and bleda assumed command of the huns and so instead of having just one megalomaniac coming to power Now you have two and both of them had an agenda atheist was the first to make a move in 436 he had a group of barbarians in gaul that he just didn't like they were called the burgundians they were actually quite fierce warriors and he couldn't quite subdue them so he went to attila with the proposition that hey let's attack

these guys together i'll throw in some money you throw in some troops and why don't we just have a party out of it strategically it made a lot of sense to both men for atheists he'd have the ability to secure roman lands and gaul and subdue a potentially violent group of barbarians for attila it made even more sense because he had plans on attacking the eastern roman empire and he realized very early on something that the germans of world war one and even world war ii didn't pick up on which is you don't fight a

two-front war and he figured that if he could attack the burgundians he could neutralize them secure lands along his side of the rhine and he would have a free hand to do whatever he wanted to after that this campaign began in earnest with roman troops marching alongside their hun allies And for the romans i'm sure it must have been like having a rabid wild dog that you can teach how to sick on your enemies because that's exactly what the huns would do every time they would come across a burgundian settlement the romans would attack but

the huns would take it a step further they would systematically hunt down man woman and child it didn't make any difference to them it's about this time when you also started hearing reports of huns finding other hun deserters within the burgundian ranks and loyalty was perhaps one of their most precious commodities so for these people they would have them impaled on giant poles and they would impale them in such a way that sometimes these men wouldn't die right away but would languish in agony for days on end before death would finally take them the romans

didn't seem to care they turned a deaf ear towards all of this as long as the job was getting done it seemed like they allowed the huns to do whatever they wanted to and so what began as subduing a group of barbarians turned into ethnic cleansing by the end of the year 30 000 burgundians were dead an atheist didn't want to stop there he Wanted to attack other groups in order to solidify his power in gaul thus this campaign went on for three years now the huns didn't stick around for all of that they had

had their fill of raping and pillaging and destroying and stealing whatever they could steal and most of them went back into hun territory but a couple of them stayed behind to observe what the romans were going to do the romans opted to finish an old score with the visigoths they wanted them wiped out they went into southern france and laid siege to their capital at toulouse atheists put a man by the name of la torres in charge of this particular army but latouris was no atheist he couldn't get the job done and in fact that

particular army was actually wiped out taurus was put to death but let me ask you what do you think the huns got out of this because again they had observers watching this going on we need to evaluate this both at a strategic and also a tactical level because i think attila gained a tremendous amount out of this endeavor from a strategical perspective he gained the following things number one he was able to secure his western border Number two he was able to wipe out or at least nearly wipe out the burgundians and eliminate a potential

threat number three he was able to have a free hand to attack the eastern roman empire if he wished number four he was able to secure lands along his side of the rhine and number five he was able to secure his friendship with atheists and the western roman empire tactically i think the huns gained even more because they were able to watch how the romans acted in the field of battle they were actually able to see how roman forces maneuvered etc but even more important than that was when the romans came across a barbarian fixed

settlement which included their sea jet toulouse because the romans started bringing out weapons that were still a little new to the huns and these included things like catapults and battering rams and siege towers and trust me the huns wrapped up these little nuggets of knowledge for later use remember how it mentioned to you earlier that when rua and his huns arrived at the gates of constantinople the walls were just too impregnable they just didn't have the technology Well now those imperial cities and those imperial walls didn't seem like such a hindrance anymore but the huns

didn't attack right away attila and bleda played it very smart they wanted to wait for the right opportunity in which to attack they knew that the eastern and western roman empires had plenty of other enemies to contend with and so in the year 439 the huns sent an envoy to the eastern roman empire in order to establish a new treaty with them they met in a city by the name of margam margum is located in eastern serbia in fact the modern city of pozarovac is built on its ruins the treaty actually accomplished quite a few

things for the huns number one it established trade centers so that the huns could monitor any trade between the two empires it increased the annual tribute from 350 pounds of gold to 700 pounds of gold it allowed for hun refugees that had taken shelter within the roman empire to be returned back to the huns and most likely to a gruesome death and it also postulated that the roman empire was not to engage in any side alliances with any group of people that were enemies of the huns thus it gave the huns free hand to Attack

and consolidate their power north of the danube now the final part of the treaty was that all of this tribute that they had previously mentioned would be paid directly to either attila or bleda that way they would have firm control of where this money was going to i want to point out one thing the dates in the hun chronology are a little skewed depending on which type of resource you read the dates that i give you are the ones that i've found to be the most consistent but when it comes to the treaty of marghum

it's all over the place some resources say it was the year 435 some say 4 36 some go as far as the year 440 but for the purposes of my narrative the year 439 worked out really well so i decided to use it letta and attila didn't have to wait very long for an opportunity to come their way this opportunity came in the form of the vandals of north africa now let me tell you a little bit about the vandals because they were kind of a displaced people they started in approximately central europe but were

pushed out by the incoming wave of huns they tried to settle in southern france but that didn't work out because the visigoths pushed Him out into spain and then in the year 429 their king gesseric realized that even spain wasn't safe and so they had to move into north africa this of course put them into direct conflict with the romans that were living there and as i had mentioned earlier the great general boniface actually fought several battles with them but these battles settled into a bit of a stalemate for a brief period of time the

romans and the vandals actually coexisted in north africa that is up until the year of 4 39 which is the year of my treaty of margam it was this year that the vandals opened up a new offensive against the romans they were able to push out the roman garrisons they were actually able to capture the capital city of carthage and the very next year in 440 they built a fleet and successfully invaded and captured sicily now as you can imagine this is catastrophic stuff for the western roman empire they lost their tax base in north

africa they lost one of their largest cities in the form of carthage and what's more gesseric and his vandals were now in a perfect position to strike anywhere they Wanted to i mean if you look at sicily on a map it is a perfect jump point to just about any place in the western mediterranean valentinian iii who was now the emperor of the western roman empire he was the son of galla placidia was so freaked out by this that on june 24th in the year 440 he issued an imperial edict he states that i quote

geseric the enemy of our empire is reported to have issued forth from the port of carthage with a large fleet whose swift transit and a capacity for opportunistic maraudering is to be feared along all coastlines end quote his message was pretty clear this wasn't going to be just a problem of the western roman empire after all if guess rick and his vandals decided to move along the north african coast they could easily take out the bread basket of the eastern roman empire in egypt and theodosis ii who was the emperor of the east took notice

but theodosis knew that sending his limited troops to the west to help valentinian while he had men like attila and bleda on his border would not be an easy sell for his people in my mind i can actually imagine what the scene must have been like theodose is sitting on his Throne dressed in purple all of the intricate regala that's associated with the eastern court must have been present including all of his advisors and learned men and eunuchs and whatnot and he turns over to them and he states we need to do this north africa

needs to be liberated this is something that if we do not check now those barbarians are going to walk all over the face of the earth he also points out that our troops are well trained they're well armed they're well provisioned we've set aside resources to make sure that they're going to do a good job and with any luck they're going to be home by christmas it's practically a done deal mission accomplished and then he reaches over and brings out a piece of paper he brings out the treaty of margam and he flashes it in

front of all of his advisors and he states this treaty is guaranteed that attila is not going to attack us we've given in to all of his demands we've appeased him we have doubled our tribute and if attila is a man of his word there is no possibility that he will ever go to war with us there will be peace in our time Well that's kind of the way it plays out in my mind anyway but for those of you who picked up on the references kudos to you because you can tell which way this

one is going to be going theodosius made his sale he was able to convince his advisors that going to sicily and then onward to north africa was going to be a good idea and so in the year 441 his troops boarded ship and set sail for sicily the hun spies that were sent ahead to monitor this reported back to attila that indeed the troops had gone and shortly thereafter attila and bleda attacked i find it interesting that the huns before they did this attack wanted to shift the blame for this war to the romans i

guess they didn't want to come across as being barbarians they arrived at the city of margam which by the way just as a side note the city of margum depending on which text you read can also come across as the city of margus but in either case they arrived at the city of margam margus and they demanded that the bishop of that town had illegally crossed over into hun territory and had raided several hun burial sites To which they demanded that the bishop be turned over immediately the romans refused which played directly into attila's plans

and so you had the pretext for war the citizens of the city itself knew that they were surrounded and that help really wasn't coming so they made a plot in order to turn over the bishop anyway but the bishop must have caught wind of this because he went out of the city snuck over to attila and made a side deal he promised attila and bleda that he would open the city gates surrender the inhabitants if they would spare him his life the huns readily agreed to this and then in the middle of the night when

the gates were down they poured into the city proceeding to kill every man woman and child and then raise and burn the city to the ground the fate of the bishop is lost to antiquity but i can imagine he didn't last for very long the huns proceeded to attack a multitude of smaller settlements up and down the banks of the danube and then they proceeded into the morava river valley roman historians give us very little detail of the hun exploits and this is something i Can understand i mean after all this was a disaster for

them but what they do mention is some of the larger cities that were actually taken and these include cities like cerminium singadonam which is modern day belgrade margam the ministerium sir daika which is modern-day sophia and i want to emphasize that these are not just rural villages these are actually imperial cities with a large population and with imperial garrisons to actually protect them christopher kelly again actually has a good account of a hun attack and i quote at first a smudge on the horizon gradually through the dust the horses and their riders take shape then

the sickening realization that this is not help but destruction the harsh shouts of anonymous men blankly uniform in their helmets and armor the cruel flash of swords and the hot flow of blood there is nothing new about the horrors of war they do not shock until a brief list of cities destroyed becomes at least in our imagination a roll call of thousands of individuals raped enslaved or killed end quote it's about at this time when roman historians start giving accounts Of hun atrocities things that without doubt future generations would construe as being war crimes accounts

of men women children civilian and soldier alike being crucified as far as the eye can see mass executions occurring in front of other populaces there's even stories of huns dipping their arrows into the boiling fetuses of slain women in order to appease their war gods and make their arrows shoot straight one of the major atrocities that occurred was when the huns arrived at the city of nicest they got there in the year 442 a few months into this campaign nicest wasn't just an imperial city 150 years prior to this it was actually the birthplace of

constantine the great who was the emperor who actually founded the eastern roman empire the city was built up it was beautiful it was supposed to be the jewel of the balkans it had a series of fortifications and towers and the romans put a lot of emphasis and stock in these defenses because the garrison that protected the city was probably not as big as it should have been and to some extent it makes a little bit of sense because barbarian groups that had come Through this area usually stuck to pillaging the countryside and would usually avoid

cities like this because they simply couldn't get into them but in this case i think the romans miscalculated because they didn't count on the fact that the huns had evolved in terms of their military technology and at the siege of nicest the huns had brought something new priscus of panam is a contemporary historian and he actually gives us an account of what the romans now had to face and i quote when a large number of hanukk siege engines had been brought up to the wall the defenders on the battlements gave in because of the cloud

of missiles and evacuated their positions the so-called rams were brought up also this is a very large machine a beam is suspended by slack chains from timbers which incline together and it is provided with a sharp metal point and screens for the safety of those working it with short ropes attached to the rear men vigorously swing the beam away from the target of the blow and then release it from the walls the defenders tumbled down wagon-sized boulders some rams they crushed together with the men working them but they could Not hold out against the great

number of machines then the enemy brought up scaling ladders the barbarians entered through the part of the circuit wall broken by the blows of the rams and also over the scaling ladders and the city was taken end quote the destruction of nicest was complete there was nothing left the city was left in smoldering ruin the population was annihilated there are even reports that travelers through the land almost a decade later would come across bones bleaching in the sun because there was just nobody left to even bury the dead theodosis ii had no choice at this

point he had to call off his north african expedition recall his troops from sicily a hasty and humiliating treaty was formulated with the vandals of north africa in which they were given that land including carthage after the troops came back theodosius sued for peace he actually increased the tribute that he was paying to attilato well over a thousand pounds of gold annually all right let me ask you this what would you do next if you were in attila's shoes because not only have you successfully invaded the eastern roman empire but you've given them A black

eye you've wiped out a good chunk of their frontier defenses you've taken on their cities and proven that they are in fact vulnerable and what's more you've managed to extort even more money out of them i would say that if you were just a simple barbarian you would just continue to attack and try to pillage and try to steal more stuff but attila opted for something different he opted for consolidation he made all of his troops come back to the great hungarian plane and he knew that there was only one more obstacle that was stopping

him from assuming complete power and he knew that he needed to neutralize that issue before he could continue on sometime in the year 445 approximately two years after this campaign into the eastern roman empire had ended attila's older brother bleda turned up dead the details of his death are completely unknown depending on which resource you get into there's some accounts the honorable accounts that say that attila challenged his brother for control of the huns and won other accounts state that bleda died of natural causes which to me is complete and total rubbish I think that

attila realized that his time to take over had finally come and he had enough support in order to do it i challenge my listeners to look into this if anybody can come up with a good hypothesis by all means let me know about it but i will say that in my own review of the resources the term assassination comes up very frequently let me give you an example the following is from a source by a man by the name of jordaines he was a goth and historian that was writing about attila in the 6th century

quote when attila's brother bleda who ruled over a great part of the huns had been slain by attila's treachery the latter united all the people under his own rule gathering also a host of other tribes which he then held under his sway he sought to subdue the foremost nations of the world the romans and visigoths his army is said to have numbered five hundred thousand men he was a man born into the world to shake the nations the scourge of all lands who in some way terrified all mankind by the dreadful rumors noised abroad concerning

him he was haughty in his walk rolling his eyes here and there so that the power of his proud spirit appeared in the movement of his body He was indeed a lover of war yet restrained in action mighty in council gracious to suppliance and lenient to those who once received into his protection end quote once attila had firm control over his people he did something that in my opinion was extremely cunning he exploited their beliefs in order to legitimize his sole leadership it readily brings to mind something that i read about field marshal irwin rommel

if you recall he was the deutsches africa corps the commander of german forces in north africa in world war ii also known as the desert fox he stated a commander can work wonders if he has had the wit to create some sort of legend around himself according to hun mythos and legend the true king the one that was destined to unite all the huns together would be gifted a sword by their war god and attila completely used this angle again edward gibbons quote one of the shepherds of the huns perceived that a heifer who was

grazing had wounded herself in the foot and curiously followed the track of blood till he discovered among the long grass the point of an ancient sword which he dug out of the ground And presented to attila that magnanimous or rather that artful prince accepted with pious gratitude the celestial favor and as a rightful possessor of the sword of mars asserted his divine and indefeasible claim to the domination of the earth and the vigor with which attila wielded the sword of mars convinced the world that it had been reserved alone for his invincible arm end quote

what a brilliant maneuver not only did he consolidate his people but he made his actions appear almost divinely inspired and this was something that attila was going to be needing because several hundred miles to the east theodosius ii was busy using the peacetime in order to rebuild the eastern roman empire at this point he had rebuilt the army and refurbished them he had rebuilt a couple of the fortifications he even went so far as to rebuild the danube fleet a series of ships so that he could patrol and monitor the danube when theodosis caught word

that attila was vying for soul supremacy over the huns he calculated and calculated correctly that attila would be so busy trying to consolidate his power base that he wouldn't have time to deal with the Eastern roman empire so theodosis stopped all payment to attila he even went so far as to make an edict quote for we believe that if military affairs are organized exactly as we have decreed then in whatever territory an enemy might be tempted to invade a victory that is advantageous to us according to the will of god will be proclaimed even before

any battle end quote is this confidence is this hubris is this stupidity perhaps a combination of all three kind of put together i'll let you decide but in my mind's eye i see the following there's theodosis sitting on his throne dressed in purple all the regala all the upper administration of the eastern european court surrounding him yada yada and he's telling him hey guys we don't need to pay attilan anymore i mean look what we got we have our army back we have our navy we have a ton of defenses we have all these towns

there's no way he can get through all of that and even if he did and even made it to constantinople he would have to deal with the theodosian walls and look at those things guys they're humongous there's triple line defenses there's towers every once in a while they Have a moat he couldn't possibly get through that right as far as i'm concerned attila can eat cake and i'm sure theodosis went to bed that night with a big smile on his face with this certain degree of confidence and probably rightfully so he had probably some of

the most impregnable defenses on the planet and i'm sure he probably went to bed with a smile on his face every night up until january 26th in the year 447 because you see this was the day that he lost both his smile and his confidence and i can tell you at approximately 2 a.m he woke up and the reason i can guarantee you that is because most people don't sleep through an estimated 7.6 richter scale earthquake as the light came up over the bosphorus and illuminated the theodosian walls theodosis was horrified to see that almost

an entire mile long stretch of it was no longer there but he wasn't the only one that noticed this because attila had scouts monitoring this and as soon as they found an entryway into constantinople attila was on the move once again the 447 campaign was a lot different than the 441 campaign this was going to be a race against time Attila had the speed and maneuverability of his cavalry forces but the romans had several lines of defense they had forts they even had an army in the field and attila to his credit realized that he

couldn't just blaze in if he had done so the romans could have possibly cut him off from his lines of logistics and support could have cut off his line of retreat and he would have found himself completely surrounded attila adopted a policy of scorched earth he wanted to move in in such a way that he would hit several key roman installations on his way towards constantinople his scouts had reported to him after all that a vast tract of these walls that were defending constantinople were completely obliterated and so he figured he had the time the

romans used a different strategy they knew that constantinople was their base of operations and if constantinople fell the eastern roman empire would fall and they were willing to sacrifice men and troops and cities and forts in order to buy time to rebuild those walls and what kind of time frame are we talking about well according to several of theodosis's advisors They stated that the destruction was so complete that it would take almost two years to rebuild the walls and this was time that theodosius just didn't seem to have after all he was already getting reports

that not only had the huns poured over the border but they were already taking out the city of rattaria which was the headquarters of his danube fleet and it was only a matter of time before he started getting even more reports that the huns were moving onwards towards the city of morrison opal which was kind of the halfway point on their march towards constantinople theodosis had to move quickly he hired a man by the name of flavius constantius with the sole responsibility of rebuilding the theodosian walls and then he proceeded to mobilize the eastern roman

army he put it under the command of a man by the name of arden negislus and he gave him the responsibility to intercept the hun army and stop it at any costs at the city of marcin opal and this is exactly what he did he marched the eastern roman army along the coast of the black sea to marcin opal and then realizing that the huns were still a distance away Marched it up into the danube river valley the two armies met at a tributary of the danube by the name of uttas which is currently the

river vid in northern bulgaria now our negislas the general of the roman army actually had a very good force under his command again theodosius had spent time and money to refit and refurbish the army so that it was going to be a very good fighting force but what arnaegisklus lacked was knowledge of hun tactics we should probably talk about this the huns relied on mobile warfare at its finest it was all based on the ability to do lightning raids to attack an enemy and then be able to withdraw without taking too much damage now if

you look at the hun saddles it actually allowed the rider to pivot his body so that they could take arrow shots whether they were approaching an enemy or whether they were retreating from the enemy and this allowed them to sometimes draw the enemy out they would ride up fire several shots and then retreat or at least feign a retreat in order to tempt the enemy to chase after them and what would usually happen is that the enemy force would chase after them Would lose cohesion of their forces perhaps even lose a little bit of morale

they'd get fatigued and then there would be several hun forces waiting in the wings to pounce and ambush this incoming force then they would riddle them with arrows and the job was pretty much done at that point let's also talk about the hun compound bow because this was also a masterpiece of design it consisted of wood mixed with sinew mixed with bone which gave it a tremendous amount of resilience and tensile strength the process that was required in order to build this bow would take almost a year to build but the effects were devastating it's

estimated that a hun bow and arrow would hit you with the same impact as a modern-day bullet and the huns knew this they would use a very famous tactic where they would divide up their forces into two waves of attack and the first group would shoot their arrows up into the air at a trajectory so that the arrows would land on the heads of their targets whereas the second group would fire their arrows almost at a horizontal directly into the enemy and so the result was the enemy would try To protect against one incoming wave

and get decimated by the other incoming wave of arrows despite this lack of knowledge of hun tactics the roman army actually had a very reasonable performance they were actually able to inflict a considerable amount of losses on the huns arnogisklus and his force knew that they were fighting for the eastern roman empire they were fighting to save their very homeland and they fought ferociously the story goes that arne gislis was on his horse and mowing down people left and right and his horse got riddled with arrows and died underneath him and despite that he was

actually able to continue fighting until he himself died on the field of battle historians go so far to say that the battle of the river uttus as it became known came within a hare's breath of being a roman victory tactically attila was able to win the day but his forces were pretty badly mauled he had to stop and regroup and refurbish his forces and so strategically this was kind of a victory for the romans because it bought them more time it gave the builders back in constantinople just a little Bit more time in order to

rebuild the walls however despite this setback attila pushed on he commanded his forces to move further down the danube river valley almost to the black sea they encountered the city of marcin opal along the way laid siege to it and raised it to the ground this is a city that would not be rebuilt for another 100 years attila then ordered his forces south deep into the heart of thrace itself deep into the balkans he encountered cities like philopolis and archaeopolis and he put these to the torch other cities actually managed to survive they were actually

able to fend off the huns cities like adrenal and herculea but i want you to keep in mind that each one of these sieges slowed the huns down even if it meant a few days here a few days there thus it wasn't until several months into this campaign that the huns arrived at what would be known as the chair sunisis which is the peninsula leading up to constantinople it was here that the romans had put together kind of a last-ditch army at a place called athyros now if you look at a thyrus on a modern

day map it's actually A suburb of constantinople which is of course istanbul now but it gives you an idea of how close the huns really were i mean this is a suburb that people commute into the city on a daily basis in any case the army that was created by the romans was no match for the huns it was immediately dispatched and destroyed and now the road to constantinople was completely wide open attila maneuvered his forces within striking range of constantinople with the intent that he was going to march on the city the next day

destroy it and bring an end to the eastern roman empire this however was not to be because when the sun came up and attila gazed on the walls expecting to see a mile long hole it wasn't there in fact in a last-ditch frenzied attempt the people of constantinople were actually able to rebuild the walls of theodosis the man that theodosis had placed in charge of rebuilding the walls flavius constantius had truly pulled off a herculean task and he had done this by mobilizing just about the entire population of constantinople itself including a group of sports

fanatics two groups in particular one known as the blues and the greens He used these are people that you would think of as soccer hooligans today they were big fans of the circus maximus also known as the hippodrome they were very much into their tears but they hated one another and flavius constantius manipulated that hatred he would pit one against the other in order to rebuild the wall and this process actually worked what was supposed to take two years this man actually accomplished in two months if you go to constantinople which is modern-day istanbul and

this is something that i recommend that everybody do once in their life go to the theodosian walls and if you go there go to the mev levihane gate it's at the millet cadessi bus station which makes it kind of easy to get there there's a placard that's up in the wall that actually celebrates and commemorates this man's achievement because he did nothing less than save not only constantinople but save the entire eastern roman empire think for a second what a truly incredible accomplishment this really was because it was the eastern roman empire that preserved humanity

and the arts and learning during the time when the rest of Europe was going into the dark ages where would we be intellectually if this had not occurred the theodosian walls were destined to stand for another thousand years it wasn't until the year 1453 that they were finally breached by mehmet ii and the ottoman turk army and it was only brought down because they had gun powder and artillery but attila didn't have those advantages and he knew that he wasn't going to get any further into constantinople so he pursued a policy of moving away from

the capital but pillaging and destroying everything in his path he managed to trap a roman army near gallipoli and then proceeded to move down into greece some of his forces made it as far down as thermopylae which was the site about a thousand years prior to this where king leonidas and his 300 spartans managed to go toe-to-toe with xerxes and his massive army edward gibbons again gives us a great summary of this quote the armies of the eastern empire were vanquished in three successive engagements the two former on the banks of the uttas and under

the walls of marcinopolis were fought in the extensive plains between the danube and mount hemas as the Romans were pressed by a victorious enemy they gradually and unskillfully retired toward the cheronesis of thrace and that narrow peninsula the last extremity of land was marked by their third and irreparable defeat by the destruction of this army attila acquired the indisputable possession of the field from the hellespont to thermopylae and the suburbs of constantinople he ravaged without resistance and without mercy end quote i'll leave it up to your imagination to imagine theodosis the second sitting on his

throne imagine what he had to say to his advisors because he had to explain that the navy that he was vaunting no longer existed the army that he talked about was decimated and he came within an inch of losing the entire eastern roman empire he had to explain to them that now we have to pay the huns 6 000 pounds of gold in one huge lump sum and furthermore every year we're going to have to increase their annual tribute to 2100 pounds of gold it's kind of amazing that this guy didn't end up getting assassinated

priscus of panama again the contemporary historian was not very happy with this he states in his Record quote because of the overwhelming terror that gripped their generals the romans were compelled to accept cheerfully every injunction no matter how harsh in their eagerness for peace even senators contribute a fixed amount of gold they paid only with difficulty so that men who had once been wealthy were putting up for sale their wives jewelry and their furniture this was a disaster that happened to the romans after the war and the result was that many killed themselves either by

starvation or by hanging end quote attila achieved a triumph with this he had the eastern roman empire in his pocket he had an insane amount of money coming from them in the form of an annual subsidy he even insisted that a buffer zone be created between the hun empire and the eastern roman empire which meant even more loss of land for the romans it was kind of like a demilitarized zone like the one you have between north and south korea being the type a personality that attila was he set to work using this money that

he was getting to expand his empire at this point the huns controlled the land that spread from the rhine On one end all the way to the volga and from the danube all the way to the baltic sea it was huge this was the land area that was comparable to the size of the entire roman empire combined at this point attila calculated correctly that the eastern roman empire probably wouldn't give him any trouble for the foreseeable future their army was pretty much annihilated his army had grown to a massive size he had a secure border

with them and he was extorting an unprecedented amount of money out of him so it didn't make any more sense to attack them but his eyes turned westward and at this point all he needed was an excuse the western roman empire up until this point had managed to avoid the wrath of attila part of this was due in response to the fact that attila and atheists had a bit of a friendship going on and i'm sure atheist was only too willing to advertise this fact in order to maintain his power base atheist was no slackered

he had used this time to improve the roman army he had invaded gaul several times and he had several successful campaigns under his belt It was said that his power grew so strong that delegates from other lands would actually present themselves to atheists instead of valentinian iii who was the emperor this didn't go without notice because valentinian iii who initially adored atheists for his successful campaigns began to truly despise him but he knew that there was nothing that he could do because atheists truly held the keys to holding the huns in check what's more valentinian

had his hands full with the intrigue that surrounded the imperial court let's talk about him for a second because valentinian was a bit of an idiot he was in my opinion another ineffectual roman emperor who had no idea what was going on and had a tendency to make completely insane decisions kind of the last thing that the dying western roman empire needed at this point in time his mother gallop lacidia was truly the brains of the outfit but he also had a sister by the name of justa grata who was perhaps a little bit more

cunning a little bit wiser and a little bit smarter than he was but perhaps we're not saying much by saying that in any case i would bet you that if she were Male gallop licity would most likely have had valentinian either assassinated or bopped off in some sort of coup and would have put her in charge but according to the roman guidebook the policy was that a woman could not assume the role of emperor and to make matters even worse for anoria she was siblings with valentinian which means her only real options in life were

to be married off to some random guy in order to solidify either a treaty or a land grab or some sort of power gain but the policy stated again from the roman guidebook that this only worked as long as she remained a virgin valentinian was not going to take any chances with this he had her locked up in the proverbial tower put her into a gilded cage but again a gilded cage is still a cage and as one can imagine this is something that most people would find very resentful inoria was bored she wanted to

get back at her brother and the only way that she could really do it was by sexual innuendo in fact the report goes that she was quite the virtuoso when it came to this but perhaps she went a little too far when valentinian found out that she was pregnant and Pregnant at the hands of her steward of estates her kind of butler a man by the name of eugenius he was understandably furious his options to marry her off and solidify his power base were gone so what was he left to do well first things first

eugenius was put to death which was according to the roman guidebook again the catch-all cure-all valentinian even went so far as to try to apply this policy to his sister and have her put to death as well and if it wasn't for the intervention of galla placidia he probably would have done this but he found his own way of getting back at her he had her engaged to a man by the name of flavius basis herculeanus who according to the tradition was somebody that was kind of resentfully ugly he was a bit of a dullard

kind of stupid and at the same time he was several years older than anoria she was beside herself not only had she witnessed the death of her lover but now she was in a situation where she was going to marry somebody that she found detestable and it was this desperation that led her to do one of the most insane and destructive acts of her entire life A few weeks later on the great hungarian plane in attila's capital an envoy arrived bearing a package for attila that came from anoria it was for his eyes only and

when attila opened this package he was shocked a smile came to his face there was a letter in there stating that anoria was pleading for attila to come and rescue her she was going to offer him money and gold and land and titles etc and she must have thought it must have been a good idea because she put her signet ring inside of the package now for her the signet ring would give this envoy a certain degree of authority but according to hun tradition when a woman puts a ring inside of a package to a

man that is nothing less than a proposal for marriage attila at this point probably had several wives but he always could use one more especially when that wife was a royal so he pounced on this opportunity because he knew he could play this angle towards his advantage he immediately sent envoys to the eastern and western roman empire indicating to them that he was coming to save this woman that he was coming to get his bride And all he wanted for his dowry was half the western roman empire i wonder what the expression on valentinian the

third's face must have been like when he heard about this proposition and when he realized that his sister had actually instigated this entire thing i'm guessing that family dinners from here on out must have been kind of a tragic affair valentinian didn't have much of a choice at this point he had to flat out refuse attila and attila finally had the pretext that he needed to declare war and invade it was not long after this that the wheels that comprise the hun war machine came back to life attila summoned the forces of his massive empire

into one gigantic fighting force it is said that he had almost a hundred thousand cavalry under his command and with this army with this horde the king of the huns turned westward and he was going to unleash a destructive force that would make his exploits in the eastern roman empire seem like a walk in the park the world was only about to understand the fury that was attila and he would live up to his name the scourge of god It is the mid-fifth century and the glory that once was rome is no more it is

now faded and lost to antiquity rome lays wounded and surrounded by barbarians each waiting for their turn to attack and from this chaos arises a man that will bring rome to her knees a man that will be known as the scourge of god the man who is attila the hun welcome to flashpoint history time periods that changed the world this is going to be the third and final portion of attila the hun for those of you who are able to listen to the first two parts i really want to thank you for your time and

applaud you on your ability to listen to two hours of attila the hun and i challenge you to listen to one more for those of you who haven't listened to those first two parts i strongly encourage you to go back and listen to them otherwise some of the people and references that i bring up may not make as much sense but if you are adept at this particular time period in history or if you are just one of those people that can skip around and be fine with that by all means i encourage you to

continue on Now if you like what you hear give me a like leave some comments and subscribe but either way thank you for your time and i hope you enjoy the final portion a couple of years before i made this podcast i found myself in the yucatan peninsula and the purpose of me being down there was to seek out old civilization specifically the mayan now i encourage everybody to check into this because as far as fields of archaeology go the study of the mayan is in its infancy in fact there's various areas down in mexico

belize guatemala honduras etc that they have just begun to uncover some of the sites in fact it's only within the last 10 years or 20 years that the hieroglyphs that the mayan are known for were actually deciphered but traveling down there we went to places like ushmal saeel koba ekbalam and of course chichen itza which has kind of turned into a disneyland since that time but there was a reoccurring motif seeing all these places and that is of a civilization that had failed when the spanish conquistadors came by in the early 16th century they would

walk through Several of these cities and they were overgrown with vegetation there were no people left they had been abandoned and this begs the question what causes a civilization to fall because the mayan were by no means unique in this if you look at the indus valley and a rapid civilization it was massive and it's gone the hittites the assyrians the minowin there's only ruins left for archaeologists to pick through for these people and it can almost be taken a step further because it seems as if survival is the exception and extinction is the rule

if you go online and you look up causes of a civilization's fall you're going to get blasted by a bunch of different things war drought natural disaster disease overpopulation economic and political struggles the list goes on and you can almost list them in bullet format but i think you need to go a step further and analyze what the lessons one can pick up from the fall of a civilization i would even go so far as to say that the larger the civilization the more impact that civilization had on society the more catastrophic its fall and

Now we're going to be talking about perhaps one of the most catastrophic falls of all time the fall of the roman empire in the latter part of the fifth century was so profound that it inaugurated a dark age that lasted for almost a thousand years advances in medicine and architecture and science were lost people traveling through the city of rome and seeing the ruins of the coliseum and the aqueducts almost 800 years later were astounded they couldn't figure out how to build these things because the technology had been completely lost they thought giants had built

these things because no human could possibly have the ability to build such wonders the reason for the collapse of the roman empire is probably multi-factorial and it's beyond the scope of this podcast historians have debated it for years in fact if you go back to that list of issues that can cause the fall of a civilization i would say that rome was probably subject to all of them the roman empire of the mid 5th century was a shadow of herself and of course i'm talking about the western roman empire because now there was an eastern

roman empire after the division Which was based out of constantinople now the western roman empire was just divided and dying britain had broken off vast hordes of barbarians had taken up residence and basically annexed all of north africa spain even portions of france were now under a foreign occupation and i think it was the political inability of rome to ascertain her authority that allowed for these barbarians to achieve such dominance it was roman and lack for a better word impotence that allowed for men like gesseric and alaric and attila to achieve such great power let

me ask you this what if these men had been born two to three hundred years before this time period and they had to go head-to-head against a united roman empire they had to go up against men like julius caesar or marcus aurelius trajan or even caesar augustus would we even know the names of these barbarians or would they be nothing more than a footnote to a footnote but history will tell us otherwise because we do know the names of these men and rome was anything but united during a time period when it was facing one

of her worst disasters her political Military and leadership potential was almost all but lacking and it was this lack of power that created a vacuum which allowed men like attila who were ambitious and had an agenda to go from being just a simple annoyance to being a power that was so strong that he could take on the very core of roman civilization and he did exactly that in the year 451 when he opened up his western european campaign and ironically enough this military charge into the heart of the roman empire all began with a love

note but perhaps i'm getting a little bit too far ahead of myself because what you really need to know is what the state of the hun empire was like during this time period now again the huns didn't have their own historical record everything we know about them comes from the romans and the first report we get from the romans was that in the year 370 the huns were kind of a group of barbarians that were just kind of coming off the european asiatic step they had no civilization they had no cities their technology was very

rudimentary but they had a pen chance for savagery and for violence and warfare and it's from these humble beginnings that The huns managed to establish themselves on the great hungarian plain in eastern europe which is currently the state of hungary they even had a capital located at the great bend of the danube river where current day budapest is actually located they had a hierarchy they had kings they had division of labor and it was into this that attila was born and he was born into aristocracy i'm gonna tell you right now that attila's life and

his rise to power reads out of the bloody conquerors guidebook it's like a megalomaniac's wet dream come true in the year 434 his uncle rua who was the king of the huns at the time dies and attila and his older brother bled a race to assume power over the huns which they were very successful at their reputation for fierceness along with attila's connections with the roman general atheists who he was kind of boyhood friends with allowed them to be hired as mercenaries for the roman empire to go on campaign together in france in the year

436 they were actually employees of the roman empire and i think that the romans had no idea what force they were starting to unleash onto the world And the reason i say this is because the tactics that the huns learned and the technology for siege warfare that they picked up during this campaign against the burgundians allowed them to attack the eastern roman empire in 441 and again in 447. somewhere along the way in the year 445 bleta dies under very curious circumstances which leaves attila as the sole commander of the entire hun empire and between

the years 447 up to the year 450 attila was busy at work he expanded his empire into the north and into the east taking out other tribes and other little pockets of civilization and incorporating them into the huns so by the year 450 the huns weren't just a single people they were an empire they had different coalitions of people under their command they had allies they had people that they had strong-armed into their army and attila used this plus his political savoir faire in order to create a massive army as the sun rose on the

hunt empire in the year 450 historians state that it stretched from the rhine all the way to the volga and from the danube all the way to the baltic sea Attila had infantry and cavalry and siege engines and all he needed now was a provocation in order to use them which is exactly what he got in the year 450. a eunuch from the great court in ravenna which was the political capital of the western roman empire arrived on the hungarian plane with a love note quote unquote from justa grata anoria who was the sister of

valentinian iii who was the emperor of the roman empire now of course i call it a love note you call it what you want perhaps we could call it maybe a proposition but basically what it comes down to is that anoria was caught up in scandal and a pretty bad one at that and she was caught up in a lot of political intrigue within the roman court and i'm going to spare you the details because i think if you want to hear about that i would recommend going back to the second podcast of the series

it's actually a pretty fascinating story what it comes down to is that anoria was now engaged to a man that she couldn't stand her brother basically wanted to get her out of the political picture so she sent a note to attila stating that if he came to rescue her quote unquote she would pay Him vast sums of money but inside of this package along with her letter she included a signet ring which in hon tradition is nothing less than a proposal of marriage attila completely used that angle the contemporary historian jordaines jordan's the goth writes

of attila quote beneath his great savagery attila was a subtle man and fought with diplomacy before he went to war end quote in the autumn of 450 the huns sent delegations both to ravenna and to constantinople to announce his engagement to the world which of course perplexed and flustered everybody within the roman empire both east and west and left the emperor again valentine the third of the western roman empire in a complete state of quandary first and foremost valentinian wanted to go out and literally kill his sister and he would have done it if it

wasn't for the intervention of his mother galla placidia who was truly the brains of the outfit and the power behind the power so to speak so valentinian's plan instead of killing his sister was to send her off to attila i guess he figured that she didn't want to be in the empire so badly then Let the barbarian have her but galloplacidia intervened again she told her son that appeasement and giving in to attila's demands is not something that can guarantee peace and in many situations only hastens war in my opinion i think this is a

brilliant piece of brinkmanship i think this woman had incredible insight not only into the political system of the fifth century but also into the mind of attila and i think she knew that he was going to attack no matter what in a lot of ways it reminds me of what winston churchill said to neville chamberlain after he came back from the 1938 munich pack with hitler where he basically gave the sudetenland in czechoslovakia to the third reich and churchill said and i quote you were given the choice between war and dishonor you chose dishonor you

will have war end quote at this point there was really very little for valentinian to do he had to refuse attila in late february of 451 a hun envoy arrives in the capital city of ravenna and the purpose of this envoy is to demand the completion of the marriage between attila and anoria now The romans immediately pounced on this say this is completely bogus how could this possibly be but the envoy pulls out anoria's signet ring to silence them and to give proof of the betrothal the best part is the envoy also has a personal

note from attila to valentinian and he reads it to him and it states and i quote through me attila my lord and your lord has instructed you to prepare the palace for him end quote a few days later in march of 451 the forces that attila had painstakingly put together to form this massive army poured over the border the invasion of the western roman empire had begun and this was something that the romans had absolutely no defense for the fortifications that they initially had along the rhine were either ineffective or abandoned or destroyed and so

the huns met almost no resistance now historians don't always agree to the exact details of what happened but according to historical records anywhere between 70 to 100 cities were put to the torch the reason for the hun's success i believe is because they had the ability To hit multiple targets at once this was after all a step people who had cavalry tactics down they understood the idea of mobile warfare hit a target move on to the next one and this was something that the romans really didn't have a good defense for after all if you

have multiple cities that are coming under attack you can only defend one or two if you have limited military forces the huns within the first month of the attack had basically taken on every major city along the rhine or the rhine valley cities such as cologne maine's worms strasbourg were all in flames by april 7th the hudson arrived at the city of mets the work that they did on mets rivaled what they had done to the city of nicest in 441 during their eastern european campaign this was a destruction that was so complete that there

was almost literally nobody left to bury the dead and it was going to be a city that would be so badly ravaged that it would be uninhabitable for decades now granted the huns didn't destroy everything that they came across there were a few exceptions to the rules when they arrived at the city of reams which was another 90 miles into The roman empire according to ecclesiastical legend the bishop a man by the name of nicasius was on the steps of the cathedral giving prayer he was reciting the 119th psalm and as he was in the

middle of his psalm a hun sword came down and decapitated him he was saying my soul clings to the dust but even after decapitation at least according to the legend his head rolled down the steps and continued to say the prayer give me life lord according to your word and the huns were so frightened by this they actually quit looting the city and just moved on this by the way has become such an important part of the local culture at reims that when the cathedral was rebuilt there's actually a 13th century relief sculpture on the

north portal of the reems cathedral that's dedicated to saint nicassius and of course in the sculpture he's headless one of the most ironic things that happened during this campaign at least ironic to me was when the huns arrived at the city of lutetia now in the mid 5th century lutetio was a very run-down third-rate city it was a tiny little berg that was located On a set of islands in a river that was prone to flood and kill the people that lived in the city it was such an eyesore that when the hun scouts arrived

and saw the city they thumbed their noses at it and reported back to central command that hey there is nothing here worth taking it's not even worth our time to go in there and kill the people and so the city of lutetia was left alone and allowed to grow because i'm pretty sure that if the hunts had gone through there would have been nothing left of the city now the river that this city resides on would one day be called the sen and the pair of islands that it's basically founded on would one day be

called the il de cite and the il de san lui and the city of lutetia would one day be known as the city of paris which an entirely different group of huns quote unquote would make as the focus of their attack in the years 1871 1914 and 1940 readily come to mind when i say that now the sparing of lutetia side the destruction that the hun army brought to northern france at this time period was quite extensive like i had said before almost 100 towns were raised Keep in mind that the predominant religion was slowly

becoming more and more christian and the christian leaders of this time period were having a very difficult time explaining to their congregation exactly why their god would allow such a calamity to befall their people and the angle that they picked was that attila was some sort of divine intervention a divine wrath they even coined the term flagellum day and flagellum day in literal latin translation actually means the whip of god which of course can also be translated into the scourge of god now the best example of this is when the hun army arrived at the

city of tua and this is about 70 miles south of the city of reams and when they arrived there the bishop of tua a man by the name of lupus boldly and courageously and now keep in mind this is actually taken out of ecclesiastical history so take it for what it's worth he came out and he confronted attila and stated who are you to which attila responded i am attila the whip of god to which lupus responded and i am lupus the destroyer of god's flock and i have need of the whip of god And

according to this ecclesiastical tradition the huns were so impressed that the doors to the city of thoa were opened up and they marched on through and they just kept on going without damaging the city or harming its people again i find a lot of this to be a great deal of propaganda the church needed to justify exactly what was going on to its people and this is probably about the best angle they can make out of it when attila heard what the christian leaders were calling him he actually took it into stride he would go

into new territory and use the term scourge of god almost like a calling card because he realized that there was a psychological component to all warfare and that sometimes a fierce enough reputation is all you need to take out an enemy without even firing a shot and there were several examples of him walking into a city where they would just basically open up their gates because they were too afraid of them to do anything else this of course wasn't always the case there were cities that would shut their doors and attila would have to lay

siege and in most situations he was able to overcome their defenses Now by mid june the hun army had arrived at the city of orlean and keep in mind that this is 250 miles deep into roman held territory the reigns had come and had slowed down the hun advance orleans was barring its doors to italy and so he decided to lay siege but as he was laying siege he finally got word that the roman army had decided to show up what on earth had the romans been doing up until this point after all they had

basically given a till a carte blanche to do whatever the heck he wanted to in northern france and for months on end well in a single word the romans were scrambling this wasn't the roman empire of the second or third century this was a dying empire the fifth and they were very limited on resources valentinian iii who was the emperor and a very ineffectual emperor had no idea what to do his initial idea was to retreat all roman forces into italy and use that as a defense sector in order to take on attila his highest

advisor a man by the name of atheists convinced him out of this atheist is a man that was regarded by edward gibbons who wrote the decline and fall of the roman empire as The last of the true romans and he meant that as a extreme compliment because he was the only man who knew what he was doing while rome was falling all around him atheist was a man that actually grew up with the huns he knew their tactics he knew what type of warfare they'd like to employ into and what's more he was childhood friends

with attila he came up with a much better plan he proposed to valentinian iii that italy should not be the place for decisive action gaul should not be abandoned he surmised and surmised very correctly that if the huns were left to their own devices and allowed to take on the goths under their king theodoric who were now living in southern france all by themselves that the huns would most likely defeat the goths and at that point the roman army by itself would pose absolutely no major opposition atheists proposed the unthinkable he wanted to create an

alliance with the goths and not just the gods but just about anybody that was willing to fight for the romans and who hated the huns valentinian reluctantly agreed to this plan we actually have a note that has survived through antiquity to this day now there's a note between Valentinian and theodoric and i quote the emperor valentinian to theater king of the goths bravest of nations we are well advised to unite against this universal despot who wishes to enslave the whole earth attila requires no reason for battle but thinks wherever he does is justified the measure

of his ambition is his strength his arrogance is boundless despising both law and religion he shows himself hostile even to the natural order of things he deserves everyone's hatred since he is undoubtedly the common enemy of all can you permit such arrogance to go unpunished since you are a military power face your own troubles by joining together with us end quote desperation there's really no other way to describe this atheist was in the middle of a hiring spree he traveled all across southern france trying to employ anybody that he could at one point he found

himself trying to bring on board the burgundians now this was the same group of people in the year 436 he fought alongside the huns and he nearly wiped them out atheists must have been a genius when it came to political maneuvering because he was actually able to Create a coalition of forces and this coalition consisted of a goth contingent a roman contingent and a contingent of various tribes and barbarians that he managed to press altogether now this ad hoc army that he created he marched directly into central france atheists wanted to catch the huns in

a logistically unfavorable position after all attila was almost 250 miles within roman territory he was far from his line of supply he was far from the hungarian plane which was his base of operations and so when attila discovered this incoming force of romans and goths and various other barbarians he immediately stopped laying siege to the city of orleon and maneuvered his army towards the west attila was looking for ground that would be militarily favorable for his army and in particular what he was looking for was wide open field so that he could fully utilize the

effectiveness of his horse archers after all you got to remember that the huns were a step people and step warfare usually consisted of mobile warfare it was a process of maneuvering your forces rapidly into position where they could shower the enemy with successive volleys of arrows And then quickly maneuver out of range to avoid any type of counter-attack what attila discovered to the west on the river marn near a small town by the name of shalon were these rolling fields that would one day be known as the catalonian plane and it was here that he

set up his army and waited for the incoming forces of atheists to meet up with him and on june 20th in the year 451 these forces clashed the battle of shalon also known as the battle of the catalonian plane is regarded by most historians as perhaps one of the most pivotal battles of western civilization oddly enough this battle started off kind of like two cowboys in an old spaghetti western that were facing off across an empty square the two armies were lined up face to face across a large expanse that was only divided in the

middle by a ridge attila had taken on rome before in both of his campaigns against the eastern roman empire he was able to take on roman armies and defeat them but he had never taken on a roman army that was under the command of someone who knew hun tactics an atheist was exceptional at this not only did atheists understand hun tactics But he also could read into the mind of attila and this showed in the way that he deployed his forces atheists did something a little unusual he took the best troops that he had the

romans people that he could count on and he put him on his left flank he took the visigoths under their king theodoric and he put him on his right flank but in the center of his army he put the weakest troops that he had a group of people by the name of the allens who are under the command of their leader sanjiban now keep in mind sanjiban was also the leader of garrison forces at orleon who a week prior to this battle came within a hairs breath of actually surrendering to attila now why on earth

would you put your weakest troops in the center of your line i mean after all if you lose your center you've lost this battle a lot of historians claim that part of the reason why he did this was to prevent the allens and sanja band from simply running away and what better place to put them than right in the center where they'd be flanked by people who could keep them in line i don't think it was just that ats in my opinion was a military genius and i think he did it Because he wanted attila

to attack him directly in the center and this is exactly what attila did when he saw the allens in the center of the line he arranged for his huns to be in the center of his line attila's plan was remarkably simple he wanted hun's strength to hit roman weakness and if he could create a breakthrough in the center of atheist line he could divide atheist forces in two this battle started off as a race to capture that central ridge by both sides this was a race that was actually won not by the huns but by

the visigoth contingent of atheists forces because they also had horses and when they were able to capture the top of that ridge they were actually able to repulse the incoming wave of huns make no mistake this wasn't a one-sided battle this was a horrendous clash this was hand-to-hand fighting it probably its worst with horrendous losses on both sides but the visigoths had the high ground and the huns began to fall back they were staggered according to tradition it was at this point that attila gave a speech in order to rally his troops which i find

very difficult for him to do i don't think he would have had the time But i particularly like this speech because it's just so overly dramatic in fact it doesn't sound like it's something that comes out of late antiquity it sounds like something that comes out of a 1960s kind of panavision rex harrison lawrence of arabia-esque kind of movie attila's speech goes something like this and i quote huns here you stand after victory over many nations and after conquering the world for what is war to you but a way of life what is more satisfying

for a brave man than to seek revenge with his own hand nature imposes on us this heavy duty to glut our souls with vengeance let us attack the enemy keenly for those who press on with a battle are always bolder let the wounded claim and recompense the death of his opponent let those who are unharmed glory in the slaughter of the enemy i shall throw the first spear at the foe if any man can stand unmoved while attila fights then he must already be dead end quote that's not just over-the-top kind of drama that's over-the-top

megalomaniac dr evil kind of drama but attila was able to rally his troops he took his entire contingent of Elite hun warriors and threw them directly into the roman central line for a counter-attack now this counter-attack had the effect of pushing back the allens and he managed to kill the king of the visigoths theodoric jordan's the historian actually comments on this quote the goths honored him with songs and carried him away in full view of the huns tears were shed but only those fitting for brave men for this was death but the huns can testify

that it was a glorious one end quote attila came very close to breaking the center of the roman line but the allens held and it was at this point that atheists decided to send in his last remaining elite roman troops directly into the flank of the huns this had the effect of catching the huns between a vice-like grip between the roman forces on the left and the visigoths on the right atheists knew that if he could encircle the huns he would be able to negate their ability to maneuver and thereby deprive them of the mobile

warfare for which they were so well renowned and this is exactly what he was able to accomplish the fighting became horrendously awful at this point there were staggering Losses on both sides but one thing was for sure and that was the huns were losing in the darkness attila retreated back to his circle of wagons his camp and it was here that he set up a funeral pyre consisting of horse saddles which he lit on fire with the intent to self-immolate himself he wanted to die with the concept that he would be undefeated but at the

last second he was convinced otherwise by his supporters and grudgingly he accepted his first defeat when the sun arose on the second day of the battle of shalon the battlefield was surmised by a roman spectator when he said the following latin cadavera vero numera which translates into bodies that are truly countless both armies were wrecked in this battle but it was obvious that atheist definitely had the upper hand and he had the opportunity once and for all to wipe out the huns altogether but he let them go i think part of this was because atheists

was not just a military leader but he was also a political one and he surmised that if he had wiped out the huns that he would lose all credibility within the roman court there'd be no reason for him to be there And without the fear that the huns brought to the rest of the barbarian hordes other troops including the visigoths who he just fought alongside would probably rise up against him ironically he figured out that the romans needed the huns in order to stabilize the balance of power but this would be a decision that atheists

would be criticized not only by the roman court but by later historians because attila was not a man to take defeat lightly and within the mind of the great hun leader plans for another invasion had already begun now it's my opinion that the battle of shalom was actually quite decisive i think that western civilization and the history of christianity would probably have turned out dramatically different had the huns won here this opinion is of course not shared by all historians but john julius norwich a man whose works on venice and the byzantine empire are extremely

extensive a man who i think of as a good resource and more importantly someone who shares my own opinion wrote the following and i quote it should never be forgotten that in the summer of 451 the whole fate of western Civilization hung in the balance had the hunish army not been halted had its leader toppled valentinian from his throne and set up his own capital at ravenna or rome there is little doubt that both gaul and italy would have been reduced to spiritual and cultural deserts end quote however that said for the time being the

great hun menace was put on hold attila had been defeated for the first time he and his army were slowly making their way back to the great hungarian plane but atheists didn't pursue them he came back to ravenna to a triumph roman historians were all over this the story of a great roman victory over barbarism was spread across the land and atheist's name was carried to the stars which in turn actually made valentinian very uncomfortable he didn't like the idea of one of his generals getting all the credit out all the glory for this victory

but what is to be said about attila after all the huns didn't have their own historical record so they couldn't rebuke anything that the romans said about them and if you think about it the roman historians actually won in the long game sixteen hundred years after attila's death His very name even to those who have a rudimentary understanding of history still conjures images of evil and barbarity and cruelty that are almost unrivaled perhaps shakespeare said it best the evil that men do live long after their deaths the good is usually interred with their bones i

think it's important to understand attila not as the barbarian but as the man and we have one existing example which gives us actually a balanced view and surprisingly it was written by a roman this roman was a man by the name of priscus of panama he was a contemporary historian and a professor of rhetoric at constantinople and his story revolves around his trip from constantinople all the way into the heart of the great hungarian plane part of a roman envoy in order to secure diplomacy with attila priscas's story begins about two years before attila invades

the western roman empire this is two years before the battle of shalom in the year 449 as the story goes a man by the name of a deco who was a hun envoy arrives at the court at constantinople and he is one of attila's emissaries and his purpose there is to give the emperor of the eastern roman empire a man By the name of theodosis ii a list of demands that attila once completed now he's quickly ushered into the royal throne chamber but he's not allowed to talk to theodosis a second because theodosius is a

god to his people and of course he can't have a simple hun barbarian talking to a god so a deco is ushered into one of these little side chambers but the side chamber is lavishly adorned it's got lush carpets and silverware and glassware and gold as far as the eye can see and it's here that he meets up with one of theodosis's most trusted eunuchs a man by the name of chrysaphias now chrysaphias doesn't speak hun and a deco doesn't speak greek or latin so they have to find an interpreter and they find somebody by

the name of the gillis and the gillis is kind of a slimy little guy who really failed at everything else but he managed to find his niche as an interpreter and it's at this point that chrysafeus starts to really lay it on strong with a deco he starts giving him compliments and telling him how great it is for the guy to be here and tells him hey is that a new sword you get that's nice and shiny and then of course wine starts getting poured and The first glass leads to the second which leads to

the third and the fourth and the fifth and at that point chrysafia's figures that edeko is so sufficiently intoxicated that in vino veritas he can actually get to the point and he asks a deco i need you to do me a favor i want you to go back to the great hungarian plane and at that point in time he reaches behind him and pulls out a bag of gold and now we're not talking about just a small bag of gold we're talking 50 pounds of gold and drops it in a deco's lap and says i'll

give you this plus much more if you will assassinate attila a deco looks down at the bag and looks back up at chrysaptis and raises one eyebrow and the smile comes to his face and he says i'll do it but edeka goes on to say that there's going to be a catch because after all with any type of regicide there's always going to be some sort of a catch and he explains to him that traveling back to attila with 50 pounds of gold attached to his waist is probably not going to be the most casual

way to come up to his king so chrysaphias and adeko sit down and they come up with a plan what they figure is that they need to Cover up this assassination plot in the form of a diplomatic envoy and chrysafis figures that if he's going to be sending an envoy he's got to send some of the upper crust of society at the court at constantinople in order to make the whole thing look legit and he finds a man by the name of maximinus now maximinus is a career soldier and he's slowly making his way up

the hierarchy but he's not quite big enough of a person in order to throw his weight around but at the same time he is also very loyal and he believes in the system and he figures he's the perfect man because he's going to look like somebody that's proper he's going to be someone that can speak for the emperor and most importantly if the entire deal goes sour he is somebody that is expendable this plan is something that edeko readily agrees to but he makes it a point to emphasize that vigilis the slimeball character slash translator

who has basically interpreted this entire conversation should also go along with the envoy if for no other reason that if vigilance decides to open his big mouth at least a deca will be there to silence him and so a few weeks later in the early summer of 449 This envoy leaves constantinople maximinus is in charge and along with his entourage he decides to include priskus who is one of his childhood friends he figures that priscas is a professor of rhetoric he's kind of a philosopher and he'd be a great companion in the form of a

chronicler priscus readily agrees he's been searching his entire life to find an interesting story to tell and he figures the story of attila the hun and hun society would be the perfect thing that he could publish and make himself famous off of if not rich as well keep in mind that neither priscus nor maximinus who's actually in charge of this envoy have any idea of the assassination plot that's actually going on underneath all of this to them they figure this is just a great diplomatic opportunity why wouldn't we want to do this this journey began

very poorly according to priskus now on one end priskus at the beginning of this entire adventure was a bit of a wimp he was a guy that was used to living in a nice house he was a professor he lived in constantinople and had all the niceties associated with civilization and for him to go from that to living in a tent in the Middle of a large open wilderness being rained on every other day was a bit of a trauma but on the other hand i can also understand where he was coming from after all

he and his roman colleagues were traveling alongside a bunch of huns through an area that had been ravaged by warfare between the two empires to call the situation awkward i think would have been a bit of an understatement every day this envoy would be passing by the remnants of homes and villages and farmlands that would pass by the wreckage of what were once glorious imperial cities in fact two weeks into this journey priscus and his companions arrived at the city of nicest now if you recall nicest was one of the major cities of the province

it was kind of the jewel of the province it was also one of the main targets of attila's first attack into the eastern roman empire this was a city that was so badly ravaged that there were absolutely no buildings left seven years after this city was attacked priscus and his companions were discovering bones and skulls that were littering the riverbanks proof that the slaughter was so complete that there Was nobody left to even bury the dead nicest would be a city that wouldn't be rebuilt for a hundred years try to think about that in terms

of more contemporary warfare the american civil war ended in 1865. the city of richmond virginia was utterly destroyed at the end of that war now imagine richmond virginia not being rebuilt until the year 1965. i mean this was a time period when the apollo program was going on in any case going back to nicest this was kind of a respite on the journey according to priscus they spent a few days there to regain their health it was at this time that deco and vigilis actually had a chance to talk about the assassination plot in a

little bit more detail vigilance was instructed to kind of hide the cache and edeko was going to venture forth into the great hungarian plane to kind of feel out the waters to make sure that he was going to actually be able to continue on with this plot after this meeting the two of them got into this fake fight but it was kind of an argument that was staged in order to throw off suspicion from the rest of the crew and it worked really well because maximinus when He saw this fight going on he immediately tried

to reconcile the two he didn't want the diplomatic meeting to fail again he had no idea that there was ever a plot going on in the first place the interventions that he employed seemed to work because the diplomatic mission continued the envoy arrived at attila's capital approximately two weeks later the site that greeted the romans was a bit of a shock they weren't accustomed to the idea that the huns had any form of civilization you got to keep in mind that the roman empire as a whole was kind of brainwashed to think that the huns

and other barbarian groups were these mindless savages that lived out in the wild and ate raw meat christopher kelly in his book the end of empire actually has a good account of priskus first impression of attila's residence quote priscus was impressed by the first sight of attila's residence the palace complex was sighted on high ground in the middle of a large village the main hall was substantial wood frame building with walls of carefully planned planks tightly fitted together the whole structure rested on circular stone piles the surrounding compound was screened by a tall Wooden fence

with towers end quote now obviously this is a far cry from just being mindless savages as priscas had a chance to kind of explore the surrounding area he discovered that attila had various buildings that were kind of cordoned off for various levels of administration he had areas that were set aside for his people to have kind of a market system priscus even discovered that the huns had adopted key roman policies in the middle of his capital he actually had an established bathhouse that was no different than anything that you would see in constantinople i believe

that one of the most endearing aspects of priscus's writing was that he actually gives as balanced a view of the huns as you could possibly get from a roman christopher kelly again in his book mentions this quote yet rather than following previous writers in underscoring the obvious contrasts between huns and romans priskus aimed to direct his reader's attention to a significant set of cultural coincidences after all it doesn't take much to spot the differences but it takes an open-minded and observant inquirer To isolate those precious moments when two worlds if only briefly can be seen

to touch end quote the roman envoy was told to stay at the outskirts of the city initially the only person that was actually allowed to enter was a deco after all he was attila's ambassador so it made sense for him to be able to enter now aside from assassinating attila adeko did the exact opposite he told attila everything he told him about his encounter with the eunuch chrysophilus he told him about the sleazeball interpreter of the gillis he even told him about the bag of gold that was waiting for him if attila had been the

savage that the romans picked him out to be this envoy probably would have been slaughtered right then and there all account of the assassination plot the entire story that was brought down the aegis by priscus would have been lost to antiquity and would have been buried in the hungarian plane at that point in time but attila was too shrewd of a leader for that he knew that if he played his cards right he could turn this into a diplomatic victory and so he instructed the deco to return to vigilis And tell him that the assassination

plot was still on now this is precisely what a deco did he went back to vigilance he said hey you know thumbs up green light i think we can kill this guy but we're gonna need a little bit of money to kind of bribe his guards so vigilis was sent off to retrieve the gold meanwhile attila must have had some sort of fascination with priskus and maximinus who he realized that these two guys had absolutely no idea of what really was going on he invited him into his court and it was from this first-hand encounter

from priscus that we were actually able to know what it was like to have dinner with attila the hun this invitation didn't come right off the bat attila subjected the two men to different levels of his hierarchy in order to kind of feel them out to make sure that they weren't actually involved in this plot there was a time when priscus actually met the wife of attila the hun and several of his upper echelon before he was actually invited into the royal banquet hall the story that priscus gives us of this royal feast is one

of opulence the royal banquet hall was adorned with different Types of gold and silver there was intricate jewelry the people that were close to attila had clothing that was made out of some of the finest silk adorned with amazing jewelry and this came as a bit of a shock because the only other place that one would see something like this would be within the royal court of constantinople itself brussels goes on to talk about how great the food was he talks about how the meat and different dishes came in these massive droves how the meat

itself was cured with different types of spices that were obtained from various aspects of attila's extensive empire he talks about how the wine was something that would kind of rival napa but aside from the affluent abundance and excess that surrounded priscas there was one encounter that truly impressed him again from christopher kelly's paraphrasing of priscus quote priscus had observed attila carefully from the moment the evening began he noted with interest that amid all the splendor of the feast the silver tableware and the fine food attila was served separately for the first course he had eaten

only meat from a wooden plate and drank wine from A wooden mug his clothes were plain it did not gleam with gold or jewels he remained aloof from the laughter only once did prisca see attila's attitude soften and this was when he was standing next to ernak his youngest son he had drawn ernach close and looked affectionately upon him gazing with gentle eyes end quote it was the restraint that attila had that gave priscus the most to think about and the conclusion that he drew was perhaps the most unsettling again from christopher kelly quote in

priscus opinion it was precisely attila's frugality moderation and shrewdness as a ruler rather than any uncontrolled savagery that made him truly frightening after all it is always reassuring to think of our enemies as godless barbarians it is troubling to learn that they might be more like us than we would ever care to admit end quote after this banquet night priscus and maximinus actually spent a considerable amount of time with the huns unfortunately a good portion of what they recorded was lost however as they were packing their bags and they were moving off the hungarian plane

they actually met up with vagilis who was Returning with the bag of gold in order to carry out the rest of the assassination plot as one can possibly imagine this went kind of poorly for vigilance attila and the upper echelon of his court knew exactly what was going on they managed to capture the guy bring him in for questioning and of course he didn't have a good story for why he had all of this gold in his pocket he tried to play it off as if he was trying to buy food now at sword point

this spineless excuse for a roman basically confessed to everything when attila exposed the truth of the assassination plot to the eastern roman court they immediately put a spin on it and tried to make it out as if their emperor wasn't implicated after all their emperor is a god how could he be implicated in something so lowly but everybody could read the writing on the wall and theodosis's reputation after this suffered now going back to priscus and maximinus well they were considerably upset when word of this assassination attempt actually reached them they realized just how much

danger their own government had put them into over time these two men were actually able to piece together the details of The plot but they weren't able to mention anything they had to keep their mouth shut because if they mentioned anything of course they'd probably be executed by the eastern court that is up of course until the year 450. it was at this time that theodosius ii was out riding his horse when he suffered a fall that resulted in such a massive spinal fracture that it ended up costing him his life when priscus was actually

able to publish the results of his findings it managed to sway the people of the eastern roman empire the people of constantinople no longer wanted an emperor who was simply willing to use underhanded tactics and a very benign foreign policy in order to secure their borders with attila they wanted a warrior emperor and that's exactly what they got a man by the name of marcion managed to take control marcion was a military leader who had the reputation of being a man who can get the job done in fact one of his most impressive and earliest

actions as an emperor was to cut off tribute to the huns now let's talk about this for a second because the reputation of a man during this time period specifically a military man was Perhaps his most valuable weapon and this doesn't apply just antiquity this applies to modern day because a reputation is something that can grow with time it can actually transcend time it can grow to the point of having almost mythical proportions and it can pull on emotional cords like nothing else in history think about it how many people today are named attila or

adolf now let me give you a good example of this of how a reputation can form in the year 1900 on july 27th this is 14 years before the first world war broke out kaiser wilhelm ii gave an address to his troops they were going to be sent off to china to put down the boxer rebellion he said perhaps a little too much quote you must know my men that you are about to meet a crafty well-armed cruel foe meet him and beat him give him no quarter take no prisoners kill him when he falls

into your hands even as a thousand years ago the huns under king attila made such a name for themselves as still resounds and fable and legend so may the name of germans resound through chinese history a thousand years from now so that no No matter whether his eyes be slit or not will dare look a german in the face end quote could you imagine a politician saying something like this in our modern age it would be as if the united states would go to war against somebody and give themselves a rousing speech by comparing themselves

to the nazis this speech that the kaiser gave was so bad that his own cabinet tried to hush it up but it did leak out into the press and it was the derivation of the term hun being equated with germans and with the negative reputation that that brought now speaking of reputations we need to go back to attila in the aftermath of the battle of shalon in 451. as i was saying earlier in the podcast after this battle the hunt army was pretty badly ravaged in fact it was a thrashing that they actually never fully

recovered from but attila knew that he had to move quickly in order to regain his reputation and so the winner of 451 he spent re-arming and re-equipping his army so that in the spring of 452 he was ready for another offensive the real question was where was he going to attack now keep in mind that attila needed a Quick victory in order to regain the initiative and also his reputation if he had attacked the eastern roman empire he'd be going into land that was already pretty badly ravaged from his previous raids furthermore the eastern roman

emperor was now marcion who was a military general and he had rebuilt the eastern roman army and was actually waiting for attila attila's other option was to reopen his offensive against france but this also had several disadvantages first and foremost atheists was waiting for him and he knew that if he went back into france he'd be taking on the combined might of both the romans and the goths once again and so he opted to do something a little different in the spring of 452 the hun army made a lightning blitz 350 miles from hungary through

slovenia into italy attila was going to attack the heart of the roman empire itself the first major target that the hunt army arrived at was a city of aquilea now this was a city that was located at the northernmost tip of the adriatic sea it was an imperial city it had excellent walls and good fortifications and when the huns arrived they expected the inhabitants Of aquilea to just simply open up their doors and surrender however the reputation that the hun army had of being this invincible mass was now shattered and aquilea was going to put

up a fight this lightning raid that the huns perceived ended at aquilea and it turned into a siege that lasted for months now eventually they were able to get into the city and when they did the pent-up frustration the huns had dealing with this dogged resistance kind of spilled over on all edges they not only just ravaged the city i mean they absolutely destroyed it remember how i mentioned earlier how other cities that the hunts took on like nicest took like a hundred years to rebuild well in the case of aquilea this city was never

rebuilt one thing that i personally find very interesting about the destruction of aquilea was that the inhabitants the few refugees that actually managed to escape the destruction of attila and his huns were actually able to learn from their experience they packed up the few meager belongings that they had and they started moving towards the west they hugged the coastline of The adriatic until they found a series of islands that were located in this lagoon and it was on these islands that they decided to rebuild because they figured that building on the mainland would be too

easy of a target for anybody to come along and just wipe them out so they figured if they built it on the islands the water would actually be a great source of defense and they were absolutely right because the city would not just grow it would expand and bloom and in time would become a massive city that instead of having roads and streets would have canals it would establish a super state that would achieve glory because you see in time this was a city that would one day be known as venice and i find it

fascinating that this city with such a remarkable history to come was actually founded in the wake of attila's destruction now of course the huns weren't going to stop there they moved towards the west and started attacking every city in northern italy and they all started falling one by one verona padua even the great city of milan which between the years of 382 and 402 was actually the Capital of the western roman empire fell what were the romans doing during this time period i mean aside from watching their homeland go up in smoke well valentine iii

didn't really have an army the only army he did possess was up in gaul and under the command of atheists who was taking his very sweet time to come down to help him i think that ats probably had in mind that attila would just kind of go through clean the clock in italy and then atheists could just kind of proclaim himself emperor valentinian did the only thing that was left to him he adopted a scorched earth policy he told his remaining troops to basically burn all the villages and the crops and anything that the hun

army could use to benefit itself he figured that he was going to use the same policy that won against hannibal back in the punic wars but i don't think anybody in his court had it in him to actually point out to valentinian that it took 13 years of attritional warfare to actually beat hannibal i think it was probably about this point that valentinian realized just how desperate he was and as he figured he probably had nothing else to lose He decided to play his last card he sent in the pope now this is something that

ecclesiastical historians are way too eager to take advantage of i think they portray the western roman empire as being this weak and feeble thing which it kind of was but at the same time they emphasize how it was the interdiction of the pope that really saved western civilization let me give you a good example of this the pope at that time was a man by the name of leo the first and he traveled north of rome to meet up with attila on the river mensio which was kind of a tributary of the poe in northern

italy now keep in mind nobody knows exactly what conversation those two really did have according to ecclesiastical historians they recorded the following however quote the old man of harmless simplicity venerable in his gray hair and his majestic garb ready of his own will to give himself entirely for the defense of his flock went forth to meet the tyrant who was destroying all things he met attila it is said in the neighborhood of the river minsio and he spoke to the grim monarch saying the senate and the people of rome once conquerors of The world now

indeed vanquished come before thee as suppliance we pray for mercy and deliverance thou hast subdued o attila the whole circle of the lands which was granted to the romans victors of all peoples to conquer now we pray that thou who has conquered others should conquer thyself the people have felt thy scourge now as suppliance they would feel thy mercy end quote according to ecclesiastical historians this was the defining moment that turned attila around the pope rides out tells attila that he's a bad boy needs to stop killing people needs to stop being the scourge of

god and attila turns around goes back to the great hungarian plane i don't know about you but i don't exactly buy this i think there was a lot of other reasons why attila actually turned around and i can name a couple of them for you number one there was a famine in northern italy and that plus valentinian's scorched earth policy left very little for attila to feed his army number two there was actually a plague that broke out within the army itself number three atheists was on the move and ready to attack attila and number

four Marcion from the eastern roman empire again he was the emperor had actually raised an army and was beginning to invade the great hungarian plane and the list kind of goes on number five the army that attila had at this point in time had not really fully recovered from its defeat at the battle of shalon so he didn't have that much more offensive capacity and number six which i think is probably the most likely reason is that there probably was a little bit of an exchange of funds between the pope and attila there's got to

be a little bit of bribery going on in this you know either way this was a very defining moment for the church because a lot of people who were kind of on the fence of whether or not to join the roman catholic church decided to join at this point because they realized that the pope succeeded where the emperor had failed or at least that's what they were told leo the first after this encounter gained the title of being the great and this moment was so important that in 1512 the painter raphael was actually commissioned by

the roman catholic church to create a fresco where is forever enshrined within The vatican even to this day now what is to be said about attila and his huns at this moment well their wagons were so loaded down with all the loot that they had stolen from northern italy that they barely managed to make it back to hungary in time for winter and attila already had it in his mind to create another offensive this time he wanted to attack the eastern roman empire in marcy and he wanted to teach him a lesson for withholding tribute

but his offensive into italy and his attack on the western roman empire was going to be attila's last in the early months of 453 attila decided to take a new wife a woman by the name of el dico who was renowned for her beauty and this was going to be one of many wives that attila had on the night of his wedding he had a feast that kind of rivaled everything he's done in the past it was magnificent was massive in proportion but the next morning attila didn't show up for breakfast and when his generals

got suspicious and worried they went to his tent and when they pulled back the covers they discovered that he was Lying on the ground with a massive hemorrhage coming out of his nose attila was dead now depending on which resource that you look into to figure out how he died a lot of people think that it was probably from all of the drinking that he had done he probably had esophageal varices that ruptured and popped and ended up just exsanguinating there's actually a movie that came out in 2003 which portrays his wife eldiko as being

this kind of seductress who poisoned him in his sleep either way the scourge of god was dead as can be imagined attila's death brought shockwaves to the hun empire jordaines who was a contemporary historian actually said it best quote a struggle for overall control broke out among attila's heirs for the minds of young men are often inflamed by an ambition for power each was driven by a rash desire to rule and together they destroyed their father's empire thus kingdoms are often burdened with an excess rather than a shortage of successors and so the huns were

halted a people to whom it was once thought the whole world would yield so destructive a thing As division that the huns were so terrifying when their strength was united were now brought down separately end quote the hun empire after this began to disintegrate a lot of the vassal states and subjugated people broke off and rebelled attila's power structure fell apart it was divided amongst his three main sons and each one of them took a portion of the army and kind of went off and did their own thing one of his sons a guy by

the name of denzis actually decided to send an envoy to the eastern roman court demanding that they reestablish tribute the court kind of laughed in his face and infuriated him and actually prompted him to invade the eastern roman empire but of course he was attacking with only a third of the forces that his father would otherwise have and as you can imagine this force was quickly rounded up by the roman army and executed while this was going on in the east atheists was dealing with zone setter problems in the west ironically atheists needed attila in

order to maintain his survival if you recall the western roman court was so afraid of the huns that they wanted to keep atheists in place And without attila in the picture atheists days were kind of numbered that's just kind of how brutal the system was you know once your usefulness is gone they kind of execute you priscus actually brings us into account quote as atheists was explaining the imperial budget and calculating the revenues raised through taxation valentinian suddenly leapt from the throne with a yell shouting that he could no longer be insulted by such disloyalty

the emperor claimed that atheists wished to deprive him of his powers by blaming the emperor's troubles on him valentinian drew his sword from its scabbard and along with heracleous who had come prepared with a cleaver concealed under his cloak rushed at him together they continued to hit atheists about the head until they had killed him end quote valentinian didn't last much longer beyond this six months later two of atheis's very loyal bodyguards caught him in the woods by himself and actually murdered him right then and there the western roman empire which had been in decline

now went into a death spiral and within a generation no longer existed If you recall at the beginning of this podcast i asked the question what is it that we can learn from the death and decline of a civilization because there's always something to pick out well the answer to that is going to be multi-factorial and probably beyond the scope of this podcast however we should take a look at the hun empire because at this point there is almost nothing left of it archaeologists in our current age have a difficult time finding any evidence of

the hunt empire whatsoever except what exists in the recordings of the huns antagonists like the romans civilizations that are like the huns that grow based on warfare that are derived in warfare and are usually run by a despot or a single person usually expand dramatically but at the same time they collapse dramatically to the point where there's almost nothing left after all how much is left over of napoleon's french empire how much is left of adolf hitler's third reich now what of the other extreme the roman empire well i think its legacy is kind of

profound it was a civilization that also was founded in the Principles of war and expanded through war but it was a kind of a controlled expansion and it wasn't led by a single man at least not in the beginning it was led by a senate and even within the senate their leaders were two consuls with the idea that there wasn't going to be just a single guy calling the shot and where would we be today without the influence of the roman empire what language would we be speaking after all without latin would we have french

or spanish or even english what would our judicial system be without roman law what precept of government would we institute without having the roman senate as an example its decline gives us many examples of what to avoid gibbons said it best quote if all the barbarian conquerors had been annihilated in the same hour their total destruction would not have restored the empire of the west end quote what edward gibbons was really getting at was the idea that the roman empire had already been destroyed from within it was led by a single man the principles on

which it was founded had completely eroded and i think the take home message is that when a civilization such as the roman empire that has The ability to rule the world loses the ability to provide for the security and freedom of its people it will decline and it will fail now i'm gonna leave you with this last quote as food for thought it was a speech given by someone who i think is not only a profound statesman was probably one of the greatest leaders in human civilization this was a speech that was given on january

27th 1838 in springfield illinois quote shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow never all the armies of europe asia and africa combined with all the treasure of the earth with a bonaparte for a commander could not by force take a drink from the ohio or make a track on the blue ridge in the trial of a thousand years at what point then is the approach of danger to be expected i answer if it ever reaches us it must spring up amongst us it cannot come from

abroad if destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher as a nation of free men we must live through all time or die by suicide end quote signed abraham lincoln well that's the end of part three of attila the hun for those of you who've made it this Far i'd like to thank you for your time and for listening if you get a chance give me a like subscribe or leave some good comments at the very least pass on word about the podcast now we just spent the last three hours talking

about the decline fall and destruction of the roman empire in flashpoint history's next episode we are going to be talking about the punic wars and the rise of rome against carthage