Atilla the hun killed how many people

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On the battlefield, they moved swiftly and fought in seeming disarray, before skilfully lassoing the enemy, tearing them off their horses and dragging them to a violent death. Far from the Roman stereotype of uneducated, barbarian Huns, Attila was born into the most powerful family north of the Danube River. He and his elder brother, Bleda, were taught in archery, sword fighting, diplomatic and military tactics. They also studied how to ride and care for horses.

They could speak, and probably read, Gothic and Latin. During the s and s their uncles, Octar and Rugar, ruled the Hunnic Empire. The two brothers were likely present when their uncles received Roman ambassadors. With their deaths in , Bleda and Attila inherited joint control over the empire. Their inherited empire stretched from the Rhine region to the borders of Sassanian Iran in the Caucasus.

Early in his rule, Attila allied with the Western Roman general Aetius, who had previously been a hostage of the Huns. Attila and Bleda would continue to give Aetius military support, allowing the Roman to suppress threats from both internal revolts and hostile Germanic tribes such as the Franks, Visigoths and Burgundians.

Even though the two men were on opposing sides, they evidently had great respect for one another. Whatever the reason, allowing Attila to go free would ultimately prove to be a costly mistake. Attila could not be content with this stroke of luck, because he was out of cash with which to keep his troops happy. The following year, Attila returned with an even larger army, this time striking deep into northern Italy, aiming at Rome itself. In the event, having taken a dozen cities in the Po valley, the Huns were stopped by disease and famine, not by military defeat, and returned to Hungary for the last time.

Following the destruction of Aquileia, the Western emperor Valentinian sent ambassadors to Attila hoping to negotiate terms. Among the envoys was Leo, Bishop of Rome. Here, the saintly Leo defiantly stares Attila down, whilst behind him Saints Peter and Paul descend from heaven, fully armed and up for a fight. Upon seeing this, the satanic Attila recoils in abject terror.

The reality was perhaps more down-to-earth. Attila, on his part, was probably also keen to leave Italy, for not only was the campaign taking its toll food was short and disease rife , but also his army was starting to fall apart. That is the story related in the 13th-century chronicle, Gesta Hungarorum.

To Hungarians, he was a Hungarian at heart, and they honour him. The retreat from Italy marked the beginning of the end for Attila.

In , shortly after his retreat from Italy, he took a new wife to add to the many he already had. Her name was Ildico, and she was probably a Germanic princess.

In the morning, appalled attendants found him dead, with Ildico weeping beside him beneath her head-scarf. The most probable explanation, says John Man, is that veins in his gullet, enlarged by years of drinking, burst, but failed to wake him from a drunken sleep.

But there is an alternative theory as to how he died. Within a few years, their empire had disintegrated. It may have been no more than a violent, short-lived robber state, but the impact of the Hunnic Empire upon the political, religious and cultural institutions of Europe was profound. The meeting between Leo and Attila proved a turning point for the Western Empire, demonstrating that it was the Bishop of Rome who wielded ultimate power.

Arguably, it was this that cemented the status of the papacy and ended the secular supremacy of the emperors. The sources mention that the Huns did something with three metals, gold, silver and iron, which eventually inspired a legend that he was buried inside a triple coffin. This part may be true, for slaves could have acted as grave-diggers and then been despatched, leaving only a few leaders to guard the secret. A secret it remains. There are no Hun burial mounds, nor were there traditional royal cemeteries, because the Huns had not been in residence long enough.

Secrets, of course, inspire legends. Treasure-seekers still dream of finding a tomb filled with treasures, and a gold-silver-and-iron coffin. A barbarian king at the gates, high drama, intrigue, murder, and mystery: no wonder Attila remains an archetype today, his shade caught by an Amin here, a Saddam there. That is the force exemplified by Attila in our minds.

His epitaph, reported by Priscus, sums him up. Who therefore can think of this as death, seeing as no one thinks it calls for vengeance? Instead, he sent the would-be assassin back to his paymasters in Constantinople, accompanied by note setting out in humiliating detail the discovery of the Roman scheme—and a demand for further tribute. Attila remained a threat to both the Western and the Eastern Empires, nonetheless. His armies reached as far south as Constantinople in ; between and he invaded France and Italy.

Oddly, but arguably creditably, the latter two campaigns were fought—so the Hun king claimed—to satisfy the honor of a Roman princess. Honoria, sister of the Western emperor, Valentinian III , had been sadly disappointed with the husband that her brother had selected for her and sent her engagement ring to Attila with a request for aid. Priscus, again, makes the point most clearly, relating that when Attila greeted the Roman ambassadors with a banquet,.

The attendant of Attila entered first with a dish full of meat, and behind him came the other attendants with bread and viands, which they laid on the tables.

A luxurious meal, served on silver plate, had been made ready for us and the barbarian guests, but Attila ate nothing but meat on a wooden trencher. In everything else, too, he showed himself temperate; his cup was of wood, while to the guests were given goblets of gold and silver. His dress, too, was quite simple, affecting only to be clean. The sword he carried at his side, the latchets of his Scythian shoes, the bridle of his horse were not adorned, like those of the other Scythians, with gold or gems or anything costly.

So lived Attila, king of the Huns—and so he died, in , age probably about 50 and still refusing to yield to the temptations of luxury. His spectacular demise, on one of his many wedding nights, is memorably described by Gibbon:. Before the king of the Huns evacuated Italy, he threatened to return more dreadful, and more implacable, if his bride, the princess Honoria, were not delivered to his ambassadors….