Attila Invades the West
Attila crossed the Rhine in the spring of 451 with an army drawn from across the Hunnic confederation and was checked that summer at the Catalaunian Plains. He had ruled the Huns since 434, jointly with his brother Bleda until he killed him around 445, and had spent a decade extracting gold from the eastern empire — raiding the Balkans, destroying cities, and raising the annual tribute from 350 pounds of gold to 2,100. The invasion of Gaul had a pretext of unusual quality. Honoria, sister of the western emperor Valentinian III, had been confined for an affair with her steward and sent Attila her ring asking for help; he chose to read it as a proposal, demanded half the western empire as her dowry, and marched when it was refused. He sacked Metz and moved on Orléans, and was met by a coalition under Flavius Aetius — Roman troops with Visigoths under Theodoric I, Alans, Burgundians and Franks, the western empire's last effective field army assembled out of the peoples it had spent fifty years fighting. The battle in June or July was enormous and indecisive. Theodoric was killed; Attila withdrew to his wagons and, by Jordanes' account, built a pyre of saddles to burn himself on if the camp fell. Aetius let him go, on the reasoning that destroying the Huns entirely would leave him alone with the Visigoths. He invaded Italy the following year, destroyed Aquileia, and turned back after meeting Pope Leo I. He died in 453, of a haemorrhage, on his wedding night.
- Category: Military
