Hunnic Empire

A steppe confederation that terrified two Roman empires for twenty years and left no written word of its own. The Huns appeared north of the Black Sea in the 370s, and the pressure they put on the Goths is the conventional trigger for the migrations that dismantled the western Roman empire - which means their most important effect was indirect. Their origins are disputed; a link to the Xiongnu of Chinese sources is often proposed and remains unproven. What is clear is the military method: composite bows shot from horseback, extreme mobility, and a willingness to extract tribute rather than occupy, which made them a protection racket on an imperial scale. Under Attila, ruling from around 434, the confederation reached from the Rhine to the Caspian and drew enormous annual payments from Constantinople. He invaded Gaul in 451 and was checked at the Catalaunian Plains by a coalition of Romans and Visigoths, then ravaged northern Italy in 452 before turning back. Attila died in 453, reportedly of a haemorrhage on his wedding night, and the subject peoples destroyed his sons at the Nedao a year later. The empire vanished within a generation. Everything known about it comes from Roman and Gothic authors, chiefly Priscus, who visited Attila's camp as an envoy. Their heartland lay on the Hungarian plain. Skull elongation was practised among some Hunnic-era burials. Attila is called the Scourge of God in later Christian writing. No Hunnic language text survives, and even the handful of recorded names are disputed. The Nibelungenlied remembers him as Etzel.

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