Attila the Hun: life of the week

Summary

Podcast Summary: Attila the Hun – Life of the Week

HistoryExtra Podcast
Host: Spencer Mizzen
Guest: Dr. Miles Russell (Principal Academic in Prehistoric and Roman Archaeology, Bournemouth University)
Episode Date: March 30, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of the HistoryExtra podcast, hosted by Spencer Mizzen and featuring historian Dr. Miles Russell, explores the extraordinary life, reputation, and continuing legacy of Attila the Hun. The discussion aims to separate myth from reality—delving into who Attila was, why he inspired such terror in the Roman world, and how he has remained an enduring symbol of ultimate “barbarian” threat over the centuries.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Terrifying Reputation of Attila (02:25–04:51)

• Attila as “God’s Scourge” and the original bogeyman:
  Miles Russell describes Attila as “one of the most famous people from ancient history,” a figure whose renown as the ultimate barbarian has “never diminished.”
  • He was perceived as an agent of apocalyptic destruction, regularly extorting and threatening the Roman Empire.
• Religious and cultural context:
  Attila’s rise coincided with rising apocalyptic anxieties in a Christianizing Roman Empire. He became heavily mythologized as a satanic figure, “fitted into Christian imagery and doctrine as Satan.”

2. Who Were the Huns? (04:51–07:43)

• Origins and Roman perceptions:
  The Huns, likely originating from eastern Asia, were mobile and intimidating horse warriors. Romans projected all their fears onto the Huns, exaggerating their savagery and strangeness (including bizarre stereotypes, e.g., cooking meat under their saddles).
  • The Hunnic Empire, like Rome’s, was multiethnic but dominated by the Huns as an aristocratic, militaristic elite.
• Distinct from other “barbarian” groups:
  Unlike the Visigoths or Ostrogoths, the Huns had no desire to become Roman or Christian.

3. Rome’s Decline and the Huns’ Opportunity (07:43–09:35)

• Fragmentation of imperial power:
  By the early 5th century, Rome was divided—Constantinople in the east flourished while the west fell into political and military decay.
• Internal conflicts:
  Civil wars and rivalries between eastern and western emperors weakened Rome, rendering it unable to “deal with the Huns at any level.”

4. Attila’s Early Life and Rise to Power (09:35–12:23)

• Family and succession:
  Attila and his brother Bleda jointly succeeded their uncle Rugila as co-kings circa 434 AD.
• Uncertain origins and internal dynamics:
  Little is known of his childhood. Attila and Bleda ruled together for about a decade; later Roman sources say Attila murdered Bleda, though evidence is thin.

5. Attila’s Private Life (12:23–13:53)

• Multiple wives and the tale of Ildiko:
  Attila reportedly had several wives for political alliances. The only named wife, Ildiko, was with him at his death—an event surrounded by rumors of assassination or death from “an excess of alcohol.”

6. Insights from Eyewitness Accounts (13:53–15:41)

• Priscus’ visit to Attila:
  The Roman ambassador Priscus offers a rare contemporary account of Attila’s court, describing him as calm, austere, and in control—contradicting later depictions of wanton debauchery.

  “He describes Attila sitting on a throne, being very regal, controlling his emotions, dressed very plainly... very austere and very calm.” —Miles Russell (14:24)

7. The Huns’ Expansion and Military Campaigns (17:12–22:24)

• Strategy of intimidation and extortion:
  The Huns’ approach was not to destroy Rome, but to sustain it as a source of wealth.
• Landmark campaigns:
  • Early: Repeated invasions into the Eastern Roman Empire secured lucrative tribute.
  • 451: Dramatic shift to the west, culminating in the devastation of cities in Gaul (modern France/Belgium).

  "The Huns charge in on horseback, fire their arrows and are off again. And the Romans find this really annoying because they can't bring them to battle, they can't defeat them." —Miles Russell (18:33)

• The Battle of the Catalaunian Plains (Châlons, 451):
  Major confederation of Romans, Visigoths, and others vs. Huns. The battle was indecisive; everyone claimed victory, but Attila was not definitively beaten.

8. Motives Behind Attila's Western Campaigns (22:24–24:33)

• The “Flex” against Rome:
  Attila needed to prove his dominance and justify his leadership through action, not just tribute.
• Legend of the imperial marriage proposal:
  A tale claims Attila attacked after Valentinian III’s sister sought his help to escape a forced marriage, giving Attila a pretext to demand “half the Roman Empire as dowry.” Reality is likely more complex.

9. The Italian Campaign and the “Miracle” of Leo I (24:33–28:20)

• Invasion of northern Italy (452):
  Attila’s forces devastated multiple cities.
• Role of Pope Leo I:
  According to legend, Pope Leo confronted Attila, and his words (and divine intervention) compelled the Huns to withdraw—a theme celebrated in art and subsequent legend.

  “It is the word of God that sent him on his way, not any kind of military force.” —Miles Russell (26:24)

• Practical realities:
  Disease, famine, and logistical issues probably contributed to Attila’s withdrawal just as much as diplomacy or religious diplomacy.

10. Was Attila Exceptional in Brutality? (28:39–31:35)

• Calculated terror and political control:
  Attila’s reputation for savagery was carefully cultivated, and he rewarded loyalty as much as he punished dissent.
• Distinct ambition:
  Unlike other barbarian leaders who sought integration or land, Attila demanded subjugation and tribute from Rome.

  “He is the ultimate crime lord because... he needs the money, he needs the gold from the Roman world to distribute among his people... But he's never trying to take hold of land. He's never making himself an emperor.” —Miles Russell (30:45)

11. Attila’s Death and the Collapse of Hunnic Power (31:35–35:04)

• Aftermath:
  With Attila’s sudden death, the Hunnic Empire rapidly fragmented—held together “by one man alone.” His sons fought and lost control, and subject peoples (Goths, Vandals) broke away.
• Legacy as an eternal “other”:
  Over centuries, Attila was reimagined in European culture as a stand-in for every sort of existential threat, from Satan to Asiatic and communist peril.

  “If you want Satan, there he is. If you want evils of communism, there he is. He's ever present. There’s never a time where we're not sort of dramatizing him.” —Miles Russell (34:28)

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On Attila’s reputation:
  “I think his reputation has increased. It's never diminished since his death and even today, his name is instantly recognizable.” —Miles Russell (04:26)

• On Attila’s leadership style:
  “He knows how to hold on to power. He acts brutally when he needs to. He acts very generously to his followers, and it's that kind of sense of personality that's keeping everything together.” —Miles Russell (11:06)

• On the aftermath of Attila's death:
  “It's really an empire that's held together by one man alone. But...it's the horror that the Romans feel about the Huns that gets remembered.” —Miles Russell (32:25)

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Important Timestamps

| Time | Topic/Segment | |------------|--------------------------------------------------------| | 02:25 | Attila’s introduction and fearsome reputation | | 05:09 | Origins and identity of the Huns | | 07:51 | The crumbling state of the Roman Empire | | 09:42 | Attila’s early life and rise | | 13:53 | Eyewitness accounts: Priscus’ description | | 17:36 | Major Hunnic victories and military tactics | | 18:33 | The Battle of the Catalaunian Plains | | 22:36 | Motives behind western invasions; “flex” | | 25:00 | Italian campaign and negotiation with Pope Leo I | | 28:58 | Was Attila more brutal than other leaders? | | 32:04 | Attila’s death and the fall of the Huns | | 34:28 | Attila’s evolving image in modern times |

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Summary & Takeaway

The episode paints Attila not simply as a barbaric villain, but as a complex leader skilled in power politics, psychological warfare, and the management of a vast, multiethnic empire. While much of his terrifying legacy was shaped by Roman fear and Christian propaganda, Attila’s real power lay not just in cruelty, but in charisma and strategic acumen. His memory has continually shaped European views of the “enemy outside the gates,” with his image recycled to serve new fears across the centuries. Despite the myths, the real Attila remains partly hidden, his story providing fertile ground for both historians and fiction writers alike.

Transcript

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[Narrator/Podcast Intro]

Sowing chaos and terror throughout the Roman Empire, Attila the Hun came to be seen as something of an Antichrist figure. But did the 5th century leader really deserve this formidable reputation? In this episode of the History Extra Podcast, Miles Russell talks to Spencer Mizzen about Attila's estate, astonishing life and legacy.

[Spencer Mizzen]

Hello, Marles. Thanks for joining us today. We're here to talk about someone who's come to be regarded as one of history's great bogeymen. One who was famously described as God Scourge. Yet someone who many of our listeners won't perhaps know a great deal about. And that is Attila the Hun. Now, Attila appears to have scared the living daylights out of many of his contemporaries. And he's been invoked as this figure of fear over about 15 or so centuries since he died. But the question I want to unpack today is did he deserve this terrifying reputation? So, Mars, just to kick us off in our endeavours to get to the bottom of that question, I wonder if you could give us a brief overview of Attila's life. Who was Attila the Hun?

[Miles Russell]

In a nutshell, you're absolutely right. He is the archetypal bogeyman. He's one of the most famous people from ancient history. He's always perceived to be the most preeminent of all, the barbarian contributing to the downfall of Rome. He was alive in the early decades of the 5th century, so probably born sometime around about 405 AD and then died in 453, probably in his mid-40s. But in that time he created one of the largest empires of the ancient world. He's sitting at the end of his amazing sort of financial enterprise, but he's got his own army that's dominating other people. And for the Roman Empire, it's very much a sense of turning up regularly in the eastern and the western half and sort of saying, it's a nice empire you've got here, shame something would happen to it. And the Romans are absolutely terrified of him. He arrives at a time when Christianity has become the predominant religion. It's slightly different in the east and the west, but it's a time where people are thinking about the Apocalypse, Armageddon, the second coming of Christ, the end of days. And Attila fits that sort of profile as an agent of Satan. And his armies are seen to be destroying civilization. The Romans don't really know what he wants or how to deal with. So from that point onwards, later Christian imagery and doctrine fit him as, as Satan. You see lots of 15 16th centuries paintings. He's got this animalistic face and pointy ears and he. You can just see him sitting on this throne of majesty. So I think his reputation has increased. It's never diminished since his death and anything to you today, his name is instantly recognizable, even if people don't really know quite what the context of him is.

[Spencer Mizzen]

And I guess to truly understand Attila, we need to understand the Huns, that the nomadic people that he would go on to lead. So with that in mind, I wonder if you could just spend a few minutes introducing us to the Huns. Who were they and how powerful were the Hunnic people before he rose to power?

[Miles Russell]

It's really difficult because the Romans are simultaneously terrified of the Huns and they're also really, really interested in them. And so we hear a lot of descriptions about how they fight and how they look, but nothing really about their history. And of course they're not writing anything down themselves, but they're one of a series of non Roman groups. They're sort of migrating, what we assume from Eastern Asia, possibly away from the Chinese Empire. They're highly mobile, they fight predominantly on horseback. When we're talking about the Hunnic Empire as such, I guess it's a bit like talking about the Roman Empire. When we look at the Roman Empire, not everyone is from Rome. In the Hunnic Empire, not everyone is a Hun. But the Huns represent the dominant militaristic aristocratic force that's wielding lots of different groups, like the Visigoths, the Ostrogoths, the Vandals, the Burgundians. It's always different barbarian groups outside the Roman world. Most are from Europe or from East Asia, but the Huns are from a great distance away. And the Romans are first aware of them, I suppose about the 370s ad, because a lot of Germanic groups who are outside the Roman Empire and it's the Rhine and the Danube that forms the frontier of the Roman world, are asking the Romans, please, can we cross over into your territory? Because they don't feel safe and secure anymore. So the Romans are aware of the Huns as this terrifying external force long before they actually meet any. And a lot of their descriptions about the Huns, they're portrayed as the, as like the archetypal savage. The Romans got this idea that outside their empire there's barbarians who are degree of civilization, but beyond that there's savages who don't farm, don't cook meat. And they describe the Huns as. The way they, they cook their food is they basically stick it under their buttocks and it heats up between the rider and the horse. They grub around for, for roots. So that to the Romans, all those stereotypes probably aren't real at all. But they represent the ultimate barbarian, ultimate savage. They don't know what they want. They're terrified by their mobility, they're terrified by the fact that they can galvanize lots of these other different barbarian groups together to form an overwhelming military force. And they're not Christian. Most of the barbarians, like the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, who've been dominating the Roman world beyond its frontiers, want to be Roman. They want to be baptized. They want to live life like the Romans. The Huns don't make it very clear from day one they don't want to be part of the Roman Empire. They don't want to be Roman, and they'd rather not destroy the Romans completely because they're a very useful group to blackmail and extort money from.

[Spencer Mizzen]

And was this all made worse by the fact that at this point in history, in the early 5th century, Rome was kind of on the decline anyway?

[Miles Russell]

It is. I mean, we mustn't think of Rome at this stage as being one empire or even two halves of the same empire. They are becoming two separate empires. There's one in the east, based on Constantinople. It's a city that was really sort of rebranded and reformed in the 320s AD as New Rome, and that is successful. It's on the Bosphorus. Istanbul covers most of it today. But there's a sense of it's on good trade links. It's a dynamic, exciting city. Rome in the west is a bit more of a cultural backwater at this stage because it has been in political decline. The administration is collapsing. Most of the emperors who are nominally governing the Roman world are living in Ravenna in northern Italy, facing the Adriatic. Its military is collapsing. There are barbarian groups within the Roman world, and east and west, they're not joining forces. They are competing against one another. The east has got its own sense of what Christianity is, which develops into what becomes Greek Orthodoxy, the Romans with what develops into Western Catholicism. And they compete against one another. They try and outdo one another. They send armies to try and subjugate the other. So in the middle of all this, we've got first the Visigoths crossing the Danube to escape the Huns, and then the Huns are arriving, and the first thing that they do is they send armies down into the Eastern Empire and start traumatizing its people, burning cities and saying, give us some money and we'll go away. If Rome had been unified under a single command, if it had a decent military, and it hasn't by this stage, because civil wars and infighting has really depleted the army. It's got no kind of comeback. It can't deal with the Huns at all, at any kind of level.

[Spencer Mizzen]

Okay, so let's get back to Attila, then. Do we know much about his early life? Was he groomed for power from an early age?

[Miles Russell]

We don't know much about his early life. We do know that he and his brother Bleda, they're both nephews of the king, Romans find it difficult when they're translating or writing names down to get it right. But we hear that the Hunnic king is a chap called Regilla. He dies in 434, and Bleda and Attila take over. They're the next capable sort of set of leaders within that aristocracy. But we've got no idea how lines of descent are calculated within Hunnic society, whether it's the most capable warrior, whether there's a sense of being related to the previous aristocracy. But I think, yeah, you're right, it's fair to say they're in a position of power. They are the previous king, and it seems to be. But both Attila and Bleda rule the Huns together as joint kings, but there's lots of sort of minor petty kings and aristocrats. And the whole thing about the setup of the Hunnic world seems to be this sense of paying homage to the top guy, to the chief king. And so their sort of sense of personality, it's the charisma, it's that that's holding everything together. And if the leader dies, or there's no immediate successor, or there's no sort of anyone of equivalent charisma or military power, things will start to disintegrate and they'll fight amongst themselves. But we know nothing really about his childhood. There's been many attempts in novels and books to create a sense of Attila being perhaps misunderstood or just wanting to be loved. He is somebody who is. He knows how to hold onto power. He acts brutally when he needs to. He acts very generously to his followers, and it's that kind of sense of personality that's keeping everything together.

[Spencer Mizzen]

So what happened between him and Bleda then? How come Attila went on to be of these most well known figures of early medieval, late classical history, and Bleda's disappeared into the shadows. What happened between the two of them?

[Miles Russell]

They both seem to be equally capable of leading armies. They both got very good levels of support. Later. Roman writers from the east say that Attila murdered Bleda, that there's some kind of hunting trip that went wrong, and he's assassinated in there and therefore takes power. It's very difficult, obviously, to take as face value because they're always very keen to demonize him and to make him seem an utterly ruthless, unlikable so and so. But the truth of the matter is we don't know what their relationship was like. They did seem to cooperate on one of their attacks, or a couple of their attacks into the Eastern Roman Empire. They're working together, so there doesn't seem to be any obvious sign that they're falling out. They share power for about a decade. Bleda dies, Attila takes over, and he doesn't give power to anyone else. So there is a sense that he's quite happy having single authority over the Huns.

[Spencer Mizzen]

Do we know much about his private life? Did he get married, for example?

[Miles Russell]

There's lots of little sort of anecdotes about having multiple wives. And I think within that kind of society, it's, you know, there's not one single partner. There are a series of marriages done for diplomatic reasons. One of the other things, the very sort of huffy Eastern Empire talks about his harem sensibly, that a Roman emperor has a wife and a family, family tradition and that sort of stuff. Although Roman emperors are notoriously not quite like that in private life. But he has got multiple partners. We only really know the of one, which is Ildiko, who he marries just before his death. And in fact, it's actually on his wedding night, we're told, that he dies. Apparently, again, the Roman writers say that it's an excess of alcohol that finishes him off and he's getting on a bit as well. So any kind of activity on his wedding night would have finished him. But the suggestion has been that he might have actually been assassinated, because Ilo is a Germanic name, she might have been of Ostrogothic aristocracy, and it might be there's some kind of plot to remove him, because at that stage in his career, he's held power for a long time. He has had some successes, but he hasn't had as many victories. So it might be there's some kind of internal power coup that removes him. But as far as his private life goes, generally, no, we don't have a lot of information. We've got sort of a few eyewitness accounts about people meeting him, but generally speaking, no, there's a lot that we don't know, which is why the void has been filled by fiction writers so much in the last 200 years.

[Spencer Mizzen]

You say we've got a few sort of eyewitness accounts of people who met him. Does that include the Roman historian Priscus? Cause he left some writings after having met Attila, didn't he?

[Miles Russell]

He does. I mean, after one particular exploit down into the Eastern Empire, we know that this chap Priscus is certainly one of the ambassadors that goes up to the court of Attila. And of course, again, that's interesting, because the Romans come to him, he doesn't go to Constantinople or to Rome to negotiate. He's in that position of power and they actually have to go to him to do the deal. So that shows how he feels that relationship is going. But Priscus does go there and his writings thankfully do survive. And it's interesting because he describ the king not as we'd expect a barbarian to be, sort of savage and brutal and alcoholic and covered in jewels. And just he describes Attila sitting on a throne, being very regal, controlling his emotions, dressed very plainly. He distributes food amongst his immediate retainers and supporters and then down to the guests. But he sits very calmly, serenely, eating simple food off a little wooden plate. And there's this sense that he is the theatrics of that whole situation. He is in control. But he's showing himself to be very austere and very calm and very controlled. And I guess from that point of view, Priscus is writing from the point of view of being quite amazed by he's not what he's expecting this great war leader to be. And that's another reason, I think, why perhaps Attila, the stories that he died of an excess of alcohol doesn't fit the view that Priscus gave him. He's a very temperate man. He doesn't touch win because that's a Roman thing. He doesn't really want to get involved or contaminated, infected by Roman ideas.

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[Spencer Mizzen]

The story of the Huns in the mid 5th century is one of sort of rapid expansion, rapid advances followed by a couple of, I guess, pretty significant reversals. Can we talk about the expansion first? Can you kind of talk us through the two or three landmark victories that really powered their rise to becoming this superpower in Europe?

[Miles Russell]

Well, from the point of view, Attila and Bleda do a series of fantastic sort of attacks upon the Eastern Roman Empire. They're never intent on destroying Rome or Constantinople. That's one of the views that we get today of a barbarian. Their view is to bring down the Roman Empire and to destroy the centers of civilization. And they're not, because they're that kind of parasitical relationship that they know what they can get out of the Roman Empire. And it's keeping the Roman Empire alive and winning victories against them that wins them prestige within their own community. So there's a whole series of campaigns earlier on that both Bledo and Attila engage in the Eastern Empire and really extort money out from them. But it's not till AD 451 that the Huns move into the west and really decide that it's there that their attention is going to be. And they sack a whole series of cities in, in Northern Gaul, modern day France and Belgium to try and draw the Romans to them. So all these sort of battles that they're fighting, it's a sense of. It's the noise, it's the strange tactics. The Romans talk about the fact that they are horse archers. So, you know, the Romans like an enemy eventually who line up in the field and get annihilated by, by the Romans because the Romans have got superior weapons, superior training and so on. The Huns charge in on horseback, fire their arrows and are off again. And the Romans find this really annoying because they can't bring them to battle, they can't defeat them. And they describe this as being very deceitful, very dishonorable. But it seems that the Huns do everything on horseback. They negotiate. The Romans talk about them sleeping on horseback, eating on horseback, doing everything on horseback. So it's this extreme mobility which the Romans can't really deal with. But there's a whole series of engagements in the east, but it's not till 451 that he emerges in Gaul. And then the following year, in 452, Attila is in northern Italy, destroying cities there. But what's interesting is really, I think, the Roman response, because in the west, the Romans don't really have an army to speak of anymore. They've got a series of barbarian groups that they rely on that fill the gaps in their army. And they're led by this chap called Flavius Aetius. He's got a lovely Roman sounding name, but to all intents and purposes, he is a barbarian, or second generation barbarian, living within the Roman world. And it's his relationship to the Huns that's really important, because he grew up with the Huns, he knows them, he understands them, and he has his own sort of bodyguard of Huns. And he. I think he needs the Huns as a permanent presence, damaging the Eastern Empire. Brilliant, because it doesn't affect him, but they're on the sidelines. If he ever gets threatened, he can call on the Huns to support him. And he apparently has a very good relationship with Bleda. We don't know what his relationship with Attila is like, but it's only after Blader's dead that we now see the Huns focusing on the Western Empire. And Aetius has got this problem because up until this point, he's been using the Huns as an ally to support his position and his status within the western half of the Empire. Now he's got to fight them, and the only way he can fight them is to bring together the Visigoths and the Franks and the Burgundians, all the people he's been fighting, he has to now say, look, your homes and houses and settlements are threatened. If you work with me, we can defeat Attila and we get this big battle, which is the Battle of Chalon or the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains, as many people describe it. In 451, we're told hundreds of thousands of people are fighting, and it's a big mash up between Romans, Visigoths, Burgundians, Franks and Huns. You've also got Goths in their army, and no one actually today, we don't know what the outcome was because every side fighting there claims it as a victory. So it could just be. It's one huge, confusing mass of fighting. Attila, certainly after he's died, people say he was never defeated in battle. From his perspective, he won. From Aetius perspective, He won. But the problem for the Romans, problem for Aetius, is he doesn't want the Huns to lose, because if they lose, he can never use them again to support him. He doesn't want the Visigoths who are with him to win, because he doesn't want them to be a success because they'll dominate France. So he's playing all these different groups off one another. From his perspective, he wins because Attila goes away, but isn't defeated. The Visigoths are so badly mauled that they're no longer really a significant force, and he's kept the status quo. So it is a really, really complicated picture, but it's basically a situation of a series of warlords, some Roman, some Hunnic, some Visigothic, all fighting for supremacy. And ultimately, it's the Roman Empire in the west that is the victim.

[Spencer Mizzen]

Just rewind a little bit. Do we know why Attila kind of pivoted from this policy of basically extorting the Romans to actually going on the attack to advancing into Gaul?

[Miles Russell]

I think extorting from the Romans is one thing, but as a ultimate warlord, you've got to show that you're still up to the fight. It's one to be sitting in relative security beyond the Roman Empire, and they're coming to you and giving money. But every so often, you've got to show you're the dominant force, and sometimes that's when an emperor dies. You've got to get in there quickly and show, hey, we're still top dog here. You still got to keep us giving us money in 451. I think it's more of a sense that Attila's got to prove himself to his people and he's got to start winning battles so he can still fight the Romans. He also probably wants to get one over on Aetius, because Aetius is strutting around the Roman Empire. He's got lots of Huns with him. You can't allow that. You've got to show him who's boss. From the Eastern Roman Empire, they have an account that the Emperor Valentinian's sister, who writes to Attila and says, I'm about to be married to someone I don't like. I'm being kept indoors. I'm a prisoner here. Please come and help. And from that perspective of the story, Attila receives this message and thinks, aha, a marriage promise. I therefore demand half the Roman Empire as a dowry. And Valentinian III writes to him and said, I'm sorry about my sister. There's no way we're going to honour that. Just ignore it. Attila feels he's been diminished or not shown enough respect, and that's why he attacks. We don't know really the truth about that particular story. I mean, certainly women get a very bad deal in a lot of the Eastern Roman histories. Anyone who's got a position of power is always demonized, is always shown to be sort of crazy lust for power. So. So I think that story may be a little bit dubious, but certainly Attila's got to prove to his people that he is still worthy of their support. And attacking northern Gaul, burning cities, soft targets, is a way of doing that. And hopefully, I think, from his perspective, he'll draw Aetius out of hiding and defeat him in one big battle. And therefore he's able to extort money successfully from east and west without any kind of comeback.

[Spencer Mizzen]

So it's kind of what in modern terminology is called a flex, I guess. I guess what you call it nowadays. Okay, so we're not entirely sure what the outcome was of all this fighting in 451, but one thing we do know for sure then is that Tiller doesn't go quietly into the night, because in 452, as you've already mentioned, he embarked on this really ambitious military adventure into Northern Italy. What was the outcome of that?

[Miles Russell]

The outcome of that, again, it's confused, but I think Attila, there may have been people within his own group who saying, well, we didn't get out of the battles in Gaul what we wanted. So to go into northern Italy makes far more sense because it's less well protected. There's no significant barbarian groups in there who the Romans or Aetius can call upon to protect the cities. And by attacking Italian cities, you're basically showing that Aetius and any element of the Roman military cannot protect its own people. So there is a sense, it makes perfect sense for Attila to attack northern Italy and Aquileia and a whole series of other cities are completely eradicated, are destroyed. We get the story later that a lot of the survivors from the sack of that city then go off to found what becomes Venice. We can imagine lots of refugees, lots of cities being burnt. He's trying to directly blackmail the emperor. Now, what happens next is confused because we've got effectively the Church gets involved. I suspect Valentinian iii, who is still quite young at this stage, but he's got no one who can protect, reven his palace or Rome his city. And so he sends a delegation out to Attila to basically what do you want? What can we give you to make you go away? Later generations portray this as a miracle because one of the ambassadors sent by Rome is Leo I, Bishop of Rome, Pope of Rome. And we've got this fantastic. Probably one of the most famous representations of that is by raphael. It's a 1514 painting in the Vatican and it shows on the one side you've got Attila looking like Satan with his pointy beard and his sticky up ears, and he's recalling in horror what he can see in front of him. But behind him you've got all these barbarian armies, all the Huns and whatever, and it's very dark and in the distance you've got cities on fire. It looks like the Blitz, you know, they're illuminating the skyline with the horror that he's created, the apocalypse that he's created. And in front of him, all very serene and regal and bathed in light, you've got got Leo the first, Leo the Great, sitting on a horse with his sort of fingers outstretched. He hasn't got a weapon upon him. And from the skies you've got St. Peter and St. Paul descending with swords aloft. And he's recoiling because it's the word of God that is setting him back on his path. So it's later generations see this as a miracle. It is the word of God that sent him on his way, not any kind of military force. I think the reality of the situation is that he doesn't want to stay in Italy very long because there's disease, there's famine. If he stays there any longer, his people are going to start dying. His objectives are quite limited. He can't attack Rome, it's too well defended with the city walls. So he wants a way of getting out without losing face. And the Romans give him that opportunity. They offer him gold. But it's Leo that comes out of that really well, because it's then showing its religious authority that saved Rome, not political. It's not the emperor that did anything. And we can see from that point onwards that becomes core to the rise of the Catholic Church, because it can say the greatest evil to descend Europe was defeated by the word of God. And you can't get a better story than that. That's why I think Attila's reputation becomes enhanced, because the more evil he is, the more satanic he is, the better the story that Leo defeated him with just simple words.

[Spencer Mizzen]

So, yeah, the more black Attila's reputation, the more that reflects favourably on Leo.

[Miles Russell]

Absolutely. And of course, the Greek Orthodox Church has done nothing to stop this. The emperor in the east is just paying him money all the time. The emperor in the west can't do anything. So it's the Pope. It's Leo who comes out as the shining hero of the story.

[Spencer Mizzen]

Okay, but is there any solid evidence that, you know, we've talked about Attila's reputation, obviously one that was in the interest of people like Leo to propagate. Is there any solid evidence that Attila was more brutal, more barbaric than his contemporaries?

[Miles Russell]

I think he probably is, because he knows how to use the theatricality of performance by showing yourself to be brutal, but also very sort of respectful and generous to those who do surrender to you. It's all about respect. If people give him homage, if people obey him, then he is generous to them. But if they stand against him, there's no way you are dead. Your family's dead, your town's burnt to the ground. It's that kind of ruthlessness that keeps him in power. When you've got other leaders like Alaric the Visigoth, who's In Rome in 410 AD, Geiseric the Vandal, all these other barbarian leaders, in a sense, they want land, they want property, they want to be accepted by Rome. Attila doesn't want any acceptance from Rome. He wants Rome to bow down to him, him. So in that sense, he's nothing like any of the other leaders. I think that's from that point of view, he does earn his reputation as the most savage of barbarian leaders. But it's savagery with a purpose. You know, he knows what he wants, and it's that force of will, that force of personality that keeps people with him because they know what to expect. You don't rebel against him, you stand with him. Otherwise it's curtains for you. He creates a sense of almost like, I guess you could call it cultural apartheid, cultural separateness. He doesn't want his people to be infected by Roman ideas. So any kind of Huns who go over to the Roman Empire as escapees from his world or to work as mercenaries, he demands, I want them back. Pretty much every occasion, people who've escaped him are returned, and we're told he is absolutely. He crucifies them, he tortures them. That sense of, because you've disrespected me, because you've gone against my word, and Rome's happy to do that because it knows the consequences will be bad for them. So it's that sense of absolute, total control, and I don't want Any of my people joining the Roman world because I'm the preeminent crime boss. All trade comes through me. But also, I don't want any of your Roman muck. Sort of wine, silks, and that sort of stuff. I'll give that to my people or to some of my subordinates, but not for me, because I'm totally focused. So this idea, I think he is the ultimate crime lord because at the end of the day, he needs the money, he needs the gold from the Roman world to distribute amongst his people to help buy off that loyalty. But he's never trying to take hold of land. He's never making himself an emperor. He's never trying to get the defeat of the Roman Empire at all. He'd likes the Roman Empire to survive because the longer it survives, the more money he can get, the better his position is.

[Spencer Mizzen]

And of course, Attila the Hun wasn't the only leader of a nomadic people to strike fear into the heart of Europe. So if. If you'd like to hear my Life of the Week podcast on the extraordinary rise of Genghis Khan, then please click on the link in the podcast description. Okay, Mars, to finish on Attila, we've already talked about his death. What happened next? What impact did that have on his people?

[Miles Russell]

Well, we don't really hear much about the Huns as a force after his death. From the descriptions at the time, we can see that they're basically running an empire that goes from the Baltic right the way down to the Black Sea. It's an immense territory, but it's a series of different tribal groups, and their leaders are kept in place as long as they're respecting Attila. With Attila gone, he's got three immediate sons who take over. They fight amongst one each other. And a lot of the groups, the Gothic and Vandalic groups and Burgundians who are part of his world, detach themselves and sort of disappear. It's really an empire that's held together together by one man alone. But I think it's that. It's that that builds his reputation, and it's the horror that the Romans feel about the Huns that gets remembered. And that's why he. Right the way through the medieval era, he's seen as. As the archetype of satanic forces. You know, you see his army as like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. In the more modern times, we get Attila equated with other enemies. You know, every side in a war wants to demonize their. Their foe. And in the 18th century we see of Attila dressed like a Chinese emperor because there's a fear of Chinese imperial ambitions. We see him being depicted almost like a Russian leader as well. In the First World War, of course you get the whole sense of the term Hun gets reinvented partly because of the Austro Hungarian Empire and the Germans. But a lot of the recruitment posters about halting the Hun and you see a Prussian dressed almost like a barbarian, bayonetting babies and being the ultimate force of evil. So it's latching onto that idea or the ancient archetype and reusing it. And in the 1950s and 60s you get to sway the films like Sign of the Pagan with Jack Palance who. It doesn't get shown so much today because it. I have to say it's not very politically correct because they've sort of darkened his skin tone, they give him eye makeup to make him appear more Asiatic. But there is a sense of what you see the Huns in there, they're stand ins for communism. So you see the Romans as a powerful if slightly sort of corrupt or decadent civilization being threatened by the East. And the Huns that you see in that sort of film, they look very much like Klingons in 1960s Star Trek. It's that same kind of image with the sort of dark goatee, beards and the sort of East Asian costumes. And so there is that all the way through history. People are latching on. I think that's why his fame, unlike other like Alaric or Gaiseric or the other sort of barbarians. We remember Attila because he is such a force of nature, because of his power and his dominance, bringing both sides of the Roman Empire to the. But he's a stand in for whatever you want. If you want Satan, there he is. If you want evils of communism, there he is. He's ever present. There's never a time where we're not sort of dramatizing him. And it's the fact that we know so little about his real life that there's so much fiction that can be written about him. I think that's why he's such a famous character today.

[Spencer Mizzen]

Miles, thank you so much for that. That was absolutely fascinating. Thank you so much for your time now.

[Miles Russell]

Thank you, Spencer.

[Narrator/Podcast Intro]

That was Miles Russell talking to Spencer Mizzen. Miles is principal academic in Prehistoric and Roman Archaeology at Bournemouth University.

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