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- [00:00]
A
Hey guys. I hope you're doing well. I'd expect that most, if not all of you will have heard of the name Attila the Hun. But what about what followed his death? The demise of this Titanic figure? That is what we're covering today, the story of the sons of Attila, the fall of the hunts. Now, I love this topic because I'm pretty obsessed with the stories of what happened after the deaths of Titanic figures, warlords from ancient history. The death of Alexander the Great, for instance. And usually the answer is chaos and turmoil. And the story of what happened after Attila's death is no different. It was fascinating to learn about this often overshadowed but extraordinary part of the story of the Huns. I really do hope you enjoy. Our guest is the brilliant returning Professor Hyun Jin Kim from the University of Melbourne. Let's go. In 453 AD, one of the Titanic figures of late antiquity died of a nosebleed while having sex with his newest wife on their wedding night. Or so the story goes. That man was the so called scourge of God, the bane of Rome. Attila, ruler of the Hunnic Empire. It was Attila, or Attila who oversaw the zenith of the Hun's expansion into Europe as far as the Baltic Sea. He left an empire that was formidable, but also was fragile, the recipe for chaos on an imperial scale. This is the often overlooked story of what happened to the Huns after Attila's death, when his sons struggled to retain control and powerful Gothic chieftains challenged their rule. This is the story of the fall of the Huns, of the sons of Attila, with our guest, Professor Hyun Jin Kim. Hyun Jin, it's great to have you back on the podcast.
- [02:07]
B
Thank you for inviting me.
- [02:08]
A
You're more than welcome. And this time we've done the White Huns, we've done Attila the Hun, but now we're exploring what happens in the west following the death of Attila and his sons. Because this is another extraordinary part of the Hun story that is overlooked indeed.
- [02:23]
B
So unfortunately, because we are so dependent on a single source, the Gothic historian, Jordanes. For those who have not read Jordanes, this seems like a fairy tale that has never been told before. But yes, it is actually a fascinating story which I'd love to share with you today.
- [02:40]
A
So set the scene. First of all, when are we talking with Attila and how prominent were the Huns in in Europe at the time of his reign?
- [02:47]
B
So at the time of Ashla's death, the Hunnic Empire Dwarfed in size the Roman Empire at its height. So it stretched from central Gaul, central France, to the Volga river, from Scandinavia to territory south of the Danube River. Therefore, it had basically united much of continental Europe. And Eschar was, without any doubts, the most powerful ruler certainly in Europe at the time. And his empire had basically succeeded in unifying all of what the Romans referred to as barbaricum, the land inhabited by anybody who is not a Roman. And so the Huns would assert that Attila the Hun ruled over all of Scythia and Germania, so the territory that is ruled by Germanic tribes, and also the Scythian and Sarmatian tribes to the east. And they also claim that he had subjugated the two Roman empires, so the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire, to the payment of tribute. So that is the situation at the time of attila's death in 453ad.
- [03:55]
A
And what do we know about the power structure of Attila's empire just before he dies? What sort of empire should we be imagining and how it's run?
- [04:04]
B
It is a quasi feudal empire, as I said repeatedly in the past. I really do hesitate to use the word feudal, but that is really the best way to describe it. It is an empire that is hierarchical. It is, of course, presided over by the high King or the emperor, who, of course, was Ashela. And then under him, there are a hierarchy of kings. The highest ranking king is the king of the east, who is Elac, his eldest son and crown prince. And then there is, of course, the Western king, who is Oebarzius, his uncle. And under those Eastern and Western kings, a series of sub kings. So that is the structure of the empire. And at the time of Atala's death, what had happened was that the balance of power had shifted in the traditional Hunnic empire of the East. While the Huns still were in Central Asia and in Mongolia, the Eastern princes always outranked the Western princes. So political power almost always lay with the Eastern kings. And the Western kings were considered to be their vassals or subordinates, viceroys. But because Ashala led a coup against the previous emperor of the Huns, Bleda, his brother, who presided over the east, and because he was dependent upon the troops that he raised from the West. In fact, the Romans even referred to him as the Gepid Hun, because the gepids were his main fief, by the time that Achela died, the Western princes were just as powerful as those in the East. And that, of course, would result in the Long civil wars that followed Attila's death. First, the usurpation that of course upset the established honing political order and created many, many disaffected and dissatisfied honing royals who were just waiting for the opportunity to pounce as soon as Astala was gone. And the fact that the east could no longer overpower the west as easily as it had done before.
- [05:58]
A
Hingen, you also mentioned in passing there the gepids. So they're a tribe in what is today, is it Hungary or Czechoslovakia?
- [06:06]
B
That area, yes. They were originally based in Poland, modern Poland. But then of course, after they were conquered by the Huns, they were relocated to what is now Romania and Hungary, because of course, ESRI made that area, eastern Hungary, the center of his empire. He moved the Hunnic capital from somewhere in Ukraine to Hungary. And so the Gepids became very, very important. They became literally the geographical center of the Hunnic empire. And that is why Ashla is refer.
- [06:39]
A
So is there a sense that because Attila was such a strong individual that he was able to almost contain growing anti Western lord favoritism, if you know what I mean, Attila's preference for lords in the west, he was able to contain that. But when he dies, that resentment, particularly from the lords who ruled further east, who've been used to that traditional role where they had more power, that resentment doesn't explode because Attila is no longer there to contain it.
- [07:12]
B
Yes, exactly. That's exactly what happens. So when Ashlet suddenly dies after a wedding ceremony that went a bit gory, I suppose, the Eastern princes decide to elevate to the throne Elac, the crown prince, as was his right, because he is the king of the east, he was the first in line to the succession. And the Eastern princes, represented by the Akadziri Confederation, think that this is a done deal. Eylak should succeed. His father is emperor or high King. But the Western princes, who have been empowered by Ersala, refuse to comply. And so Aldarik, who is the king of the Gepids, now we have to first understand who these people are. According to Jordanes, Aldaric, Valamir and all the other kings that emerge after the supposed collapse of the Hunnic empire, according to Jordanes, are German ethnic Germanic princes. But if you look carefully at who these people are, they're not ethnically Germanic kings. They are actually Hunnic princes who are competing with each other in a succession crisis, who want to elevate their favored candidate to the throne. So Aldaric has A grandson called Mundo, who is also Ashela's grandson. So in other words, Aldaric was part of the Hunnic royal family. His daughter had married one of Atatur's sons, called G, and they had a son called Munda, who later becomes king of the Gepids. And so the Gepid royal family and the ruling elite were very Hunnic, and they remained so long after the so called demise of the Huns. And so Aldaric presumably wanted to raise to the throne his son in law, Gizmos. And so he forms a coalition of Western princes in order to elevate this guy to the throne. And the Eastern princes of course had their candidate Elac, who was the eldest son of Ashela. And this then led to this colossal battle at Nedao one year after Attila's death. These two warring factions couldn't sort it out via diplomacy, so they went to war.
- [09:19]
A
And before we get to what happens in that war you mentioned, there a figure who seems key to this story, or at least our understanding of this story, which is this figure of Jordanes. Now who was he, Hyunjin, and why is he so important for this story?
- [09:34]
B
Yes, Jordanius is an ethnic Goth who later worked for the Eastern Romans. His family became part of the Eastern Roman establishment and he wrote a history called the History of the Goths. And because he is an ethnic Goth, he goes out of his way to rewrite history in favor of his Goths. And therein lies the problem. The primary narrative that recounted the history of the dissolution of the Hunnic Empire, Priscus history, is largely lost. It only survives in fragments. And of course Jordanus consulted that history, but he rewrote that history and all the other information that he had available to him, so that his Goths would appear to be the most preeminent and the greatest tribe ever. And so everybody loses to the Goths in Jordanus narrative. But what is weird is that the Goths always win, but at the end of it, either their king dies or they are expelled entirely from the territory that they ruled over and have to take refuge in Roman territory in Macedonia and in Italy. So whatever Jordanes says, you have to take with a heavy grain of salt, because he rewrites history in ways that it's difficult to fathom. Jordanes is writing a hundred years after the events that he proposed to describe, and so he's dependent on earlier sources, and some of those sources survive in fragments. And so when we compare those sources with Chordanes, then we get closer to the truth.
- [11:05]
A
I Must ask another question before we continue with this civil war narrative, which is, you did also mention the death of Attila, and it always seems quite an interesting one. The actual death of Attila. You mentioned it was at a party or too much drink. I mean, how did he die? Is it a blood clot or something like that?
- [11:22]
B
Yes, he had a nosebleed, and it's a nosebleed. So he was. He had too much wine, he was drunk, and he had a new wife, so he overexerted himself. Well, this is according to Priscus, right? This is according to Priscus. These are according to the Romans, who engaged in malicious gossip. But supposedly he was drunk and he had a nosebleed and it suffocated him and he died in this very inglorious fashion. So the greatest king on the continent died of a nosebleed that's clogged his throat. He choked on his own blood. That's what Priscus tells us. And this was divine intervention, right, Because Attila was about to reinvade the Eastern Roman Empire, which had refused to pay tribute. And so the Roman emperor was very concerned that this invasion was about to happen. And then he saw a dream sent by God. In it, the Hunnic bow was broken. And this was a sign from heaven telling the pious emperor that God would smite the Huns himself. And so it was not the power of Roman arms, but divine retribution felled Attila and destroyed the Huns. That is the sort of the narrative that Zapruskis constructs, and that is the line of thought that he is pushing.
- [12:30]
A
And do we have any idea what Attila thought about his eldest son, Elak, or Elak? Is there any information that survives about that?
- [12:39]
B
Yes, actually. Priscus, who was a Roman ambassador and who had visited the court of Ashela and had actually met Ashura himself, tells us that Ashela was very, very distant towards all of his other sons and treated them as if they were garbage. Now, whether we should believe that or not was a different question. But he says that his shamans, Attila's shamans, had told Achela that his race would fall after his death, but would be completely revived by Ernak, the youngest of his sons. And so Priscus noticed how attended Ernak with the greatest amount of attention, but he would ignore all of his other sons. And that, according to Priscus, was because of this prophecy that Ernak would revive Attila's dynasty after his other incompetence. Sons would presumably ruin it, including Elac.
- [13:30]
A
His eldest son, which is his closest.
- [13:31]
B
Yes, exactly. Who is the successor? Now, of course, we cannot believe this story, because Priscus had the benefit of hindsight. He knew that eventually the final victor to emerge from the civil wars, the guy who would end up being the last man standing, was Irnoch. He has the benefit of hindsight, and he's there for creating this narrative to make it seem as though Attila had always favored Irnak. Thus, probably it's just wishful thinking.
- [13:57]
A
Well, let's go back to the story in regards to after Attila's death. So we've already highlighted, you know, this. This civil war that breaks out the Western kings and the gepids, led by the figure of Ardoric. And then on the other side, you have Attila's successor, his eldest son Elac, and the Akatsiri in the east. And then finally, only a couple of years after Attila's death, these two sides come to blows. What do we know, Hingen? What do we know about this civil war and the campaign?
- [14:28]
B
Yes, we know very little about the battle itself, because Jordanes completely messes up the narrative. His focus is solely on the Goths, so he doesn't really care that much about what else is happening. And his main purpose is to create a narrative in which his Goths are extricated from Hunnic rule as soon as possible. So he claims that during this battle, the Ostrogoths, the Eastern Goths, under their king Valamir, was fighting on the side of Alderic. So together with the gepids, they defeated the Huns and killed the honey crowned prince Alac, and that was the end of it. The Goths were finally liberated. And then Elac's younger brother Dengizik, another of Attila's sons, about a year later, decided to reclaim his slaves, the Goths. Right. So he supposedly invaded Gothic territory, and Vallamir, without any aid from his other brothers, managed to defeat him and sent him packing. And that was the great liberation of the Gothic people. When Valimer defeated danger, Theodoric the Great, the later great Gothic king of Italy, was born to Theudemir, who is the younger brother of Valamir. So the liberation of the Goths coincided with the birth of the greatest of all Gothic kings, Theodoric the Great. So he creates this very neat narrative which seems to suggest that the Goths extricated themselves from Hunnic rule in about 455 or 456 AD. But all evidence would point in the opposite direction, because Jordanus himself Lets slip a piece of information that is very puzzling. He an earlier Gothic king called Thorismud was killed while fighting the Gepids.
- [16:14]
A
Ah, okay.
- [16:16]
B
And later medieval Germanic tradition has the Goths fighting for Elec at the battle of Nedaho, not on the other side. And so what is going on? Well, in order to make sense of what is happening, we have to understand the person of Valamir, this king of the Ostrogoths that supposedly led the Goths at the Battle of Nedo. Now, at the Battle of Nedo, Valamo was not yet the ruler of the Goths. Jordanes says that there was a king called Balambur in the middle of the fourth century. And he claims that this king was a Hun king, was a Hunnic king, and he was the one who subdued the Goths in the middle of the 4th century. And then he talks about Valamir in the middle of the 5th century and claims that this is an entirely Gothic king descending from the original Ostrogothic kings who ruled prior to the Huni conquest. But via a very rigorous analysis of the sources, Peter Heather has been able to determine that Barambur and Walamur are one and the same. They are the same 5th century, mid 5th century individual. In other words, Jordanus has created a phantom Honi king in the middle of the 4th century in order to make his Gothic dynasty, the Amal dynasty, Gothic and not Hunnic. So since Balambur and Walamr are the same person, what does that mean? That means that Walamir, who lived in the middle of the fifth century, was not a Gothic king. He was a Hunnic king who was ruling over the Goths. And so in order to obfuscate that reality, Jordani separates that single king and makes him into a Hunnic king who supposedly lived in the middle of the 4th century and the Gothic king who supposedly lived in the middle of the fifth century. And the reason why we know this to be the case is because Bolumber kills a guy called Vinitharius. That name means literally wend fighter or Slav fighter. Now we know for a fact that there were no Slavs in southern Ukraine or Romania where the Goths were situated at the time in the middle of the 4th century. The introduction of the Slavs into this region was something that happened after the middle of the fifth century. So if Venicerius, this wind fighting king, star fighting king, was killed by Bolumber, that could not have happened in the middle of the 4th century. It had to happen in the middle of the 5th century. Strangely enough, Jordanius claims that this Vinitharius was the grandfather, the paternal grandfather of Valamir. But we've just told you that Balambar killed Vinutharius. So how could Balambar be the grandson of the person that he's murdered or killed in battle? Well, it's because Walamir married the granddaughter of Vinitharius. So after he defeated Vinitharius he married a princess called Vadamerka. And so Vinitharius was the Gothic grandfather in law of Walamir and not his paternal grandfather. And we know this to be the case because there is a Mal family tree or you know, sort of dynastic king list that predates the list given by Jordanes. And in that earlier list Vinnetharius and Balarobranz who is his father, is totally missing. So in other words, he just inserted these gothic kings into the ancestry in order to make these hunnic kings appear gothic. So he does this sort of thing all over the place. And fortunately we do have other sources that we can sort of with which we can cross examine Jordanus account and you know, figure out what on earth he's trying to do. So you know, that's basically what's happening.
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C
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- [21:34]
A
Blueprint and join us every week on Echoes of History, a ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit. I think your explanation there highlights just how confusing Drudanus makes it to try and sort out what the hell is happening with the Hunnic empire and these kingdoms in the west in these years following Attila's death. So if the bare bones is Elac is defeated and killed at the Battle of Neda, and so after that point, the official Hunnic empire at that time, does it recede and do you get people like Valimer and Ardoric, although they still have links to the Huns, do they also consider themselves independent kings? And the actual size of the Hunnic empire has decreased.
- [22:33]
B
That is the thing, right? So that is what Jordanes wants us to think. It completely broke up after this battle. Everybody is independent. But notice how Walamur is called the King of the Huns. None of these Hunnic princes actually thought that the Hunnic empire had dissolved and all of them were trying to put it back together. So the civil war continues. And in fact Walamir remains affiliated with the sons of Attila until at least the early 460s, when he concludes an alliance with Eastern Romans and aims for the Hunnic throne himself. That is why he is called the King of the Huns, when in fact the only sort of group that he ruled over were probably some Goths and some Sarmatians. He makes his bid for the throne in the 260s when he feels that he's powerful enough and he seems to have succeeded in uniting much of the western territories of the Hunnic empire, and that then invites the attention of Dengizhik. So Jordanias says that Dengizhik was defeated by Valamir in roughly about 455 AD. But in fact, Roman sources tell us that this encounter between the Huns and the Goths of Valamir actually happened in the middle of the 460s. So 10 years later. 10 years later. So in other words, Troydanes, in the same way that he created two kings out of one person, has created two battles out of one battle, which took place in the middle of the 460s, just so that he is able to extricate the Goths from Punic rule as a early as possible and to make the ruling dynasty of the Goths a native Gothic dynasty and not a Hunnic dynasty. And so that's sort of the eastern half of the Hunnic empire at the time is unable to try to reimpose its rule over the west, largely because they're dealing with an invasion from the east. And so during this time we mentioned this in the podcast on the White Huns, what is happening is that the Kidarites are being overrun, invasion of the Avars coming from the east. And the Avars not only displaced the Kidarites in Central Asia, they also destroy the weak Huns, the so called Yueban Huns in Kazakhstan. And as a result of the dissolution of these two Hunnic states, various military detachments that derive from those two states pour into southern Russia and the Ukraine. And Irnak in particular, the youngest son of Achila, is stuck fighting against them in the east and is unable of course retake his western territories. And so in that power vacuum, a war erupts between Walamir and Dengizhik over who should claim the title of king of the western half of the Daharik empire.
- [25:26]
A
So just to clarify, I'm getting my head around this now. It's very interesting to hear. So Elac is defeated in the battle by Ardoric and his allies. But at that time he said the Hunnic empire doesn't really recede after that. You just have the new kings, the other sons of Attila. So Ernak in the east and then Dengizik in the west. And at that time Valimer still seems to be loyal to those two sons of Attila. And he is reigning in Ukraine, Hungary area. He's a sub king in that area, do we think?
- [26:01]
B
No, Vallimar is ruling over what is now much of Hungary, Croatia, Bosnia, that area, northern Serbia, so that area. So that is his core territory. And Denk is ruling over regions we should probably associate with western Ukraine, Belarus, that area. There is another Onych prince, Edeko, who rules over the Skyri. So basically much of Romania or the eastern half of Romania, all these Hunnic princes are jostling for power. Aldaric, who was the great victor at Nedo, he disappears from the picture shortly after the battle. So he presumably died. He must have been an old man by the time of the bachelor in any case. So he disappears from the picture. And so Vallimar takes his place and the Gepits become very, very insignificant very quickly for about 10 years. So Valimur is the more powerful prince in the west and he himself descends most likely from Ulden. So Ulden is one of the earlier honey kings. And according to Jordanis himself, the ancestor of Valamir is a certain Woot uf. So ult wolf is wult the wolf. So if you take off the Germanic suffix Wulf Ult, of course, is Uldin, because Uldin, if you look at his name, the in is the Greek suffix, so you have to remove the in. And so his name is Ult. So Valimer probably descends from Ulden. He belongs to a cadet line of honey kings who have not been able to sort of establish their authority over the whole empire. They're just ruling as sub kings. But in this confusion, when Attila's sons are all fighting against each other, he makes his bid for the throne. And so he declares himself King of the Huns, not King of the Goths or King of the Sarmatians. He says, I'm the king of the Huns. And then he tries to conquer the Suebi in what is now Germany. And the Scyri, who of course are in Romania, and the Suebi in Germany are ruled by another Hunnic prince called Hunimund. His name literally means subservient to the Huns or in the service of the Huns. In other words, a vassal Hun king. And so Honeymund and Etiko of the Skiri, they try to sort of reach out to anybody who could support them against Valamir. Etiko appeals to the Eastern Romans for support, and the Eastern Roman Emperor Leo decides to support the Skiri. But then Aspar, who is the generalissimo, says, no, no, no, we are not getting involved. And so no real Roman support comes. And so the Skiri and the Suebi then turn to Denguzik, who is the strongest of the honey princes in the West. And he then, of course, arrives, joins forces with the Skiri, and Jordanes tells us that in this battle against the Skiri, Varamma was killed. But according to Jordanes, despite the death of the king, the Dakoths fought heroically, vanquished Skiri and emerged victorious. But so the Roman sources tell us, right after the death of Walamir, Dengizhik is now ruling the Goths. So Dengizik, after he's conquered Walamus, Goths, decides to invade the Eastern Roman Empire. He thinks that now that he's reunited the western half of the Hunnic Empire under himself, that he's owed the tribute that the Eastern Romans had been paying to his father Achela. So he gathers his forces and demands that the Eastern Romans capitulate. And he asks his brother Irnoch who is his superior in the East. So the imperial throne belongs to Ernak in the East. That is clear, because Dengizuk pays deference to him. So Ernak is the high king Dengizhuk is his viceroy in the west. And so Dengizik asks Irnak if he can attack the Romans. And no, you can't, because I'm busy finishing off these other enemies in the east. Let's wait.
- [29:56]
A
He's still finishing off the Avars in the east. Is it those people?
- [29:59]
B
Not the Avars, but the various sort of fragments of other Hunnic states in the east that have broken off and are invading his territory.
- [30:07]
A
And that's in Kazakhstan, southern Russia area?
- [30:10]
B
Yes, where we need to develop Kazakhstan, southern Russia, mainly southern Russia. And he successfully integrates all of these Ogors. The main group is the Saragors, the Bitugurs, Onogors, et cetera. These are not tribes. Oghur actually means military division, and the Saragors mean the yellow division or the royal division. So that is the most formidable sort of enemy that Irnak has to deal with. And he successfully defeats them. So he manages to unite all the sort of the newcomers and his own people into one group. And this new sort of imperial state that Irnak founds in Eastern Europe is called Great Bulgaria. And the people are called Bulgar Huns. Bulgar in Uguric Turkic, means to stir or to mix. So these are the mixed people. And so Irnak is busy with that in the east. And so he tells Dengizik that he should cut it and not mess with the Romans. But Dengizhik proceeds anyway. That leads to some mysterious circumstances.
- [31:10]
A
It's interesting up to that point because it feels like, if we can presume that these events happened in the 460s, so a decade after Elac's death, that, you know, for a short period of time, the Ernak Dengizik partnership, you know, restores Hunnic power. They've dealt with the troublemaker Valema in the west, or Dengizik has. Irnak seems to be gaining success now, finally in the Kazakhstan area. And Dengishik, you know, he's. He wants to fight the Romans. But it seems like the defeat of Elac and the issues there was only a blip, and the Hunnic empire is restoring to its old power. But then what happens?
- [31:49]
B
So after 10 years of mayhem, the Hunnic empire has been put together again, or stitched together again, but still unstable, especially in the west. In the east, it is much more stable and will remain so thereafter. But in the west, it is very unstable, and so Dengizik probably should have consolidated his new conquests before embarking on this foolhardy war against the Eastern Romans. But he does so anyway. So in 467 AD, he launches his invasion of the Roman Empire and the Romans resort to subterfuge. So what they do is they send into the Hunnic camp a spy called Chalcarl. He's a Hun who is working for the Romans. And so he visits the Goths, who are now back under the rule of the Eastern Huns. He reminds the Goths of all the indignities that they had suffered under Hunnic rule, all the taxes they had to pay, all the injustices that they had to endure under Hunnic rule. And this really rile Goths, according to Priscus, they then rebel. And so instead of fighting the Romans, what happens is a gigantic fiasco. The Goths within Dengizhik's army attack the Huns and they end up fighting each other and the entire expedition ends in a complete disaster. The Bitulgors, these are Eastern newcomers who were probably supplied to Dengizhuk by Ernak earlier, when Dengizik was fighting against Valimer. So these are newcomers as well, and they are not completely loyal to the Attalites. They also seem to have rebelled along with the Goths. So later, in Austro Gothic Italy, the Bitagors become a part of the Ostrogothic kingdom and they become one of the leading sort of groups that make up the Ostrogothic nobility. So both groups rebel. And so Dengizik's short lived unification of the west falls apart almost immediately. And then in roughly 469 AD, he is murdered. And so that is the end of that. Irnoch does push back and he does manage.
- [33:49]
A
What happens to Ernak?
- [33:50]
B
Well, so Ernak then of course finally decides that he needs to deal with the west. And so he sends his armies into what is now Romania and Bulgaria and take over those regions. And the Romans recognize rule over the former Roman province of Scythia. What happens is that Theudemir, this is the younger brother of Valamir, retakes the kingship of the Goths. So they've broken away from the Eastern Huns again. And Theudemir tries to recover the territories that Valamir had ruled previously. And so he wages war against the Rugi, the Suebi and the Gepids. And he makes too many enemies all at once. And so all these groups unite against him. And at the Battle of Bolia, according to Jordanes, the Goths vanquished everybody and they were bored with beating just about everybody repeatedly. And they thought we have to take on a bigger challenge. And so they decide to bolt into Roman territory. And so they abandon all of their territories in Central Europe, and former Gothic territories are then divided by the people that supposedly the Goths had defeated in battle. And Theudemir ends up in Macedonia, and his younger brother Videmer, another brother, ends up in Italy. And so the Goths are scattered to the winds. And Theodoric, who had been a hostage in Constantinople until then, finally rejoins the Goths and goes to Macedonia with his presumed father, Theudemir. There's a little bit of uncertainty as to whether Theodoric is Walamir's son or Theudemir's son. According to Jordanes, Theodoric was the son of Theuderic by a concubine. But then the person who sent Theodoric to Constantinople as a hostage was not Theudemir, but Valamir. So I think what actually was happening was Theodoric was probably an illegitimate son of Vallamur, and that's why he could serve as a hostage at the court in Constantinople. But then after Vallamir died, in accordance with Hunnic custom, his wives would have been passed on to his brother by a system that is very similar to the Leverish and the sort of Hebrew context. So when a brother dies in Hunnic society, the other brothers, the next brother then inherits the former wives and concubines of his brother. And so Jordanes, who wants to make Theodoric appear as a Christian king, must have thought that this was very shameful. And so instead of having Theudemir as Theodoric's stepfather, he might have just said how Theudemir was his legitimate father. That's just a guess, though. That's what I think happened. But anyhow, so Theudemir ends up in Macedonia. Vide with his Goths, end up in Italy. The territory, former Western Hunnic territory, is then divided among a few very powerful Hunnic princes. The King of the Gepids, the King of the Suebi, the King of the Rogi. And those three basically rule over much of the core Hunnic territories in the West. And Onak, who finally sort of makes his move, displaces the Skiri, right, who are led by another Hunnic prince called Etiko, who was responsible for killing Valamir earlier. This group are scattered, just like the Goths, and they end up in the Roman Empire. So Etiko's eldest son, Hunulf the Hun Wolf, ends up in Constantinople, and he joins his relatives who are already there, a certain Armatus, who is either his brother or a cousin and another relative called Basiliscus, who Latia becomes Eastern Roman Emperor for just about a year before being overthrown by the Empress Zeno, who is an Isaurian. So a lot of these Huns are sort of all over the place and people related to them are all over the place. And even in the Roman Empire they were occupying high positions in the military.
- [37:58]
C
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- [37:59]
B
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C
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- [39:10]
A
If we go back to Irnak, as we're kind of focusing on the sons of Attila, is he now the only one still standing and for how much longer is he able to be the ruler of what is of what remains the official Hunnic empire?
- [39:25]
B
Yes. So Urnak is able to hold on for quite some time and he, he is listed as a very important ancestor in the Bulgar prince list. So Leysha, the Bulgarians in the 7th century and the 8th century managed to occupy or re establish the Bulgarian state in the Balkans and found the first Bulgarian empire in the Balkans. In their prince list we see Irnak as the first significant ancestor after Ashida. And according to Menander Protector, a Eastern Roman historian, Menander doesn't mention Irnak, but he says the great ancestor of these Huns divided his realm between his two sons. One presided over the Utigurs and the other presided over the Kutrigurs. So the Utigurs are the eastern division, which is much more powerful and has as many as four military divisions. The Kutrigurs are the weaker western division. In western Ukraine and Romania they have fewer military divisions, but they've reconstitute the Hunnic empire in Europe. But in A reduced form. So instead of ruling over all of Eastern Europe and Central Europe, they now only rule over Eastern Europe. And in the typical Hunnic fashion, they again divide their empire into two halves, with the descendants of Ernak ruling over both of them. But then in the middle of the 6th century, the Bulgar states enter into civil war. And while they're busy fighting each other, the Avars, or the pseudo Avars, turn up, just 20,000 of them, and they take over as the new ruling dynasty. But they don't displace the Aeschalates entirely. They sort of allow them to rule over their peoples as vassals. And once the Avars weaken in the beginning of the 7th century AD, then these Bulgars again separate themselves from the Avars and re establish Old Great Bulgaria, or Old Bulgaria in Ukraine under a king called Kubrat. And then he has five sons. And those five sons are defeated by the Khazars, who are the Turks, who sort of push further west. And so one brother, Kotrag, goes north and founds Volga Bulgaria in what is now sort of Central Russia. A younger brother called Asparu goes south and establishes Danubian Bulgaria. Another son of Kubrat, called Kuber, conquers Macedonia and establishes another Bulgaria there. Alcek ends up in Italy, and part Bayan, who is the eldest, submits to the Khazars and becomes their vassal. So the five brothers go their separate ways, found Bulgarias all over the place, and then they integrate with the locals, and gradually the Honeykais entity then dissolves.
- [42:11]
A
And then we've got only one Bulgaria surviving today, which is the country Bulgaria. But it's interesting to think that the country Bulgaria, the name originates from the Hunnic language, I guess, and what the Huns did and Attila's sons did.
- [42:25]
B
Yes, definitely, definitely. And one other interesting sort of side note is that Etiko, that Iscyrian Hunnic prince who fought against Valamir, he had another even more famous son than Hunulf, that of course, is Otto Wacker. And Otto Wacker, of course, is the guy who ended the Western Roman Empire. So he is expelled from Central Europe as well. And with his torque, Lingi, the name of the tribe that he rules over, is interesting because the ling is a Germanic suffix, but Torqui, of course, refers to the Huns. And so he leads this group into Italy, and then he installs as a sort of puppet Roman emperor Romulus Augustulus, who is the son of Orestes, who incidentally was the secretary of Attila, the Hun. And when Etiko went on this embassy to Constantinople at Attila's command, he took with him Orestes on their trip. So both of them had gone to Constantinople and had met Priscus before the death of Attila. And so Priscus tells us a lot about Etiko and Orestes. And lo and behold, several decades later, the son of Ediko Ottoacer commands a Hunnic army in Italy, or motley sort of collection of Huns and Germanic tribes in Italy. And he installs as the last Western Roman emperor Romulus Augustulus, who is the son of that very same Orestes, the secretary of Attila the Hun.
- [43:56]
A
Does he install Impunjin? I thought he deposes him, but Orestes installs Romulus Augustulus.
- [44:02]
B
Oh no. So Orestes makes a deal with Ottoacar and he installs his son Romulus Augustulus as emperor. But then Ottoacre decides that I'm dropping this farce. And so he kills Orestes, deposes Romulus Augustulus and then sends the imperial regalia to Constantinople, telling the Eastern Romans that the empire does not need two emperors. I'll run the show here as a virtually independent king in Italy, and you can be emperor all by yourself. And so that's how form of Hunnic princeling took over Italy and established the first barbarian kingdom of Italy. And then of course Theodoric, who is another Hunnic princeling ruling over the Ostrogoths, comes over and kills Odoacer and takes over and creates the Ostrogothic kingdom of Italy.
- [44:50]
A
And once again all of those figures have links to the Huns and how the story of the Huns lives on. And thinking of the sons, of course, Elac dies early on Dengizik then following him. And do we have any idea what happens to Irnak? Obviously, if he has his sons and his line continues. So the line of Attila does continue. Do we think he dies of old age or do we just not have that information?
- [45:13]
B
We don't have that information, but I think we can be pretty certain that he died of old age because his sons were able to succeed him without any great disturbances. There is no record of any civil wars between the Utigurs and Kutrigurs until basically the last decade of their existence in the middle of the 6th century. So for the next 50 or 60 years the Bulgar Huns remain united.
- [45:37]
A
I will just ask one to wrap it all up though, Xingen. How much can we call it a fall with The Hunnic Empire after Attila, the deaths of two of his sons, the chaos that follows, but then ultimately the. The stability brought with Ernak and the the post Roman kingdoms that have links to the Huns with figures like Otto AKA and Theodoric and so on. How far can we argue you that the Hunnic Empire does fall after Attalid's death?
- [46:02]
B
Well, it fell in the sense that the United Empire, that vast empire that stretched from Central Gaul to the Volga river, that no longer exists, the western half of the empire definitely dissolved into its constituent parts. And that interestingly mirrors the situation in the Western Roman Empire which also dissolved, but the east survived, just as the Eastern Roman Empire survived and hung on for a long, long time thereafter. And so we often talk about the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 AD, but that of course is not accurate. We're talking about the fall of the western half of the Roman Empire. The rest of it, the eastern half, survived another thousand years. In the same way, I think if we were to talk about the collapse of the Hunnic Empire, yes, in the west definitely it happened after 20 years of complete mayhem and civil wars and unsuccessful attempts by Hunnic princes to bring everything back together again. But in the east, the Hunnic state or its successor state, the Bulgaria, the Bulgar Huns, managed to hang on for a long time thereafter. And after sort of an avar blip in the middle, they again sort of reasserted themselves and their successor states lasted for a long, long time, right up to the 11th century A.D. so not as long as the Romans, but they did sort of hang on for quite some time.
- [47:27]
A
Hyunjin, this has been absolutely fascinating, shining a light on this chaotic period. All of these names and all of these are trying to sort fact from fiction from a figure like Jordanes. You've done a fantastic job delving through all of that. People can read all about it and so much more in your book which covers this and the whole story of the Huns.
- [47:44]
B
It is called the Huns Rome and the Birth of Europe by Cambridge University Press.
- [47:49]
A
And is there also one just called the Huns?
- [47:51]
B
Yes, there is another book called the Huns which is a easier read, which probably should be more recommended because it is easier for the general public to approach.
- [47:59]
A
I say that because I'm actually holding it in my hand right now and it was a great source of information for our chat today. So I wanted to make sure you mentioned that. Hyunjin, you've been fantastic. It just goes to me to say thank you so much for coming back on the podcast.
- [48:10]
B
It's a pleasure. Thank you for having me.
- [48:16]
A
Well, there you go. There was Professor Hyun Jin Kim return returning to the show to talk through the story of what happened after the death of Attila and the fall of the Hunnic Empire. I hope you enjoyed the episode. Thank you for listening. Please follow the Ancients on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. That really helps us and you'll be doing us a big favour if you'd also be kind enough to leave us a rating as well. We'd really appreciate that. Don't forget, you can also listen to us and all of History Hits podcasts ad free and watch hundreds of TV documentaries when you subscribe@historyhit.com subscribe that's enough from me. I'll see you in the next episode.
- [49:05]
C
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