Known as “Flagellum Dei,” or “scourge of God,” Attila the Hun was one of the most fearsome enemies the Romans ever faced.
4. He invaded Gaul to win himself a wife.
In the spring of 450, Honoria, the ambitious sister of Valentian III, emperor of Western Rome, sent Attila a ring and asked him to help her get out of the impending marriage to a Roman aristocrat her brother was forcing on her. Attila, who already had several wives (the exact number is unknown), took Honoria’s overture as a proposal. He claimed her as his newest bride, and half the Western Empire as her dowry. Honoria claimed to have intended no such thing, but her brother, furious at his sister’s scheming, was ready to send her across the Danube to placate Attila. He eventually relented, allowing her to marry the boring Roman aristocrat after all. Attila wouldn’t give up so easily, however, and would wage his next two military campaigns in Honoria’s name.
5. Attila suffered his first and only defeat at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains.
In 451, some 200,000 of Attila’s Hun forces invaded Gaul. As they moved through the countryside, leaving slaughter and devastation in their wake, the Romans (commanded by General Flavius Aetius, previously on good terms with Attila) formed an alliance with King Theodoric I of the Visigoths. The combined Roman-Goth army confronted Attila in the decisive Battle of Catalaunian Plains, finally defeating the great Hun leader in one of the bloodiest conflicts in history. Theodoric was killed in the clash, while Attila withdrew his forces and subsequently retired from Gaul. Never one to be easily discouraged, he would invade Italy the following year.
6. Despite his legendary lust for gold, Attila himself lived modestly and humbly.
According to Priscus, who visited Attila’s headquarters on the Great Hungarian Plain along with visiting Roman ambassadors in 449, the Hun leader threw a banquet at which he served the guests a luxurious meal on silver plates. Attila himself, Priscus observed, was served separately. He “ate nothing but meat on a wooden trencher…His cup was of wood, while his guests were given goblets of gold and silver.” Unlike his subordinates, who arrogantly displayed their gold and gems on their horse’s bridle or weaponry, Attila’s “dress, too, was quite simple, affecting only to be clean.”