Huns with the combat against Alains
Illustration of Johann Nepomuk Geiger (1873)
Probably come from Central Asia, Huns were nomads which lived in the steppes of the north of the Caucasus. The Chinese mention them for the first time at the III E front century J. - C. Huns strongly marked the imaginary one of the people of the Roman Empire finishing, by the particularly cruel character their exactions. The chronicle thus allotted to Attila the nickname of “plague of God”. The walk of Huns towards the west It is towards the end of the IV E century apr. J. - C. that Huns appear in the basin of the Volga. After having crushed Alains, they settle between this river and the Gift, before invading the Ostrogoth kingdom established in the plains of Ukraine. Then continuing their progression towards the west, they demolish the Visigoths, established in current Romania, and reach the borders of the Roman Empire on the Danube.
According to the descriptions left by the Roman historian Ammien Marcellin, Huns are wandering pastors who are unaware of agriculture, do not have permanent dwellings and traverse without respite the steppe in search of pastures and of water supply points for their herds. They remain thanks to hunting and with the gathering, wear clothes of flax and furs. Living almost constantly with horse, they do not seem to have of true king, each clan having his own boss.
Frightening warriors, archers, riders assembled on small robust horses, Huns surprise their enemies while devoting themselves to fast loads, unexpected retirements, a permanent harassing. Hunnic tombs found close to Dniepr attest their taste for plundering.
After having crossed and devastatehaving devastated the Rumanian plains, Huns cross Carpates and settle in the plain of Pannonia (Hungary current) towards 396. Little worries, Rome lets them act with their own way beyond the files (fortification marking the border of the Roman Empire), because Huns are caught some in Goths, enemies traditional of Rome.
M board the situation changes brutally into 408, date on which Huns penetrate in Roman territory while launching many raids. Towards 425, an empire hunnic seems to be formed on the Danube means. Extending their domination on the Germanic populations, Huns enlist the German ones in their army. In 430, the emperor Théodose II agrees to pay them an annual tribute, which is doubled five years later, then multiplied by five into 443.
Attila, the plague of GodThe chief hun Attila arrives at the power into 441. Under its reign, the power of Huns reaches its apogee. Indeed, after 445, date on which it makes assassinate his Bléda brother, it controls as an autocrat. It charges with the emissary, the logades, to traverse the empire to claim tributes under penalty of destruction. Avid of spoils, it launches each year of the raids on the ruin and Byzantine Empire regularly the cities of Balkans.
In 450, it is turned over against the Western Empire. It passes the Rhine to Mainz and penetrates in the east of Gaule, before its army is put in rout by the Romain Aetius close to Troyes (battles of the fields Catalauniques, 451). Huns ebb then towards the east.
One year later, Attila launches a new raid towards Italy. He devastates the plain of Po, meets the Leon pope the Large one and brutally decides to return to Pannonia with his army. He dies into 453, leaving a rich empire, but whose authority is basked in the sun under the successive revolts of the vassal people.
Incompetents to link itself, his/her sons are beaten into 455 on Nedao, in Pannonia, by a coalition of Gépides and the Ostrogothic ones. This defeat marks the end of the hunnic power.