Attila

ATTILA. - He was the leader of the Huns around the middle of the 5th century, at first together with his brother Bleda, then, after the latter was killed, alone. He invaded the Balkan peninsula for the first time during the Vandal war and obtained concessions from Theodosius II. He then turned his ambitions toward the West and, since his demands had not been accepted by Valentinian III, he gathered a strong army with which, at the beginning of 451, he crossed the Rhine. The battle between the Huns and the Romans (helped by the Visigoths) took place in June on the Catalaunian Fields; A. was defeated, though he managed to retreat with his men. The following year he invaded Italy, destroying Aquileia and Padua and sacking Milan and Pavia; seeing the impossibility of checking the advance, the emperor began negotiations and the pontiff Leo himself went to the Mincio to parley with A.; the Pope's influence obtained that the barbarian come to terms. He died suddenly in Pannonia in 453, and with his disappearance the hordes of the Huns dispersed, ceasing to represent a danger to Roman civilization. The documentation on A. is very scanty; from the 8th century onward he is known under the title of "Scourge of God."

Paolo Brezzi