ATTILA (d. 453), king of the Huns, became king in 433 on the death of his uncle Roua. In the first eight years of his reign Attila was chiefly occupied in the wars with other barbarian tribes, by which he made himself virtually supreme in Central Europe.
His own special kingdom comprised the countries which are now called Hungary and Transylvania, his capital being possibly near the modern city of Buda-Pest ; but having made the Ostrogoths, the Gepidae and many other Teutonic tribes his subject-allies, and having also sent his armies into Media, he seems for nearly 20 years to have ruled practically without a rival from the Caspian to the Rhine.
Early in his reign, Honoria, grand-daughter of the Emperor Theodosius II., being subjected to severe restraint on account of an amorous intrigue with one of the chamberlains of the palace, sent her ring to the king of the Huns, and called on him to be her husband and her deliverer. Nothing came of the proposed engage ment, but the wrongs of Honoria, his affianced wife, served as a pretext for some of the constantly recurring embassies with which Attila worried the two courts of Constantinople and Ravenna.
One of the return embassies from Constantinople (448) had the advantage of being accompanied by a rhetorician named Pris cus, whose minute account of the negotiations, including a vivid picture of the great Hun in his banquet-hall, is by far the most valuable source of information as to Attila's court and camp. In the ambassador's suite there was an interpreter named Vigilas, who for 50 pounds of gold had promised to assassinate Attila. This design was discovered by the Hunnish king, but had not been revealed to the head of the embassy or to his secretary.
The new Emperor Marcian answered the insulting message of Attila in a manlier tone than his predecessor. Accordingly the Hun now turned upon Valentinian III., the trembling emperor of the west, and demanded redress for the wrongs of Honoria, and one-half of Valentinian's dominions as her dowry. Allying himself with the Franks and Vandals, he led his vast many-nationed army to the Rhine in the spring of 451, crossed that river, and sacked, apparently, most of the cities of Belgic Gaul, finally reached the Loire and laid siege to the strong city of Orleans. The citizens, under the leadership of their bishop, Anianus, made a heroic de fence, but the place was on the point of being taken when, on June 24, the allied Romano-Gothic army of Aetius and Theodoric, king of the Visigoths, was seen on the horizon. Attila turned again to the north-east, halted near Troyes, in the Catalaunian plains, and offered battle to his pursuers.
The battle (Chalons) which followed—one of the decisive battles of the world—has been well described by the Gothic historian, Jordanes, as "ruthless, manifold, immense, obstinate." It lasted for the whole day, and the carnage was terrible. The Visigothic king was slain, but the victory, though hardly earned, remained with his people and his allies. Attila retreated, apparently in good order, on the Rhine, recrossed that river and returned to his Pan nonian home. Thence in the spring of 452 he again set forth to ravage or to conquer Italy. After a stubborn contest, he took and utterly destroyed Aquileia, the chief city of Venetia, and burned the cities at the head of the Adriatic, Concordia, Altinum and Patavium (Padua). The fugitives, seeking shelter in the lagoons of the Adriatic, laid the foundations of the future city of Venice. Upon Milan and the cities of western Lombardy the hand of Attila seems to have weighed more lightly, plundering rather than utterly destroying; and he yielded to the entreaty of Pope Leo I. and consented to cross the Alps, with a menace, however, of future return, should the wrongs of Honoria remain unredressed. But no further expeditions to Italy were undertaken by Attila, who died suddenly in 453, in the night following a great banquet which celebrated his marriage with a damsel named Ildico.
Under his name Etzel, Attila plays a great part in Teutonic legend (see NIBELUNGENLIED) and under that of Atli in Scandi navian Saga, but his historic lineaments are greatly obscured in both. He was short of stature, swarthy and broad-chested, with a large head and hair which early turned grey, snub nose and deep-set eyes. He walked with a proud step, darting a haughty glance this way and that as if he felt himself lord of all.
See Priscus, Jordanes, the Historia Miscella, Apollonius Sidonius and Gregory of Tours, who are the chief authorities for Attila's life.