Earth changes and Hunnic invasions from 447 to 452

1 The Hunnic invasion of 447

In 441, the Huns under the leadership of Attila and his brother Bleda, launched their first
major invasion across the Danube. They allegedly capture at least seven major cities on the
middle Danube1. In the year following, Marcellinus Comes2 reports that in the same year that
the comet of 442 Bleda and Attila ravaged the populations of Illyricum and Thrace.
Throughout this invasion, Attila had met with no opposition from the Roman field army,
because the campaigns in Persia and the central Mediterranean had absorbed all the available
Roman forces. A treaty was negotiated in 443, and Theodosius II paid the Huns 6000 lb of
gold (2000 kg), and the annual tribute paid to the Huns under the treaty of Margus of 435 was
to be trebled.
However, peace did not last more than four years. In 447, Attila, who now ruled alone after he
murdered his brother, launched a second invasion, even larger than the first. Our sources tell
us not a word as to why they did so or what pretext they used. The attack was carried out, not
only by the Huns but also by the Gepids led by Ardaric, and the Goths of Valamer. As the Hun
squadron crossed the frontier and advanced along the line of the Morava River, a tremendous
earthquake shook Constantinople.
The years between 442 and 447 were filled with natural disasters for the Eastern Empire.
Plague, harsh winter, continuous rains devastated entire regions. It culminated with the
earthquake on 26 January 447, in the words of Evagrius, a very great, extraordinary
earthquake3. He then describes other effects, probably a tsunami, extending the area of
damage to Bithynia, the Hellespont and Phrygia. In his Bazaar of Heracleides, written around
451, the ex- Archbishop of Constantinople (428-431), Nestorius, depicts in an apocalyptical
tone the earthquake and the Hunnic invasion as a sign of Gods wrath. Malalas adds that the
earthquake struck Nicomedia and Constantinople4 .
The Chronicon Paschale reports that a fire from heaven was seen during the earthquake5.
Marcellinus adds that after the earthquake, a pestilence broke out in the Imperial City.
The fire from heaven and the outbreak of a pestilence suggest that it was a Tunguska event6.
Indeed, several high magnitude earthquakes were followed by infectious diseases. For
example, between the sixth and eighth century, five plague outbreaks occurred after
earthquakes in Constantinople in 557, in, Syria in 565 and 712, in Antioch in 580, and in
Palestine in 6347.
Baillie has shown that the Black Death of the 14th century was due to pathogens brought by
cometary impacts8. The chemical constituents of comets, such as hydrogen cyanide and polyaromatic hydrocarbons, were the agent that decimated people across Europe and Asia. The
noxious smell of Marcellinus is identical to the corruption of the atmosphere that came
from the earthquake of 25 January 1348.

In less than two months the Theodosian Walls which made Constantinople one of the best
protected cities in the Roman Empire - were rebuilt. The prefect Flavius Constantinus rebuilt
them as quickly as possible to face the Hunnics threat. Indeed, an inscription on a grayish
marble slab which celebrated the the triumphant building of these walls in less than two
months is still visible in Istanbul.
Near the river Utus (Vit) in today Bulgaria, Attila was engaged by the imperial army in a
conflict known as the Battle of the Utus. After a long engagement with heavy casualties on
both sides, Attila won his last victory against the Romans. Unfortunately, no detailed account
of the battle survives. After the battle, the Huns desolated Marcianople, the capital of Moesia.
They didnt attack Constantinople because they were without siege engines, but devastated
the Balkan provinces, with terrible ferocity, and Jordanes lists Illyricum, Thrace and both
provinces of Dacia together with Moesia and Scythia, as having suffered grievously. Another
host of the Huns descended the valley of the Vardar and advanced, it is said, to Thermopylae
in Greece.
According to Marcellinus 9, Attila devastated almost the whole of Europe and cities and forts
were invaded and pillaged. The Gallic Chronicle of 45210 says that new destruction broke
out in the East. No less than seventy cities were laid waste by the plundering of the Huns.
Similar to an earthquake or an overhead meteor explosion, Thrace was shaken by an attack
of the Huns.
Callinicus in his Life of St. Hypatius who was still living in Thrace writes that the barbarian
nation of the Huns which was in Thrace, became so great that more than a hundred cities were
captures and Constantinople almost came into danger and most men fled from it. [] And
there were so many murders and blood lettings that the dead could not be numbered11.
Archaeological excavations prove the destruction around the Danube. The fort of Iatrus on the
lower Danube was unoccupied for several decades after 440s. Only under the Emperor
Anastasius (491-518) does coin-loss recommence12. The same fate befell the legionary
fortress of Novae on the Danube in northern Bulgaria. Koula in northern Thrace was never
reoccupied, as the Roman fort of Dobi Dyal in Bulgaria which was abandoned before 435 and
was never put back into commission13. However, considering the severe environmental
conditions endured by the region, the destructions were more likely due to natural causes than
a bunch of plunderers and marauders.
Almost nothing is known of the further course of the invasion, and the war was over probably
in the fall of 447. According to Isaac of Antioch, the Huns fled because of a sickness of the
bowels14. A story similar to the one of 452, when the Huns broke off the campaign in Italy
when pestilence hit them from heaven.
The invasion of 447 was the greatest victory the Huns ever won. Attila was the
unquestionable king of the short-lived Hunnic Empire. Seven years later, they will disappear
from history15.

1. According to Procopius (On Buildings, 4.5.6-17), Viminacium and Singidunum were

totally devastated and not rebuilt until Justinian. The city of Margus disappeared from
the map, was never rebuilt and Procopius knew nothing of it.
2. Marcellinus Comes. The Chronicle of Marcellinus
3. Ambraseys. Earthquakes in the Mediterranean and Middle East
4. According to Malalas, this was the first earthquake in Constantinople during the reign
of Theodosius II. As Guidoboni Guidoboni. Catalogue of ancient earthquakes in the
Mediterranean area up to the 10th century has shown, Malalas meant that it was the
first destructive earthquake suffered by Constantinople, thus not taking into account
the slight seismic events recorded by the Chronicon Paschale and Theophanes between
409 and 442.
5. In similar terms, it reports another earthquake in 450, but it is a doublet of this one
seeCroke. "Two Early Byzantine Earthquakes and Their Liturgical Commemoration"
6. There was indeed a meteor shower in February-March in China: Hundreds of meteors
fell till dawn I. Hasegawa Historical records of meteor showers in Stohl & (eds.).
Meteoroids and their parent bodies : proceedings of the International Astronomical
Symposium held at Smolenice, Slovakia, July 6-12, 1992 .
7. Tsiamis & Poulakou-Rebelakou & Marketos. "Earthquakes and plague during
Byzantine times: can lessons from the past improve epidemic preparedness"
8. Baillie. New Light on the Black Death ;Joseph & Wickramasinghe. "Comets and
Contagion: Evolution and Diseases From Space"
9. Marcellinus Comes. The Chronicle of Marcellinus
10. Anonymous. The Gallic Chronicle of 452
11. Thompson. The Huns
12. G. Von Blow The Fort of Iatrus in Moesia Secunda: Observations on the Late
Roman Defensive System on the Lower Danube (FourthSixth Centuries ad) in (ed.).
The Transition to Late Antiquity, on the Danube and Beyond
13. Poulter. "Goths on the Lower Danube: Their Impact upon and behind the Frontier"
14. Maenchen-Helfen. The World of the Huns: Studies in Their History and Culture
15. Cameron & (eds). The Cambridge Ancient History: Volume 14: Late Antiquity:
Empire and Successors, A.D. 425-600 ;C. Kelly, Neither Conquest Nor Settlement:

Attilas Empire and Its Impact, in Michael Maas (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to
the Age of Attila ; N. Lenski, Captivity among the Babarians and Is Impact on the
Fate of the Roman Empire, in Michael Maas (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to the
Age of Attila
Nestorius. The Bazaar of Heracleides, 2.2, p. 363-364:
They1 had been worn out with pestilences and famines and failure of rains and hail and heat
and marvellous earthquakes and captivity and fear and flight and all [kind of] ills, and they
came not to perceive the cause of ills such as these; but they were the more inflamed and
embittered against any one who dared to call God the Word impassible, as though they were
suffering these ills because men called God the Word himself impassible and immortal; and
there was no place of refuge.
A twofold upheaval on the part of the barbarians and the Scythians2, who were destroying and
taking every one captive, had shaken them and there was not even a single hope of rescue;
and hitherto they understood not that all this was not simply human.
And therewith he3 had also shaken the earth with earthquakes, the like of which there was
none that remembered. For thus the earth was shaken, as a thing that was being overturned
and burst open or inevitably destroyed. But when again it ceased [from trembling] and was
firm as aforetime, it was like unto a thing that a man had grasped, [torn] out of its natural
place; he indeed who shook it was also shaken therewith. [It was] not only to the eyes that it
showed its shaking which shook it and the stability that established it [anew in its place], but
it brought all men themselves to perceive [it] and through the greatness of all [these] things it
brought knowledge to the minds [of men] more than speech [would have done].
The barbarians indeed had drawn nigh and had assailed the Romans and reduced them to all
despair.
But in Constantinople, the imperial city, the towers of the wall which were built with it had
collapsed and left the wall [isolated], though it had not suffered any [injury] from the things
whereby it had been shaken, and they remained as things that have not been shaken, while
there was not / even a single indication in them of the earthquake; and even [in some] of the
places in the midst of the walls the stones had started out of the whole building and from the
parts adjoining the building; even the lime had been shaken out.
And some things appeared openly in one part of the city [in one way, and others in another
part] otherwise, and things had not been shaken by a common earthquake but to convince men
that he who was doing these things was immortal and had authority over them.
About the Forum of Theodosius the Great. For even the stones which were bound with iron
and lead had been torn up, being borne up into the air and remaining suspended awhile and
then falling; and, when those that were about to meet them were coming out, they
immediately fell. And ten thousand other things and many [there were] which were happening

in other countries and were being heard of and were a great cause of trepidation and fear, so
as to bring men, though unwilling, to supplication and to the beseeching of God to have
mercy upon them..
1. The Byzantines.
2. i.e. the Huns.
3. .i.e. God.
Evagrius Scholasticus. The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus, 1.17, p. 44-45
Now, while the same Theodosius was wielding the scepters, a very great, extraordinary
earthquake, one that surpassed its predecessors, occurred throughtout the whole in habited
world, so to speak, with the result that many of the towers at the royal city were laid flat, and
the so-called Long Wall of the Chersonese collapsed; the earth gaped and many villages sank
into it; again there were many, indeed innumerable misfortunes both on land and at sea; and
whereas some springs were rendered dry, elsewhere a quantity of water was sent up where
there was none previously, entire trees were upturned roots and all, and numerous mounds
were instantly turned into mountains; the sea hurled up corpses of fish and many of the
islands in it were swamped; again, sea-going ships were seen on dry land when the waters
retreated back. Much of Bithynia and Hellespont and both Phrygias suffered. The disaster
gripped the earth for a time, not continuing so violently as at the beginning but gradually
weakening until it had completely ceased.
Marcellinus Comes. The Chronicle of Marcellinus, p. 19
447
A great erathquake shook various places and most of the walls of the imperial city, which had
only recently been rebuilt, collapsed along with 72 towers. Also huge stone blocks, long since
positioned on each other in a building in the Forum of Taurus, as well as very many statues all
collapsed without any apparent damage, but very many cities wer leveled. Hunger and
plagued-bearing air destroyed many thousand of men and beasts. []
In the same year, the walls of the imperial city, which had recently been destroyed in an
earthquake, wee rebuilt inside three months with Constantine the Praetorian Prefet in charge
of the work.

2 The Hunnic invasion of 451 and 452

From 447 to 450, Attila and his Empire were at the height of their power. For most of the 440s
the West did not have to deal with the Hunnic invasions. Sometime before 449, presumably
under duress, Aetius - a Roman general and statesman who was the dominating influence over
the Western Emperor Valentinian III (425455) and who maintained himself between 425 and
439 solely by means of Hunnic auxiliaries - had ceded the Pannonian province of Savia to the
Huns. By the same date, Attila was also enjoying the rank of honorary magister militum of the
western empire, with its attendant salary.

However, Attila turned his attention westward, and because of an obscure pretext launched his
invasion of Gaul in 451 and of Italy in 452. These invasions achieved a legendary fame in the
West and Eastern Empires, and were recounted by a host of chroniclers, historians and
hagiographers from the fifth to the eleventh century1.
The invasion of the West was a surprising step. As Thompson notes, we must confess bluntly
that we do not know the real reason of the invasion2.
According to a story which appears in a wide variety of sources, it was a scandal within the
royal family that provided Attila with a casus belli. The emperor Valentinians sister, Honoria,
conceived a child, as the result of an unsuitable love affair with Eugenius, the manager of her
estates. Eugenius was executed and Honoria placed in custody. To prevent further scandal she
was subsequently betrothed to a trustworthy senator called Herculanus. At this point, she
seems to have written to Attila offering him half the Western Empire as a dowry if he would
rescue and marry her. In 450, consequently, Attila made a formal demand, based on the letter,
and threatened war. For Jordanes (Getica, 36.1846), the reason was that the Vandals king
Gaiseric had been instigating Attila to undertake a campaign against the Visigothic Kingdom.
At the start of 451, Attilas expedition moved westwards along the left bank of the Danube.
Terrified contemporaries put the number of the army, which Attila gathered as he went, at half
a million men. The Rhine was crossed around Mayence, the province of Belgica ravaged, and
the city of Metz burned on 7 April. Towards the end of May, the Huns were encamped around
Orleans, when Aetius finally appeared: and now Attila with his fearsome squadrons has
spread himself in raids upon the plains of the Belgian. Aetius had scarce left the Alps, leading
a thin, meagre force of auxiliaries without legionaries3.
His army was composed of Roman regulars and a series of detachments from allied peoples.
Of these allied, the most important was the Visigothic King, Theoderic I, who controlled an
area centered on Toulouse. Jordanes (Getica, 36.191 ) also mentions the presence of Franks
(under the leadership of Merovech), Saxons and Burgundians. However, the army was
severely weakened by the famine which was ravaging Italy in these very months4.
On Aetius appearance, Attila retreated towards the Champagne, where battle was joined on
the Catalaunian Plains about 18 June, the most famous battle of the fifth century. The fullest
and most dramatic account of the Battle is in the Getica of Jordanes. Jordanes depicts the
battle as an Armageddon, a cosmic battle: the invading horde of Huns, those demonic
descendants of the Goths, and their terrorized subject tribes are matched by a free coalition of
Roman, barbarian under the hegemony of Aetius and Theoderic (Barnish). In a bloody
encounter, the Visigothic king was killed. Attila, Aetius and Thorismund, the son of
Theoderic, nearly died in the battle. When it ends the death rate was immense on both sides,
but victory went to Aetius. Some years later it was believed in the East by the pagan
philosopher Damascius, that the fighting was so cataclysmic that no one survived except
only the leaders on either side and a few followers: but the ghosts of those who fell continued

the struggle for three whole days and nights as violently as if they had been alive; the clash of
their arms was clearly audible5.
Jordanes likens Attila to a lion pierced by hunting spears that paces back and forth around the
entrance to his den in an image that evokes both Turnus a mythological king and the enemy
of the Trojan hero Aeneas - in Vergils Aeneid6, and the Nemean Lion, the First Labour of
Hercules.
According to Greco-Roman mythology, a meteor from the moon landed on the earth in the
region called Nemea in Greece. This meteor turned out to be a large and hungry lion. This lion
was especially hungry because he had not been able find much to eat on the moon. He began
to attack the cattle and terrorized the helpless people of Nemea. Finally, the great hero
Hercules arrived on the scene to slay the lion. He came armed with bow, arrow, and spears.
Still, the lions skin was impenetrable by spears or arrows. Thus, Heracles blocked off the
entrance to the lions cave and throttled it to death with his bare hands. Ever afterwards he
wore the lions skin as a cloak and its gaping jaws as a helmet. Impressed by his son, Zeus
then placed the lion in the sky to commemorate his heroic deed. (adapted from Ptak. Sky
Stories: Ancient and Modern p. 37-40).
Plutarch (On the Face in the Moon, 937f), Epimenides (Fragment B 2I), Anaxagoras
(Fragment A77) referred also to the meteoric origin of the Nemean lion. Anaxagoras
connected it to the meteoric fall on Aegospotami in 467 BC, an event which is said to have
predicted7
The similarities are easy to draw: the Nemean lion in his cave with two entrances, as Attila
prowling around his dern; Hercules attacking the lion with spears and arrow, as Attila pierced
by hunting spears and his bowmen defending his camp with shower of arrows; the lion
terrorizing the residents of Nemea, as Attila terrifying the neighborhood by his roaring;
Hercules strangling the lion to death in his cave, as the Roman siege of Attilas encampment.
Since the battle probably occurred during the sighting of Halley (see below) and that Michael
the Syrian and Marcellinus Comes record a meteoritic fall in the Eastern Empire for 451, it
seems that Jordanes tale of Attila the lion is a cover-up for some major celestial disaster.
Nonetheless, the most interesting account comes from Hydatius. Indeed, even if Jordanes
account has a strong tone of natural disasters but is actually devoid of any, Hydatius account,
on the other hand, is full of them.
Successively and alongside the Hunnic invasion, he records, earthquake in the Iberian
Peninsula, an aurora on 4 April8, Halleys comet on 18 June i.e. probably the day of the
battle9, and a lunar eclipse10 on 26 September11.
As underlined by Burgess12, it must be noted that the passage seems to have been corrupted.
Indeed, as he probably saw the aurora, the eclipse and the comet himself and made records of

them, it is odd that Halleys comet appears to be dated to 452, whereas it is described with
exceptional accuracy and the lunar eclipse is correctly dated to 451.
After the battle, Attila at first contemplated killing himself, but then withdrew to Pannonia to
lick his wounds and prepare another war.
Attilas second western expedition followed in 452 and this time did fall on Italy. Again his
motives are unclear. Historians are still puzzle for this large-scale military operation
undertaken only one year after his disastrous defeat in Gaul.
Oddly, Attila crossed entirely without opposition. The invasion caught Aetius so utterly
unprepared that he failed to hold the passes of the Julian Alps against him. Valentinian and
Aetius considered escaping from the danger by sea. Friuli was taken by the Huns, a victory
followed in swift succession by the capture of, amongst others, Aquileia, Padua, Mantua,
Verona and Brescia. It was during the sack of Aquileia that the episode of the warning storks
occurred. According to the lost history of Priscus (Fragment 22 in Blockley 1983; Jordanes,
Gethica, 42.219-224; Procopius, History of the Wars, 3.4.29-35) the strongly garrisoned city
turned out to be a hard nut to crack, its stubborn defence driving Attilas military forces to the
verge of rebellion. The frustrated Attila, on his march around the city walls, hoping to
discover a weak spot in the city defences, suddenly noticed that the storks nesting on the roofs
of the city buildings were carrying their offspring away from Aquileia and he immediately
interpreted this aviary evacuation as an omen of the citys eventual fall. After launching
another attack, Aquileia was taken and its destruction so complete that the city was razed to
the ground, never to rise again. In the next century hardly a trace of it could be seen. The
prophetic birds foretelling the fall of Aquileia and Attilas insightful interpretation of animal
behaviour further sharpened the late antiquity perception of Attila as a demon creature 13.
The tale is interesting in regards to the celestial events recorded by Hydatius, as a story
designed to cover up the destruction of Aquileia by celestial means. Bob Kobres14 has
demonstrated the association between birds and comets in the mythologies of China and
Mesoamerica. Additionally, it could represent simply the well-known behavior of animals
fleeing before a natural disaster.
After devastating northern Italy, the Huns did not cross the Apennines and plunder Rome
itself as Alaric did in 410. According to Priscus and other sources, Attila feared the fate of
Alaric, who died shortly after the sack, and while hesitating as to whether to proceed or not he
received a visit from Pope Leo I and two legates, Avienus and Trygetius, who persuaded him
to retreat from Italy. This famous encounter is supposed to have taken place on the river
Mincius. According to legend, two celestial beings the apostles Peter and Paul are said to
have appeared to Attila and by their threats terrified him into leaving the soil of Italy (except
in the Life of Leo, the story is also narrated in Paul the Deacon, History, 14.12).
However, the truth is more prosaic. Hydatius records that pestilence and famine sent from
heaven decimated the Huns. At the same time a group of Eastern auxiliaries led by Aetius

slaughtered them in Italy, while in the Hunnic Empire the new Eastern Emperor Marcian
subdued them, forcing both groups to retreat15.
Attila returned to Pannonia, and one year later he burst a blood vessel and died in his sleep.
His death let loose a vicious struggle among his sons which culminated at the battle of the
Nedao in 454,where his eldest son Ellac died in the conflict. By the early 460 at the latest,
Attilas composite empire completely collapsed into its subject tribes: Gepids, Goths, Rugi,
Heruls and Sueves had all asserted their independence16.
The pestilence which destroyed Attilas army seems to have been smallpox. Indeed, according
to tradition, Saint Nicasius or Nicaise, bishop of Rheims, had recovered from an attack of
smallpox in 450, before being killed by the Huns the next year. Nicasius became the patron
saint of smallpox victims after his canonization. Thus, this tale suggests that smallpox may
have been the pestilence affecting the Huns.17
In retrospect, from Adrianople to the Catalaunian Plains, the Hunnic invasions were an utter
failure. For all the repeated attacks on the Balkans, and those in France and Italy, the Huns
never conquered Roman territory. They never settled within the empire, and they never
decisively defeated the Romans in pitched battle. In front of others invasions, they were
significantly less successful than the Goths or the Vandals. Putting aside their terrific
reputation, almost nothing remains from their culture. No Hun literature (their language is
unknown), very little unambiguous material evidence, no explanation or justification of their
actions or policies except by their enemies18.
As for Attila and his so-called military genius, he was more akin to Varus than Alexander the
Great.
.
1. S. Barnish, Old Kaspars: Attilas invasion of Gaul in the literary sources, in John
Drinkwater & Hugh Elton (eds.). Fifth-Century Gaul: A Crisis of Identity? [pp. 38-47]
2. Thompson. The Huns [p. 143]
3. Sidonius, Panegryic on Avitus, in Sidonius. Poems and letters [p. 147]
4. Thompson. The Huns [p. 152]
5. Thompson. The Huns [p. 155]
6. C. Whately. "Jordanes, the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains, and Constantinople" ;
Swain. "Jordanes and Virgil: A case study of intertextuality in the Getica"
7. see the note in the Loeb edition of Plutarch On the Face in the Moon.

8. Schove has shown that 451 was a year of strong auroral activity see Schove. "The
sunspot cycle, 649 B.C. to A.D. 2000"
9. Bury gives 20 June as the approximate date, J. B. Bury, History of the Later Roman
Empire, , p. 289-298
10. The eclipse is also recorded in general terms by Isidore of Seville in his History (p.
14), and Sigebert of Gembloux (MGH SS 6 p. 309) under the year 452.
11. On a side note, scientific evidences demonstrate that the Hunnic invasion occurred
during a period of climatic instabilities. In northeast France, summer precipitation was
extremely wet until about 450 when general conditions again shifted to extremely dry.
They prevailed for the next two centuries see Michael McCormick et al.. "Climate
Change during and after the Roman Empire: Reconstructing the Past from Scientific
and Historical Evidence" . As explained above, Cook postulates that a megadrought
was also the cause of this Hunnic invasion. Cook R. E., Megadroughts, ENSO, and
the Invasion of Late-Roman Europe by the Huns and Avars, The Ancient
Mediterranean Environment between Science and History, 2013, p. 89-102
12. Burgess, Hydatius: a Late Roman Chronicler in Post-Roman Spain. An
Historiographical Study and New Critical Edition of the Chronicle, 1988,
13. Alenka Divjak, The Motif of Warning Birds in Attilas siege of Aquileia and its
Survival and transformation in the Origo Civitatum Italiae Seu Venetiarum (Chronicon
Altinate et Chronicon Gradense), La Cronaca Di Marco and Chronica Extensa by
Andrea Dandolo, Acta Histriae, 21, 2013, 4, p. 493-512
14. Kobres B. Comet Phaethons Ride, 1993: http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/phaeth.html;
Kobres B., Comets and the Bronze Age Collapse, 1992:
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/bronze.html
15. R. W. Burgess, A New Reading for Hydatius Chronicle 177 and the Defeat of the
Huns in Italy, Phoenix, Vol. 42, No. 4 (Winter, 1988), p. 357-363
16. P. Heather, The Western Empire, 425-76, in Cambridge vol 14. p. 1-30
17. Hopkins, D. R. The Greatest Killer: Smallpox in History. University Of Chicago Press,
2002, p. 100-102
18. C. Kelly, Neither Conquest Nor Settlement: Attilas Empire and Its Impact, in
Michael Maas (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Attila
Hydatius, The Chronicle of Hydatius and the Consularia Constantinopolitana, p. 102103

In Gallaecia there were constant earthquakes and a great many signs appeared in the sky. For
on Tuesday, 4 April (451), after sunset, the northern sky became red like fire or blood, with
brighter streaks shaped like glowing red spears intermingled through the fiery redness. The
manifestation of this portent, which was soon thoroughly explained by a momentous outcome,
lasted from nightfall until almost the third hour of the night. The tribe of the Huns broke the
peace treaty, pillaged the provinces of Gaul, and sacked a vast number of cities. In the
Catalaunian Plains, not far from the city of Mettis, which they had sacked, the Huns were
defeated and slaughtered with divine assistance, fighting in open battle against the dux Atius
and King Theoderic, who wee joined in peaceful alliance. It was the darkness of night which
broke off the fighting. King Theoderic died here after being thrown to the ground. Almost 300
000 men are said to have fallen in this battle. Many signs appeared this year (451). On 26
September the moon was darkened in the eastern sky. That certain things seen in the sky in
areas of Gaul around the following Easter did occur is vividly proved by a letter of Eufronius
(see Burgess), bishop of Augustodunum, to the comes Agrippinus concerning these matters. A
comet (Halley) began to appear from 18 June, by the 29th it was visible at dawn in the eastern
sky and was soon perceived after sunset in the western sky. By (16 July- 1 August) it appeared
(only) in the west. After Theodoric was killed, his son Thorismodus succeeded him as king.
The Huns and their king, Attila, abandoned Gaul after their battle and made for Italy. In the
second year of princeps Marcian (452), the Huns, who had been plundering Italy and who had
also stormed a number of cities, were victims of divine punishment, being visited with
heaven-sent disasters: famine and some kind of disease. In addition, they were slaughtered by
auxiliaries sent by the emperor Marcain led by Aetius, and at the same time were crushed their
settlements by both heaven-sent disasters and the army of Marcian. Thus crushed, they made
peace with the Romans and all returned to their homes. Soon after his return thither, their
king, Attila, died.
Jordanes, Getica, 40, p. 212-213
At dawn on the following day, when the Romans saw the fields were piled high with bodies
and that the Huns did not venture forth, they thought the victory was theirs, but knew that
Attila would not flee from the battle unless overwhelmed by a great disaster. Yet he did
nothing cowardly, like one that is overcome, but with clash of arms sounded the trumpets and
threatened an attack. He was like a lion pierced by hunting spears, who paces to and fro
before the mouth of his den and dares not spring, but ceases not to terrify the neighborhood by
his roaring. Even so this warlike king at bay terrified his conquerors. Therefore the Goths and
Romans assembled and considered what to do with the vanquished Attila. They determined to
wear him out by a siege, because he had no supply of provisions and was hindered from
approaching by a shower of arrows from the bowmen placed within the confines of the
Roman camp. But it was said that the king remained supremely brave even in this extremity
and had heaped up a funeral pyre of horse trappings, so that if the enemy should attack him,
he was determined to cast himself into the flames, that none might have the joy of wounding
him and that the lord of so many races might not fall into the hands of his foes.