The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History

by Peter Heather

  The Romans were dumbfounded. First, they had been greeted with unexpected hostility; then, the Huns knew everything that they’d come for anyway. The ambassadors could think of nothing to say, although Vigilas, the interpreter, later berated Maximinus for not making something up on the spot to keep the talks going. That would have been better than just turning for home, even if, whatever spin was put on their mission, the lie was exposed later. Months of preparation and journeying seemed down the drain. Then, when the slaves were loading up the animals and they were about to set off, even though darkness had fallen, another messenger from Attila arrived. He brought them an ox and some fish, and told them that Attila’s instructions were that, because it was so late, they should have dinner and stay the night. So they duly ate their dinner and went to bed in more cheerful mood, certain that Attila must have decided to be more conciliatory.

  When they woke up, their optimism evaporated. Attila’s next message was unequivocal: unless they had something more to say, they were to leave. Dejectedly, they loaded up again. Maximinus, especially, was plunged in despair.

  Priscus now made his first positive contribution. Seeking out Scottas, one of the messengers of the night before, he made a desperate play to keep the embassy afloat. Cunningly, he offered Scottas a reward if he could get the Romans in to see Attila, while presenting his proposition as a challenge: if Scottas was as important as he claimed to be, then certainly he could manage it. Scottas rose to the bait, and the Romans got their first audience. But having presented letters and gifts they soon found themselves faced with yet another obstacle: Attila refused to let the discussions get going along the lines the Romans desired, instead turning viciously on their interpreter. Vigilas knew full well that there were to be no more Roman embassies until all fugitives had been returned, he said. When Vigilas replied that they had been returned, Attila ‘became even more angry and abused [Vigilas] violently, shouting that he would have impaled him and left him as food for the birds if he had not thought it infringed the rights of ambassadors to punish him . . . for . . . shamelessness and effrontery’.

  Attila now ordered Maximinus to remain in attendance while he replied to the emperor’s letters, but told Vigilas to hurry on home to pass on his demands about the fugitives. And that was the end of the audience.

  Unnerved, the Romans returned to their tents, puzzled at what had made Attila so angry. Vigilas was particularly at a loss, because Attila had been extremely friendly towards him on the previous embassy. Then Edeco came to talk to Vigilas alone, emphasizing, or so the interpreter said afterwards, that Attila would indeed make war if the fugitives weren’t returned. Neither Maximinus nor Priscus knew whether to believe this account of what had passed between the two men, but before they could press things further, more Hunnic messengers arrived. The Romans were to make no expensive purchases, or ransom any prisoners, they announced; until all disputes between the two camps were settled, they could only buy food. What were the Romans to make of it all? Before they had time to reflect, Vigilas had left.

  For the next week or so, the Romans were reduced to trailing around after Attila as he made his way to the northerly parts of his kingdom. The journey was hardly comfortable. At one point they were caught in a downpour, from which they were rescued only by the intervention of one of Bleda’s wives, who still ran her own fiefdom. Her hospitality included providing attractive women for the night, but after taking care to treat them with the greatest courtesy, the Romans sent them home.

  Eventually they reached their destination: one of Attila’s permanent palace compounds. Now diplomatic contact reopened, this time on a more friendly basis, and Priscus was afforded more leisure to observe this ruler and his world. From his observations, even as reflected through the distorting mirror of Roman cultural prejudice, there emerges a striking portrait of Attila, the court over which he presided and the means whereby he exercised power.

  To Priscus’ eyes, the settlement, consisting of a series of walled compounds, looked like no more than a ‘very large village’. Attila’s was the largest and most elaborate dwelling, embellished with towers where others had none. Leading figures such as Onegesius also had dwellings here, and each was surrounded by circuit walls ‘made of timbers’ – constructed with ‘elegance’ not ‘security’ in mind, Priscus emphasized:25

  Inside the wall there was a large cluster of buildings, some made of planks carved and fitted together for ornamental effect, others from timbers which had been debarked and planed straight. They were set on circular piles made of stones, which began from the ground and rose to a moderate height.

  When the Roman ambassadors were invited to dinner, Priscus eventually gained entry to Attila’s living quarters:

  All the seats were arranged around the walls of the building . . . In the very middle of the room Attila sat upon a couch. Behind him was another couch, and behind that steps led up to Attila’s bed, which was screened by fine linens and multicoloured ornamental hangings like those which the Greeks and Romans prepare for weddings.

  Attila’s wife Hereka, mother of his eldest son, had her own dwelling, which, while not laid out for public entertaining, seems to have been similarly furnished:

  I . . . found her reclining on a soft couch. The floor was covered with woollen-felt rugs for walking upon. A group of servants stood around her in attendance, and servant girls sat facing her working coloured embroidery on fine linens to be worn as ornaments over the barbarian clothing.

  The place looked not unlike a nomad’s tented encampment, though constructed out of more permanent materials. Priscus implies that Attila had several of these palace compounds dotted around his kingdom, but doesn’t tell us how many.

  The historian also gives us a sense of the public life that animated them. On their arrival, he witnessed the ceremonial greeting for Attila’s return:

  As Attila was entering, young girls came to meet him and went before him in rows under narrow cloths of white linen, which were held up by the hands of women on either side. These cloths were stretched out to such a length that under each one seven or more girls walked. There were many such rows of women under the cloths and they sang Scythian songs.

  At dinner, Priscus remarks, the seating was carefully arranged. Attila sat in the middle of a horseshoe arrangement of couches, in which it was more honourable to be seated on the right than on the left. Then the drinking began. A wine waiter brought Attila a cup, with which he greeted the first person on his right. That person stood up, and sipped or drained the cup in return, then sat down; every other guest, likewise, drank in honour of the first one greeted. Attila worked his way down the right-hand side of the horseshoe, then the left, greeting all his guests in turn. Nothing could have better illustrated the formal bond supposed to exist between all those gathered at his table, while at the same time making clear their positions in the pecking order.26

  Priscus also introduces us to Attila himself. His account of the Hun’s appearance does not survive at first hand in the fragments collected by Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, but has been transmitted via an intermediary, the sixth-century historian Jordanes referred to earlier:27

  [Attila’s] gait was haughty, and he cast his eyes hither and thither, so that the power of his pride was reflected in the movements of his body. Though a lover of war he was not prone to violence. He was a very wise counsellor, merciful to those who sought it and loyal to those whom he had accepted as friends. He was short, with a broad chest and large head; his eyes were small, his beard sparse and flecked with grey, his nose flat and his complexion dark.

  Whether this is a direct translation of what Priscus said (he wrote in Greek, Jordanes in Latin) or a paraphrase is unclear, but in some ways a surprising picture of the great conqueror emerges from it. We would expect Attila not to shrink from conflict, but would we expect him to be described as wise and merciful? Both sides of his character emerge elsewhere in Priscus’ account. On the one hand, we are told, he built a personality cult around his
divine predestination to conquer; while in other respects he was unassuming. Priscus tells the story of a herdsman who followed the trail of blood left by a wounded heifer back to a buried sword on which he had trodden:

  He dug it up and took it straight to Attila. He was pleased by this gift and, since he was a high-spirited man, he concluded that he had been appointed ruler of the whole world and that through the sword of Mars he had been granted invincibility in war.

  I don’t doubt that the finding of the sword, if true, merely added to a conquest ideology that Attila was already fostering. At the same time, his habits and self-presentation were not what you might expect. Priscus reports on dining chez Attila:

  While for the other barbarians and for us there were lavishly prepared dishes served on silver platters, for Attila there was only meat on a wooden plate . . . Gold and silver goblets were handed to the men at the feast, whereas his cup was of wood. His clothing was plain and differed not at all from that of the rest, except that it was clean. Neither the sword that hung at his side nor the fastenings of his barbarian boots nor his horse’s bridle was adorned, like those of the other Scythians, with gold or precious stones.

  Archaeological finds, as we shall see later in this chapter, have demonstrated that Priscus was not exaggerating the richness of the utensils used by the Hunnic Empire’s elite. But for the god-appointed conqueror, plain was good.

  What all this tells us about the ‘real’ Attila is debatable. All we have is an exterior view, as it were, and nothing of his internal workings. But even this is enough to suggest that we are dealing with an intelligent man of some complexity who took considerable care over his public image. Totally confident in his own destiny, he had no need of the outward trappings of power. Rejecting rich dress and rich food showed that such worldly concerns were beneath one destined for greatness. This was one of the leadership secrets of Attila the Hun; Priscus’ history, supplemented by one or two other sources, lets us into one or two others. He was, as you might expect, ruthless when dealing with potential enemies. Priscus never tells us what happened to the five Hunnic fugitives the embassy had picked up at Naissus; but two who had been returned to Attila earlier, Mama and Atakam, described as ‘children of the royal house’, were impaled.28 Impaling seems to have been the main method of dealing with most problems in the Hunnic world. Priscus later witnessed the impaling of a captured spy and the gibbeting of two slaves who had killed their Hunnic masters in the midst of battle.29 And although they provide no details, our sources are unanimous that Attila was somehow responsible for the death of his brother Bleda.

  At the same time, violence was tempered where it could be. Although Bleda himself was eliminated, one of his wives retained her fiefdom, receiving Maximinus and Priscus with great hospitality, it will be remembered, when they were caught in a rainstorm. That his brother’s entire family was not wiped out compares favourably, perhaps, with the treatment meted out to the wives of Stilicho and Felix upon their political demise, as we saw in Chapter 5. Why this might have been so emerges from Attila’s marriage policies. He took many wives, no doubt at least some for political reasons, using marriage alliances to bind important second-level leaders among the Huns to his support. Bleda had presumably done likewise, so the kings’ wives are likely to have had important relations whom, even if one of the kings was to fall, it was sensible not to alienate. It also emerges from Priscus’ account that Attila was careful to honour his chief supporters. The ceremonial drinking of toasts with which he began his formal dinners not only established hierarchies, but gave each man his due. Priscus witnessed a telling scene when, on the embassy, he arrived at the palace compound. The wife of Onegesius, Attila’s right-hand man, came out to greet him ‘carrying food and . . . wine (this is a very great honour among the Scythians), welcomed him and asked him to partake of what she had brought out of friendship. In order to please the wife of a close friend, he ate while sitting on his horse . . .’ Good relations with key supporters no doubt required many such niceties of behaviour. (Attila could also behave with apparent unreasonableness, but this would often be when he wanted to pick a quarrel anyway.) More practically, good relations also demanded the regular sharing of the booty of war.30

  None of this takes us far inside Attila’s head, but it gives us some insight into his recipe for success: total self-confidence and the charisma that often flows from this; ruthlessness when called for, but also a capacity for moderation, married to shrewdness; and a respect for his subordinates, whose loyalty was so vital. The kind of hold that Attila had over his inner circle is well illustrated in the denouement of Priscus’ embassy. On one level, it ended as a complete damp squib. The historian gives us this marvellous picture of Attila being chased around the Middle Danube Plain, lots of insights into how his Empire worked, and the battle even to gain admittance to the Hunnic court. Dramatic satisfaction then demands a verbal confrontation, in which Maximinus and Priscus somehow manage to win Attila over and return home heroes. Reality was more prosaic. Having secured access with so much difficulty, Maximinus and Priscus subsequently just had to hang around while Attila answered the emperor’s letters, and their only triumph was to ransom one noble Roman lady, Sylla, for 500 solidi, with her children thrown in as a goodwill gesture. They were then sent packing with another of Attila’s inner circle, Berichus, who started off friendly enough but, again inexplicably, became hostile en route, taking back a horse he had given them and refusing either to ride or eat with them. The embassy generated, therefore, neither peace nor war, and any contribution that Priscus and Maximinus may have made to Romano-Hunnic relations quietly fizzled out.

  But the embassy did have another, more dramatic, climax, even if this didn’t involve Priscus directly. Trudging home through the Balkans in the company of the grumpy Hun, Maximinus and Priscus were passed on the road by Vigilas, their interpreter, on his way back north, ostensibly with the emperor’s answer on the fugitive issue. But as soon as Vigilas reached Attila’s court, he was jumped by some of the Hun’s men who found in his baggage the huge sum of fifty pounds of gold. Vigilas started to bluster, insisting that the money was for ransoming prisoners and buying better baggage animals, but as you will remember, Attila had ordered that the Roman ambassadors were to purchase nothing except food until a full peace was negotiated, and fifty pounds of gold would buy enough bread to feed a small army. When the Hun threatened to kill Vigilas’ son, who was accompanying him on the trip, the interpreter confessed. What had happened was this. Back in Constantinople while the embassy of Maximinus and Priscus was being prepared, the current éminence grise, the eunuch Chrysaphius, had plotted with ambassador Edeco to assassinate Attila, and the money was Edeco’s reward. The real job of Priscus and Maximinus, had they but known it, had been to provide a diplomatic front behind which the dirty-tricks brigade could do their stuff.

  If this were not dangerous enough, the actual situation was even more convoluted. As soon as he was north of the Danube on that first journey, Edeco had told Attila everything. Writing in retrospect, Priscus could see that the plot explained all the odd incidents that he and Maximinus had noted in the course of their travels. It was the reason why Orestes, the other Hun ambassador, had not been invited to dinner with Edeco that time in Constantinople – that was the moment when the plot was first hatched. It also explained how the Huns knew all about the ostensible purpose of the embassy. Edeco had been let in on that as well, and had passed on the details to Attila. Hence, too, the private chat between Vigilas and Edeco, which Vigilas had tried to explain away in a fashion that Priscus had found unconvincing even at the time, Attila’s hostility to Vigilas and, above all, the strange order that the Romans were not to buy anything except food. It was all a trap for Vigilas, who was left with no excuse when he turned up with the gold. Chrysaphius’ plot was carefully laid, but doomed from the start; Attila’s hold on Edeco, no doubt a mix of fear and admiration, was much too strong for him to act against his master.

  Given the degre
e of intrigue, Priscus’ narrative is surprisingly matter-of-fact. Attila could have had them all impaled at any moment, since the Romans had themselves broken all the normal rules protecting diplomats on their travels. Lucky for them that Attila was so calculating. Rather than gibbeting everyone in sight, he saw the plot as another opportunity to reinforce his psychological domination over the east Romans. Vigilas was allowed to ransom his son by payment of a further fifty pounds of gold, and two Hunnic ambassadors, Orestes again and Eslas, were sent to Constantinople:

  [Attila] ordered Orestes to go before the emperor [Theodosius II] wearing around his neck the bag in which Vigilas had placed the gold to be given to Edeco. He was to show him and the eunuch [Chrysaphius] the bag and to ask if they recognized it. Eslas was to say directly that Theodosius was the son of a nobly born father, and Attila too was of noble descent . . . But whereas Attila had preserved his noble lineage, Theodosius had fallen from his and was Attila’s slave, bound to the payment of tribute. Therefore, in attacking him covertly like a worthless slave, he was acting unjustly towards his better, whom fortune had made his master.31

  What a moment it must have been. Here was the full imperial court drawn up in their gorgeous robes and minutely defined order of precedence, the living representation of the divine favour that made the Roman Empire supreme, when in strode the two barbarian ambassadors to act out their pantomime. Priscus’ description of the Roman reaction doesn’t survive, but nothing better illustrates the confidence with which Attila trod his particular corner of the globe than this ceremonial humiliation of the ruler of the eastern Roman Empire.

  An Empire of Many Colours

  THERE WAS MUCH more to Attila’s European reign of terror, however, than this personal charisma and his finely honed demonstrations of dominance. Such tours de force were as much effect as cause of the two transformations which, in just one generation, had turned the Huns from useful allies of Constantius and Aetius into world conquerors. Priscus’ narrative, implicitly points us towards the causes of these changes, without which Attila’s career of conquest could not have happened.