Attila and the Huns

by Edward Hutton

This palace, built on an eminence, commanded the whole town or village, and was remarkable on account of its high towers. It seems to have consisted of a vast circular enclosure within which were many houses, that of the King and those of his wives and children. All was of wood, both enclosures and houses, but admirably built and polished and ornamented with carving. The harem was of a lighter construction from the palace and had no towers, but was on all sides ornamented with carvings. Not far away from the royal enclosure stood the house of Onegesius, similarly constructed but not so large and fine. But here the minister, a remarkable personage, had constructed, and that in stone, a bath on the Roman model. It seems that in the sack of Sirmium an architect had been taken captive. Now Onegesius forced him to build in the manner of the Romans a complete balnea, and this the captive did as speedily as possible hoping for his freedom. Stone was brought from Pannonia and all was contrived and finished; but when the builder claimed his liberty, Onegesius, seeing that no one among the Huns understood the use of this thing, appointed him balneator, so that the wretched architect was forced to remain to serve the bath he had built.

Onegesius had only just returned from an important expedition when Attila arrived in his capital with the Imperial envoys. He had been engaged in finishing the conquest of Acatziri and was immediately closeted with the King on his return, so that Maximin was not received by him on that first day. In his anxiety the ambassador grew impatient, and very early upon the following morning he dispatched Priscus with presents to wait upon the minister. Priscus found the enclosure shut and no one stirring and while he waited for the house to awake he walked up and down in the dawn to keep himself warm. Suddenly he was greeted with the Greek salutation Χαῖρε, “Hail,” or, as we should say, “Good morning.” Startled to hear a civilised tongue in the midst of Barbary he returned the greeting. And there followed one of the most interesting discussions of which we have any record, of the respective merits of civilisation and barbarism, a debate that must have filled in the minds of many at that time. Priscus at last asked the stranger how he was come to be amongst the Barbarians. “Why do you ask me?” answered the unknown. “Because you speak Greek like a native,” answered Priscus. But the stranger only laughed. “Indeed,” said he, “I am Greek. I came for the sake of business to Viminacium on the Danube in Moesia, and there I lived many years and married a rich wife. But when the Huns stormed the city I lost all my fortune and became the slave of this Onegesius whom you are waiting to see. For it is the custom of the Huns to give the richest to their princes. My new master took me to the wars where I did well not without profit. I have fought with the Romans and the Acatziri and have bought my liberty. I am now become a Hun, I have married a Barbarian wife and have children by her; I am often the guest of Onegesius, and to tell you the truth I consider my present station preferable to my past. For when war is over one lives here decently without worries, one enjoys one’s own. War nourishes us; but destroys those who live under the Roman Government. Under Rome one has to trust to others for one’s safety, since the law forbids one to bear arms even in self-defence, and those who are allowed to fight are betrayed by the ignorance and corruption of their leaders. And even so the evils of war under the Romans are as nothing to the evils of peace, the insupportable taxations, the robbery of the tax-gatherers, and the oppression of the powerful. How can it be otherwise since there is there one law for the rich and another for the poor? If a rich man commits a crime he knows how to profit by it; but if a poor man transgresses the law, perhaps in ignorance, he knows not the formalities and is ruined. Justice can only be obtained at a great price, and this in my opinion is the worst of evils. You must buy an advocate to plead for you, and only after depositing a sum of money as security can you plead at all or obtain sentence.”

Thus for a long time the renegade from civilisation defended himself and the Barbarians, and when at length he was silent Priscus begged him to listen patiently while he defended what, after all, was the future of the world. What appears most to have excited the animosity of the apostate was, as we might expect, the Roman law and its processes, and it is these that Priscus first defends. He explains the division of labour and responsibility peculiar to civilisation, the structure of the Roman State and society, divided, according to him, into three classes; those concerned with the making and administration of the law; those concerned with national and public safety; and those who till the soil. He defends all this nobly and eloquently, the logic and clarity of its complexity against the appalling promiscuity and confusion of Barbarian anarchy. He shows the individual as a part of society, and in the main his view of civilisation is ours, we can applaud and understand it. Even the apostate stranger is moved at last. There in the Hunnish land at dawn one morning, carried back by the eloquence of Priscus to all he had lost, he weeps and exclaims: “The law of the Romans is good; their Republic nobly ordered, but evil magistrates have corrupted it.” He might have said more but that just then a servant of Onegesius appeared and Priscus left him never to see him again.

In instructing Maximin especially to negotiate with Onegesius, Theodosius and Chrysaphius doubtless hoped to win this man by diplomacy as they thought they had won Edecon, by corruption. Their calculations were doomed to disappointment; for both Onegesius and Edecon seem to have been loyal to their master, and Edecon had already acquainted him with the plot against his life. It might seem certain that Onegesius also was now aware of this. Having accepted the presents sent him, and learnt that Maximin desired to see him, he decided to visit him at once, and without delay repaired to the Roman encampment. There Maximin opened his business. He explained the necessity for peace between the Huns and the Empire, the honour of establishing which he hoped to share with Attila’s minister, to whom he prophesied every sort of honour and benefit if he should succeed. But the Hun was not convinced. “How can I arrange such a peace?” he asked. “In short, by deciding the points in dispute between us with justice,” as naively replied Maximin. “The Emperor will accept your decision.” “But,” answered Onegesius, “I have no will but that of my master.” He did not understand the difference between civilisation and barbarism any more than the modern German sees the gulf fixed between Civilisation and “Kultur.” “Slavery,” said he, “would be sweeter to me in the kingdom of Attila than all the honours and all the wealth of the Roman Empire.” Then as though to soften what he had said, he added that he could serve the cause of peace which Maximin had at heart better at the Court of Attila than at Constantinople.

But it was now time to present the Queen—a favourite wife of Attila—with her gifts. This embassy was again entrusted to Priscus. He found her in her apartments seated on cushions surrounded by her women and slaves on either side, the women at work embroidering clothes for the men. It was on coming out from these apartments that Priscus saw Attila for the first time since his arrival. Hearing a great noise he went to see what was the cause and soon perceived the Hun with Onegesius on the way to administer justice before the gate of his palace. There too within the enclosure he found the Roman ambassadors from Ravenna. With them he compared notes, and soon learned that they had been no more successful than Maximin. But presently Onegesius sent for him and informed him that Attila was determined to receive no more ambassadors from Theodosius unless they were of consular rank, and he named three persons who would be acceptable. Priscus naively answered that thus to designate ambassadors must necessarily render them suspect to their own Government, forgetting that Maximin had done the same but a few hours before. But Onegesius answered roughly: “It must be so or there will be war.” Much disheartened Priscus made his way back to the Roman camp and there found Tatallus, the father of Orestes, who had come to inform Maximin that Attila expected him to dine with him.

This dinner to which the ambassadors of Valentinian were also invited took place in a large salone furnished with little tables for four or five persons each, at three o’clock in the afternoon. Upon the threshold the ambassadors were offered cups of wine in which to drink the health of the King, who reclined in the midst before a table, on a couch set upon a platform or dais, so that he was set up above his guests; beside him but lower sat Ellak his heir, who dared not lift his eyes from the ground. Upon his right were Onegesius and two other sons of the King, upon his left were placed the ambassadors. When all were assembled Attila drank to Maximin who stood up to acknowledge his condescension and drank in return. A like ceremony was performed by all the ambassadors in turn. Then the feast was served upon plates and dishes of silver and the wine in cups of gold; only Attila ate and drank from wooden dishes and a wooden cup. Before each course the drinking ceremony of salutation was performed again, and as the banquet lasted well on into the darkness, when torches were lighted and Hunnish poets sang or chanted their verses in the Barbarian tongue celebrating the glories of war and victory to the delight of the assembly whose eyes shone with emotion, the young with tears of desire and the old with fright, few can have been sober when a buffoon and then the famous dwarf Zercan began to set the tables in a roar; though Attila remained grave and unmoved.

So the days passed without anything being accomplished. The impatient ambassadors were compelled to attend a similar dinner given in their honour by the Queen Kerka, and again they dined with Attila; but nothing was discussed or decided. Several times, indeed, Attila spoke to Maximin of a matter he apparently had at heart, namely, the marriage of his secretary Constantius, who some years earlier had been sent to Constantinople, and whom Theodosius had promised a rich wife on condition that peace was not broken. The wife chosen, however, was spirited away and this had become a grievance, Attila being so enraged that he sent word to Theodosius that if he could not keep order in his own house, he, Attila, would come and help him. Of course Constantius was promised another and a richer heiress, and it was this matter that Attila preferred to discuss with Maximin rather than the letter he had brought from the Emperor.

At last, in despair, Maximin demanded leave to depart, and this appears to have been granted as soon as Attila knew that Vigilas was on his way back from Constantinople. It is possible that the Hun had only detained the ambassadors as hostages, or to satisfy himself that they were ignorant of the plot against his life. They went at last without satisfaction, but not empty-handed. Attila had them loaded with presents, skins, horses, embroideries, nor was their journey back without incident. A few days’ march on their way, near the frontier, Priscus tells us they saw the horrid and ill-omened spectacle of a refugee crucified beside the road. A little further on they saw two Romans put to death with every sort of barbarous cruelty before their eyes. These were the reminders of Attila. Not far from the Danube they met Vigilas and his Hunnish companion, in reality his guard, Esla.

This conceited fool, for indeed he was as much a fool as a villain, had with him twice the weight of gold promised to Edecon, and, moreover, he brought also his only son, a youth of six-and-twenty years. He had altogether delivered himself into Attila’s hands. Leaving Maximin and his embassy to make their way back to Constantinople Vigilas went on into Barbary, intent on the assassination of Attila, and had no sooner set foot in the Hunnish capital than he was seized, his baggage opened and the gold discovered. When asked to explain these riches, he answered that they were for his own use and that of his entourage, and that he proposed to ransom the Roman captives and to purchase horses, skins and embroideries. “Evil beast,” shouted Attila, “thou liest, but thy lies deceive none.” Then he bade seize the youth Vigilas’ son, and swore to have him killed there and then if the father did not confess. Then Vigilas, seeing his child in so great a peril, became demented and cried out: “Do not kill my son, for he is ignorant and innocent of all; I alone am guilty.” And he confessed all the plot to kill Attila that Chrysaphius had devised with him. And Attila heard him out, and seeing what he said agreed with the report of Edecon he knew he heard the truth. After a little he bade loose the youth and sent him back to Constantinople to bring him another hundred pounds’ weight of gold for the ransom of Vigilas his father, whom he loaded with chains, and flung into prison. And with the young man he sent two ambassadors, Orestes and Esla, with his demands to the Emperor.

They came to Constantinople; they had audience of Theodosius. Round the neck of Orestes hung the sack in which Vigilas had brought the price of assassination to Barbary. Esla, as he stood there, demanded of Chrysaphius if he recognised it, and when he answered not, turned to the Emperor and said, “Attila, son of Moundzoukh, and Theodosius are two sons of noble fathers; Attila has remained worthy of his parent, but Theodosius has betrayed his because in paying tribute to Attila he has owned himself his slave. Nor as a slave has he been faithful to his master, nor will Attila cease to proclaim his iniquity, for he has become the accomplice of Chrysaphius the eunuch since he does not deliver him to punishment as he deserves.”