Huns
In the 18th century, French scholar Joseph de Guignes became the first to propose a link between the Huns and the Xiongnu people. This connection remains one of history's most debated questions nearly two hundred years later. The Xiongnu lived in northern China from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD before retreating northwestward after their defeat by the Han dynasty. Their descendants may have migrated through the Eurasian Steppe and consequently share some degree of cultural and genetic continuity with the Huns who appeared on European borders around 370 AD. Modern scholarship is divided on whether these groups are truly related or if the name Hun was simply used by outsiders to describe steppe warriors regardless of ethnicity. Otto J. Maenchen-Helfen challenged traditional approaches by emphasizing archaeological research over written sources alone. He argued that it is futile to speculate about blood relationships between the Xiongnu, Hephthalites, and Attila's Huns since all were prestigious ruling groups using similar names for prestige reasons. Recent supporters like Hyun Jin Kim believe there is fundamental political and cultural continuity between the Xiongnu and European Huns. Etienne de la Vaissière argues ancient Chinese and Indian sources used Xiongnu and Hun to translate each other. Walter Pohl cautions that no great confederation of steppe warriors was ethnically homogenous. The name Hun described prestigious ruling groups rather than a specific ethnic group.
By 370 AD, the Huns had arrived on the Volga River causing the westward movement of Goths and Alans. This migration triggered a chain reaction across Eastern Europe as several central and eastern European peoples established kingdoms under Hunnic hegemony or fleeing from it. By 430, they had established a vast but short-lived empire on the Danubian frontier of the Roman Empire in Europe. The Huns conquered the Alans, most of the Greuthungi or Eastern Goths, and then most of the Thervingi or Western Goths with many fleeing into the Roman Empire. In 395 the Huns began their first large-scale attack on the Eastern Roman Empire by pillaging Cappadocia and threatening Antioch. They entered parts of Syria and passed through the province of Euphratesia while simultaneously invading the Sasanian Empire. Uldin became the first Hun identified by name in contemporary sources when he headed a group fighting against Radagaisus in defense of Italy around 400, 401. He defeated Gothic rebels who troubled the East Romans around the Danube and beheaded the Goth Gainas. The East Romans tried to buy off Uldin's subordinates after his demands were too high resulting in many desertions. In 433 some parts of Pannonia were ceded to them by Flavius Aetius, the magister militum of the Western Roman Empire. By the 420s, the Huns were based on the Great Hungarian Plain, the only large grassland near the Roman Empire capable of supporting large numbers of horses.
From 434 the brothers Attila and Bleda ruled the Huns together as ambitious as their uncle Rugila. In 435 they forced the Eastern Roman Empire to sign the Treaty of Margus giving the Huns trade rights and an annual tribute from the Romans. When the Romans breached the treaty in 440, Attila and Bleda attacked Castra Constantias, a Roman fortress and marketplace on the banks of the Danube. War broke out between the Huns and Romans and they overcame a weak Roman army to raze the cities of Margus, Singidunum and Viminacium. Although a truce was concluded in 441, two years later Constantinople again failed to deliver the tribute and war resumed. Hun armies approached Constantinople and sacked several cities before defeating the Romans at the Battle of Chersonesus. The Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius II gave in to Hun demands and in autumn 443 signed the Peace of Anatolius with the two Hun kings. Bleda died in 445 and Attila became the sole ruler of the Huns. In 447, Attila invaded the Balkans and Thrace ending in 449 with an agreement where East Romans paid him an annual tribute of 2100 pounds of gold. Honoria, sister of Western Roman Emperor Valentinian III, sent Attila a ring requesting his help to escape her betrothal to a senator. Attila claimed her as his bride and half the Western Roman Empire as dowry. In 451, Attila's forces entered Gaul attacking Metz then passing both Paris and Troyes to lay siege to Orléans. A combined army of Roman and Visigoths fought the Huns at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains.
Most ancient descriptions of the Huns stress their strange appearance from a Roman perspective by caricaturing them as monsters. Jordanes stressed that the Huns were short of stature with tanned skin and round shapeless heads. Various writers mentioned they had small eyes and flat noses. The Roman writer Priscus gave an eyewitness description of Attila stating he was short of stature with a broad chest and large head. His eyes were small, his beard thin and sprinkled with grey, and he had a flat nose and tanned skin showing evidence of his origin. Many scholars take these to be unflattering depictions of East Asian racial characteristics though Maenchen-Helfen argued they were unlikely to have looked as Asiatic as the Yakut or Tungus. Archaeological finds suggest they were a racially mixed group containing only some individuals with East Asian features. Kim cautioned against seeing the Huns as a homogenous racial group while still arguing they were partially or predominantly of Mongoloid extraction initially. Some archaeologists argued archaeological finds failed to prove the Huns had any Mongoloid features at all while others claimed they were predominantly Caucasian in appearance. Genetic data is difficult to apply to steppe nomad societies because they frequently migrated intermixed and were assimilated into each other. A genetic study of individuals from around the Tian Shan mountains dating from late second century CE found these represented a population of mixed East Asian and West Eurasian origin. As of 2023 there is little genetic data from the Carpathian basin in the Hunnic period though genomes of nine Hun-era individuals varied from European to Northeast Asian connections.
The Huns practiced pastoral nomadism living off herding and moving from pasture to pasture to graze their animals. Hyun Jin Kim held the term nomad misleading since all so-called nomads of Eurasian steppe history moved within fixed territorial spaces. Jordanes wrote that the Hunnic Altziagiri tribe pastured near Cherson on the Crimea then wintered further north with Maenchen-Helfen holding the Syvash as likely location. Ancient sources mentioned their herds consisted of various animals including cattle horses goats sheep and possibly Bactrian camels. Ammianus Marcellinus said majority of the Huns' diet came from meat of these animals while Maenchen-Helfen argued they likely mostly ate mutton along with sheep's cheese and milk. They certainly ate horse meat drank mare's milk and likely made cheese and kumis. In times of starvation they may have boiled their horses' blood for food. Ancient sources uniformly denied that the Huns practiced any sort of agriculture though archaeological finds indicate some steppe nomad populations did grow grain. As a nomadic people the Huns spent great deal of time riding horses with Ammianus claiming they were almost glued to their horses. Zosimus claimed they lived and slept on their horses while Sidonius stated scarce had an infant learnt to stand without his mother's aid when a horse takes him on his back. They appear to have spent so much time riding that they walked clumsily something observed in other nomadic groups. Roman sources characterized the Hunnic horses as ugly though Sinor believed it was likely a breed of Mongolian pony.
Archaeological finds produced large number of cauldrons identified since work of Paul Reinecke in 1896 as having been produced by the Huns. Although typically described as bronze cauldrons the cauldrons are often made of copper which is generally poor quality. Maenchen-Helfen listed nineteen known finds of Hunnish cauldrons from all over Central and Eastern Europe and Western Siberia. He argued from state of bronze castings that Huns were not very good metalsmiths and likely cast them where found. They come in various shapes sometimes found together with vessels of various other origins. The cauldrons appear to derive from those used by the Xiongnu. Jewelry and weapons attributed to Huns are often decorated in polychrome cloisonné style combining Asiatic goldsmithing techniques with enormous amount of gold given as tribute. In 1970s A. K. Ambroz argued polychrome style originated with Huns but more recent archaeological discoveries show it predates their arrival in Europe. Warwick Ball argued decorated artifacts of Hun period probably made by local craftsmen for Huns rather than by Huns themselves. A now headless copper-plated Hun-period figurine discovered at Bántapuszta near Veszprém Hungary shows man in armor whose pants and collars decorated by ringlets. Archaeological finds indicate Huns wore gold plaques as ornaments on clothing as well as imported glass beads. Both men and women found wearing shoe buckles made of gold and jewels in Eastern Europe though iron or bronze in Central Asia. Ancient sources and archaeological finds confirm Hunnic women wore elaborately decorated golden or gold-plated diadems serving as symbols of rulership.
After fall of Hunnic Empire various legends arose concerning the Huns among Christian hagiographic traditions where they play role as antagonists. In anonymous medieval biography of Pope Leo I Attila's march into Italy in 452 stopped because when he meets Leo outside Rome apostles Peter and Paul appear holding swords over his head threatening to kill him unless he follows pope's command to turn back. Other versions have Attila take pope hostage and be forced by saints to release him. In legend of Saint Ursula Ursula and her eleven thousand holy virgins arrive at Cologne on way back from pilgrimage just as Huns under unnamed prince besiege city. Ursula and her virgins killed by Huns with arrows after refusing sexual advances then souls form heavenly army driving away Huns saving Cologne. Other cities with legends regarding Huns include Orléans Troyes Dieuze Metz Modena and Reims. In Germanic heroic legends Huns and Attila form central figures in two most-widespread cycles that of Nibelungs and Dietrich von Bern. The Nibelung legend particularly recorded in Old Norse Poetic Edda and Völsunga saga connects Huns and Attila to destruction of Burgundian kingdom on Rhine in 437. Memories of conflicts between Goths and Huns maintained in Old English poem Widsith and Old Norse poem Battle of the Goths and Huns transmitted in thirteenth-century Icelandic Hervarar Saga. Continental Germanic traditions paint more positive picture than Christian hagiography while mainstream scholarship dismissed close connection between Hungarians and Huns despite Hungarian legend claiming descent.
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Common questions
Who linked the Huns to the Xiongnu people in the 18th century?
French scholar Joseph de Guignes became the first person to propose a link between the Huns and the Xiongnu people in the 18th century. This connection remains one of history's most debated questions nearly two hundred years later.
When did the Huns arrive on the Volga River and cause the westward movement of Goths and Alans?
By 370 AD, the Huns had arrived on the Volga River causing the westward movement of Goths and Alans. This migration triggered a chain reaction across Eastern Europe as several central and eastern European peoples established kingdoms under Hunnic hegemony or fleeing from it.
What year did Attila become the sole ruler of the Huns after Bleda died?
Bleda died in 445 and Attila became the sole ruler of the Huns. In 447, Attila invaded the Balkans and Thrace ending in 449 with an agreement where East Romans paid him an annual tribute of 2100 pounds of gold.
How did ancient sources describe the physical appearance of the Huns compared to modern genetic findings?
Ancient descriptions stress their strange appearance by caricaturing them as monsters with short stature, tanned skin, small eyes, and flat noses. Archaeological finds suggest they were a racially mixed group containing only some individuals with East Asian features while genetic data shows genomes varied from European to Northeast Asian connections.
What diet and lifestyle characterized the nomadic practices of the Huns according to Roman writers?
The Huns practiced pastoral nomadism living off herding and moving from pasture to pasture to graze their animals. They certainly ate horse meat drank mare's milk and likely made cheese and kumis while spending great deal of time riding horses.