Hunnic Empire

The Hunnic Empire was a tribal confederation established during the late fourth century, encompassing much of Central and Eastern Europe. It achieved its peak during the reign of Attila.

Quotes about the Hunnic Empire

Though they live in the form of men, they have the cruelty of wild beasts. ~ Jordanes

• I investigated reported Japanese atrocities committed by the Japanese Army in Nanking and elsewhere. Verbal accounts of reliable eyewitnesses and letters from individuals whose credibility is beyond question afford convincing proof that the Japanese Army behaved and is continuing to behave in a fashion reminiscent of Attila and his Huns. Not less than 300,000 Chinese civilians were slaughtered, many in cold blood.
  • Kōki Hirota, as quoted by Robert Sabella et. al. (2002), Nanking 1937: Memory and Healing, M.E. Sharpe, p. 56, ISBN 0765635607

• The Huns’ original rise in the east had been predicated on excellent horsemanship and superior military technology, in the form of the composite bow. These gave huge tactical field advantage over the nomadic peoples they drove before them, but was of less use against imperial powers whose people occupied walled cities and whose troops commanded timber or stone-built fortresses. However, at around the time of Attila’s accession, the Huns added to their armoury a critical new technological skill – siege engineering. Although they could not match the resources of the great powers whose lands they neighboured – principally the Sassanid Persians and Romans – they posed a very serious danger. They could stage campaigns far more devastating than mere horseback raids, for when they captured cities, the Huns could take hundreds or thousands of captives at a time, to be driven back into Hunnic territory and either enslaved or ransomed at high cost.
  • Dan Jones, Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages (2021), pp. 70
• They made their foes flee in horror because their swarthy aspect was fearful, and they had, if I may call it so, a sort of shapeless lump, not a head, with pin-holes rather than eyes. Their hardihood is evident in their wild appearance, and they are beings who are cruel to their children on the very day they are born. For they cut the cheeks of the males with a sword, so that before they receive the nourishment of milk they must learn to endure wounds. Hence they grow old beardless and their young men are without comeliness, because a face furrowed by the sword spoils by its scars the natural beauty of a beard. They are short in stature, quick in bodily movement, alert horsemen, broad shouldered, ready in the use of bow and arrow, and have firm-set necks which are ever erect in pride. Though they live in the form of men, they have the cruelty of wild beasts.
  • Jordanes, The Origin and Deeds of the Goths, translated by Charles C. Mierow

• The Huns were a collection of tribes from the Eurasian steppe, with a fearsome reputation (the Great Wall of China was built to keep them at bay). Basing themselves in what is now Hungary, they took advantage of the decline of the Roman Empire during the 4th and 5th centuries to expand their territories, until, at its peak under Attila, their empire stretched from the River Danube to the Baltic Sea, encompassing large swathes of Germany, Austria and the Balkans.
  • Simon Sebag Montefiore, Monsters: History's Most Evil Men and Women (2009), p. 44
• In 434, Attila’s uncle, King Ruglia, died, leaving Attila and his older brother Bleda in joint charge of the kingdom. The Roman Empire had long since been divided into two, the Eastern (also known as the Byzantine) Empire being ruled in Attila’s time by Theodosius II. To avoid attack from the Huns, Theodosius had agreed to pay an annual tribute, but when he defaulted on payments, Attila invaded Byzantine territory, capturing and destroying several important cities, including Singidunum (Belgrade). Following an uneasy truce negotiated in 442, Attila attacked again the following year, destroying numerous towns and cities along the Danube and massacring their inhabitants. The slaughter in the city of Naissus (in what is present-day Serbia) was so great that, several years later, when Roman ambassadors arrived there for negotiations with Attila, they had to camp outside the city to escape the stench of rotting flesh. Countless other cities endured a similar fate.
  • Simon Sebag Montefiore, Monsters: History's Most Evil Men and Women (2009), p. 44-45
• According to one contemporary account: “There was so much killing and bloodletting that no one could number the dead. The Huns pillaged the churches and monasteries, and slew the monks and virgins . . . They so devastated Thrace that it will never rise again and be as it was before.’ Constantinople was only spared because Attila’s forces were unable to penetrate the capital’s walls, so he turned instead on the Byzantine army, inflicting a crushing and bloody defeat. Peace came at the cost of repaying the tribute owed and tripling future payments. Then, around 445, Bleda was murdered, leaving Attila in sole command of the kingdom. Another assault on the Eastern Empire followedi n 447, as the Huns struck further east, burning down churches and monasteries as they went, and using battering rams and siege towers to smash their way into cities, which they again razed to the ground, butchering the inhabitants,
  • Simon Sebag Montefiore, Monsters: History's Most Evil Men and Women (2009), p. 45
• [Hunnic] was not a Turkic language, but one between Turkic and Mongolian, probably closer to the former than the latter. The language had strong ties to Bulgar language and to modern Chuvash, but also had some important connections, especially lexical and morphological, to Ottoman Turkish and Yakut
  • Omeljan Pritsak (1982), The Hunnic Language of the Attila Clan (PDF) IV, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, ISSN 0363-5570.

• One of the chief reasons for the widespread fear of the Huns rested on their ability to travel very long distances in relatively short periods. This ability may well have been based on their use of horseshoes
  • Carroll Quigley, (1971), The Evolution of Civilizations, New York: Macmillan, p. 349

Quotes by Ammianus Marcellinus

They are not under the authority of a king, but are contented with the irregular government of their nobles, and under their lead they force their way through all obstacles.

None of them plough, or even touch a plough-handle: for they have no settled abode, but are homeless and lawless, perpetually wandering with their waggons, which they make their homes; in fact they seem to be people always in flight.

In truces they are treacherous and inconstant, being liable to change their minds at every breeze of every fresh hope which presents itself, giving themselves up wholly to the impulse and inclination of the moment; and, like brute beasts, they are utterly ignorant of the distinction between right and wrong.

• At the very moment of their birth the cheeks of their infant children are deeply marked by an iron, in order that the usual vigour of their hair, instead of growing at the proper season, may be withered by the wrinkled scars; and accordingly they grow up without beards, and consequently without any beauty, like eunuchs, though they all have closely-knit and strong limbs, and plump necks; they are of great size, and bow-legged, so that you might fancy them two-legged beasts, or the stout figures which are hewn out in a rude manner with an axe on the posts at the end of bridges.
  • Ammianus Marcellinus (c. 390), Roman History, Book XXXI

• They are certainly in the shape of men, however uncouth, but are so hardy that they neither require fire nor well-flavoured food, but live on the roots of such herbs as they get in the fields, or on the half-raw flesh of any animal, which they merely warm rapidly by placing it between their own thighs and the backs of their horses.
  • Ammianus Marcellinus (c. 390), Roman History, Book XXXI

• They never shelter themselves under roofed houses, but avoid them as people ordinarily avoid sepulchres as things not fitted for common use. Nor is there even to be found among them a cabin thatched with reed; but they wander about, roaming over the mountains and the woods, and accustom themselves to bear frost and hunger and thirst from their very cradles. And even when abroad they never enter a house unless under the compulsion of some extreme necessity; nor, indeed, do they think people under roofs as safe as others.
  • Ammianus Marcellinus (c. 390), Roman History, Book XXXI

• They wear linen clothes, or else garments made of the skins of field-mice: nor do they wear a different dress out of doors from that which they wear at home; but after a tunic is once put round their necks, however it becomes worn, it is never taken off or changed till, from long decay, it becomes actually so ragged as to fall to pieces.
  • Ammianus Marcellinus (c. 390), Roman History, Book XXXI

• They cover their heads with round caps, and their shaggy legs with the skins of kids; their shoes are not made on any lasts, but are so unshapely as to hinder them from walking with a free gait. And for this reason they are not well suited to infantry battles, but are nearly always on horseback, their horses being ill-shaped, but hardy; and sometimes they even sit upon them like women if they want to do anything more conveniently. There is not a person in the whole nation who cannot remain on his horse day and night. On horseback they buy and sell, they take their meat and drink, and there they recline on the narrow neck of their steed, and yield to sleep so deep as to indulge in every variety of dream. And when any deliberation is to take place on any weighty matter, they all hold their common council on horseback. They are not under the authority of a king, but are contented with the irregular government of their nobles, and under their lead they force their way through all obstacles.
  • Ammianus Marcellinus (c. 390), Roman History, Book XXXI

• Sometimes when provoked, they fight; and when they go into battle, they form in a solid body, and utter all kinds of terrific yells. They are very quick in their operations, of exceeding speed, and fond of surprising their enemies. With a view to this, they suddenly disperse, then reunite, and again, after having inflicted vast loss upon the enemy, scatter themselves over the whole plain in irregular formations: always avoiding a fort or an entrenchment.
  And in one respect you may pronounce them the most formidable of all warriors, for when at a distance they use missiles of various kinds tipped with sharpened bones instead of the usual points of javelins, and these bones are admirably fastened into the shaft of the javelin or arrow; but when they are at close quarters they fight with the sword, without any regard for their own safety; and often while their antagonists are warding off their blows they entangle them with twisted cords, so that, their hands being fettered, they lose all power of either riding or walking.
  • Ammianus Marcellinus (c. 390), Roman History, Book XXXI

• None of them plough, or even touch a plough-handle: for they have no settled abode, but are homeless and lawless, perpetually wandering with their waggons, which they make their homes; in fact they seem to be people always in flight. Their wives live in these waggons, and there weave their miserable garments; and here too they sleep with their husbands, and bring up their children till they reach the age of puberty; nor, if asked, can any one of them tell you where he was born, as he was conceived in one place, born in another at a great distance, and brought up in another still more remote.
  • Ammianus Marcellinus (c. 390), Roman History, Book XXXI

• In truces they are treacherous and inconstant, being liable to change their minds at every breeze of every fresh hope which presents itself, giving themselves up wholly to the impulse and inclination of the moment; and, like brute beasts, they are utterly ignorant of the distinction between right and wrong. They express themselves with great ambiguity and obscurity; have no respect for any religion or superstition whatever; are immoderately covetous of gold; and are so fickle and irascible, that they very often on the same day that they quarrel with their companions without any provocation, again become reconciled to them without any mediator.
  • Ammianus Marcellinus (c. 390), Roman History, Book XXXI

• This active and indomitable race, being excited by an unrestrainable desire of plundering the possessions of others, went on ravaging and slaughtering all the nations in their neighbourhood till they reached the Alani...
  • Ammianus Marcellinus (c. 390), Roman History, Book XXXI