Huns
The Huns were a wild nomadic people who became historically important in the early centuries of the Christian era.
In the narratives of the Dark Ages historians can distinguish four migratory tribes to which the name of 'Hun' has been applied.
The Magyars were Hunnish invaders of Hungary from AD 898, whilst the race of modern Hungarians was probably formed by these Magyars coalescing with the Kumans and other hordes, who had preceded them in the march westwards.
The White Huns or Ephialites, inhabited Bactria and the tracts between the Oxus and the Caspian in the days of Attila's conquests. In 484 they inflicted a crushing defeat on their Persian neighbors under Peroz, who was slain in battle, but during the following century their power was broken by the aggressive Turks.
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The Hunas, who made inroads into India, were contemporary with the Ephialites and undoubtedly belonged to the same wave of barbarian migration.
The most famous were the Huns who, from AD 372 to 453, were continually threatening the Roman empire.
An army of Huns, under Balamir, overcame the Alani, who dwelt between the Volga and the Don, completely disorganized the empire of the Ostrogoths (Greutungi) and finally routed the Visigoths (Tervingi). These tribes were driven to seek new homes between the Pruth and the Danube, but were later driven by the Huns to beyond the Danubian frontier. Two facts show that Roman supremacy was already on the wane: emperors had begun to enlist the arms of the Hunnish invaders against other foes, and in 432 Theodosius II agreed to buy peace from Rhuas or Rugulas, their king, by an annual payment of 350 pounds weight of gold.
Attila and Bieda succeeded Rhuas, their uncle, and were so formidable as to secure a double tribute. Under these chiefs the Huns laid waste Scythia and Media, threatened Persia, sacked the Roman city of Margus in the east (441), and Sirmium in the west. In 445 Attila stood with his victorious armies before the walls of Constantinople; in 451 his progress westward across the Rhine was stayed only after a terrible battle on the Catalaunian Plains (near Mery-sur-Seine), and in the following year, after razing Aquileia and the cities of Venetia, Attila was confronted with Pope Leo I on the banks of the Mincio; he declined battle and retreated with the Huns beyond the Alps.
Next year Attila died, and in 454 the Goths, Gepidae, and Suevi avenged his victories near the River Netad in Pannonia, where 30,000 Huns were killed.
The Hunnish nation never survived this calamitous defeat; their tribes dispersed, some sett ling in the Dobruja, others in Dacia, and others returning to their homelands in the southern steppes of what is now Russia.
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