Attila

by Ross Laidlaw

  Once, in an attempt to come to grips with the enemy, the trumpets on the Roman side sounded the advance. But the encircling Huns merely kept pace with the advancing Romans, whose formations began to lose cohesion and to take even more casualties. When the halt was eventually sounded, the Roman infantry had been reduced to a panic-stricken rabble, desperate to flee or to engage their tormentors, but unable to do either. Taking turns to peel away and breathe their horses, the Huns were able to maintain a constant barrage, which exacted a terrible toll. Throughout that endless afternoon, the Roman ranks thinned steadily, which by a grim irony benefited the survivors, who now had room to raise their shields and protect their torsos. Only the coming of darkness brought respite to the beleaguered army.

  Tortured by thirst and wounds throughout the long night, the Romans awaited the dawn with dread. But the rising sun showed only an empty plain. The Huns had gone.

  To his captains, Attila’s decision to spare the shattered remnant of the Roman army smacked of commendable contempt for a negligible foe. How could they guess that it stemmed from self-disgust? Attila’s stock could now stand hardly higher. To his people he was a conquering hero, who had brought them plunder beyond imagining and made their name feared throughout the world. But to Attila himself it was all a hollow triumph, like those apples of legend which turned to ashes in the mouth. This was not what he had wanted for his nation. Any hopes now of creating a Greater Scythia were dashed for ever; he had sent home the team of advisers Aetius had provided. Posterity would remember Attila not as a second Caesar or another Alexander, but as the Scourge of God, the barbarian who had loosed death and destruction on a scale never before witnessed.

  1 Mitrovica, in Kosovo.

  2 Belgrade.

  3 The Sea of Marmara.

  4 The Balkan provinces.

  5 The Balkans (region).

  6 Gallipoli.

  7 Ni, Sofia.

  8 The Dardanelles.

  9 443.

  THIRTY

  We knew not whether we were in Heaven or on earth; for on earth there is no such splendour or such beauty

  Report of the envoys of Prince Vladimir of Kiev, on Constantinople, tenth century

  ‘Gold, more gold . . . Let us send envoys to extort rich gifts . . . They are pressed by enemies on all sides – Persians, Isaurians, Saracens, even black men from Axum in the farthest south, so they cannot refuse us anything we ask . . . Gold, gold . . .’ From all over the assembly, convened to determine Hun policy towards Eastern Rome, arose excited demands, inflamed by avarice and arrogance deriving from overwhelming victory, to extract more and yet more tribute from the Romans following their crushing defeat in the Chersonesus. After that battle, peace terms had been negotiated with Anatolius, military commander for the diocese of Oriens, terms which were vastly harsher and more punitive than those of Margus, but which the East had been in no position to refuse.

  Savages, thought Attila, surveying his Council with weary contempt. Short-sighted barbarians. In wishing to impose such humiliating conditions on the Eastern Romans, his people were forgetting the cardinal rule of nomad society: you did not destroy a beaten enemy, you assimilated or befriended him, becoming in the process more powerful yourself. The Huns were changing he thought sadly. Gold and grass – or rather the lack of it – were now the new determinants. Gold had made them greedy; and in extending their conquests so far westward, the Huns had at last run out of steppe. With no more grasslands to the west of them, and too little in their present homeland to sustain their herds indefinitely, the old free nomadic life was ultimately doomed. All the more reason then to find accommodation with the Romans, rather than bleed them white.

  Trapped in his role of mighty conqueror, the terror of his enemies and bounteous provider to his people, Attila assured the Council that a series of embassies would be sent to Constantinople, ostensibly to oversee the implementation of the treaty. In addition, the intention was to intimidate the imperial court into appeasing their conquerors by presenting the ambassadors with valuable gifts, symbolic reminders of their own weakness and the Huns’ supremacy.

  ‘Saiga!’ cried the groom to Uldin, pointing to a cluster of faraway dots moving slowly across the dusty plain. This land had once been part of Dacia, a province abandoned by the Romans these hundred and seventy years. To recognize the antelope at such a distance, the lad must have eyes sharper than a hawk’s, thought Uldin admiringly. Though not yet forty, Uldin was already an elder of the Hun Council, elected for his shrewdness, good sense, and ability to relate to people – even Romans. It was for these qualities that Attila had chosen him as one of the first envoys to be sent to Constantinople, a mission from which he was now returning. Some way off rode the other envoy, a taciturn man who preferred to keep his own company. Behind, surrounded by the grooms, pages, and translators of the ambassadorial retinue, rocking and rolling over the steppe, came the supply-wagon, part of its load consisting of valuable gifts from the imperial court.

  And none more valuable than that loping beside him as he rode, thought Uldin with pride. While in Constantinople, he had one day seen in the gardens of the imperial palace a strange animal being walked on a leash by its keeper. With its tawny black-spotted fur, cat’s head, and long tail, the creature somewhat resembled a leopard, but the exceptionally long legs and deep chest were those of a coursing dog. His curiosity aroused, Uldin had asked the handler, an elderly Goth who, it transpired, had survived the Great Expulsion of his race in the previous reign, about the animal. The man had replied that it was a youze or chita from Persia, much prized for hunting on account of its speed. ‘I call him Blitz,’ the man said, ‘which in my tongue means “lightning”.’

  So taken with the creature was Uldin that, when the time came to depart, he had begged the emperor that he be permitted to forgo all other presents, if only he could have Blitz. Theodosius had demurred, but his sister, the Augusta Pulcheria, had overridden him, generously waiving the suggested condition and presenting Uldin with the cheetah in addition to his other gifts.

  In the early stages of the thousand-mile journey back to Transylvania, Uldin had taken time to get to know Blitz, talking to and hand-feeding him. The attention was rewarded with affection, the animal often choosing to accompany him during each day’s ride, and sleeping next to him at night.

  Now, feeling his blood begin to stir with the anticipation of the chase, Uldin dismounted and slipped a leather hood over the cheetah’s head. After attaching a long leash to Blitz’s silver collar, he swung himself back into the saddle, and, calling to the groom to follow, headed for the saiga herd. Covering the ground at a fast tripple, he detoured somewhat to the flank in order to stay upwind of the antelope, which would stampede at the slightest hint of danger.

  Two hundred yards from the edge of the herd, Uldin dismounted and threw the reins over the horse’s head as a sign to it to stay still. Unalarmed, the antelope continued to graze. Pale brown above, creamy-white below, the males alone bearing lyre-shaped horns, the saiga were distinguished by a grotesquely inflated nose. Removing the leash and holding the cheetah by the collar, Uldin slipped the hood from its head. Immediately, the animal tensed and pulled against the restraining grip.

  ‘Go, Blitz,’ Uldin whispered, and released the collar. The cheetah crept towards the saiga, undulating over the ground as it took advantage of every bush and unevenness for concealment. Warned at last by a sentinel antelope, the herd suddenly took off at a lumbering gallop, but were swiftly overhauled by their pursuer – a streaking tawny blur as it accelerated to an incredible speed. Selecting a victim, the spotted cat bowled it over with a blow of its paw, ripped open its throat, and proceeded to suck the blood spouting from the severed arteries.

  ‘Well done, my Blitz!’ cried Uldin in delight, as he cantered up. Enticing the cheetah from the kill with a strip of meat he had ready in his saddlebag, Uldin signalled to the groom to gut the carcase, prior to removing it to the wagon. He thrilled with the anticipation of seeing the admi
ring envy on the faces of his fellow Huns, passionate hunters all, when he showed off the cheetah’s skills. His one fear was that Attila might himself take a fancy to Blitz. As a gesture of courtesy, he would have to offer the King the presents he had received. But Attila was a just and open-handed monarch; surely he would not deprive a favoured councillor of the one gift he prized above all the rest. Would he? With something akin to surprise, Uldin acknowledged to himself that to part with Blitz would cause him real distress.

  ‘It’s a leopard!’ Uldin’s wife screamed in consternation when, followed by a train of grooms bearing the presents from Byzantium, and accompanied by Blitz, Uldin reached his home on the outskirts of Attila’s royal village. (As he had hoped, the Hun king had graciously disclaimed any royal right to the gifts, save for one, a cup supposedly made from the horn of a unicorn, which was said to possess the valuable property of changing colour when charged with any liquid containing poison.)

  With some difficulty, Uldin managed to persuade his wife and extended family that Blitz was not a leopard, displaying, instead of that feline’s vicious temperament, a gentle affectionate nature and a fondness for being petted. (Few Huns, the younger ones especially, had ever seen a leopard. But folk-memories from the tribe’s long sojourn in Asia, of a fearsomely dangerous animal capable of disembowelling a man in seconds with its raking hind claws, were still strong.) After Uldin had arranged a race over a short distance, in which Blitz left his mounted competitors standing, any lingering hostility towards the cat evaporated.

  As the pointer on the clepsydra’s float reached the mark designating the hour, a tiny gilded bird above the escape cistern opened its beak and gave forth a gurgling trill. ‘Aaah!’ gasped Uldin’s father, his eyes shining with rapture. ‘It is indeed a princely gift. Thank you, my son.’

  Uldin smiled to himself. His attempt to explain the function of the water-clock, a wondrous contraption of bronze and ivory, had failed completely. The measurement of time, in any form more sophisticated than noting the position of the sun, was a concept beyond the old man’s grasp. But that did not matter; he was captivated by the machine’s beauty and seemingly magical movements. To his kinsfolk packed inside the family yurt, Uldin distributed, to gasps of wonder and delight, the other treasures he had brought. There were silks, silver mirrors, and jewellery for the women and girls; and for the males, daggers with jewelled hilts, silver horse-trappings, and golden drinking-vessels. The gifts presented, and great platters of roast meat and bowls of kumiss circulating, the questioning began concerning the wonders of the great city.

  ‘Can Constantinople be taken?’ demanded a fierce old warrior.

  ‘Not in a thousand years, uncle,’ declared Uldin.

  ‘Why?’ came back the other belligerently. ‘Viminacium, Margus, Singidunum, Sirmium – these and many others fell to us.’

  ‘Agreed, uncle,’ conceded Uldin, fondling Blitz’s head. ‘But we took them with the help of captured Roman engineers, who could show us how to make and use siege-engines. Constantinopolis is built on a promontory, surrounded on three sides by water with fast-flowing currents and rip-tides which make it difficult to attack from the sea, an option hardly open to ourselves in any case. On the landward side, it is sealed off by a great wall running north and south.’

  ‘Walls can be scaled.’

  ‘Not these walls, uncle. You have not seen them or you would not ask. Compared to them, the defences of Sirmium were like a brushwood fence. They are immensely tall and thick, studded with mighty towers with platforms for catapults, so that every approach is dominated by a field of fire. Any attacking force would be half destroyed before it reached the rampart’s base.’

  ‘And is the city big?’ asked a wide-eyed boy.

  Uldin nodded gravely. ‘Yes, son, it’s big. Very big.’

  ‘Bigger than our royal capital?’

  Uldin smiled. ‘This town would fit twenty times inside it and still leave room. As for numbers . . .’ Uldin struggled to find a simile to convey the reality of half a million people. ‘As many as the flocks and herbs that graze the pastures around us.’

  Uldin sensed that his hearers were impressed, his known probity ensuring that his remarks would not be dismissed as boastful exaggeration.

  ‘What is it like, this city?’ asked a young matron shyly.

  ‘It is more splendid and beautiful than you can imagine,’ replied Uldin with some feeling. ‘There are five great gateways through the wall, from the northern and southernmost of which two wide streets, both called Mesé – after passing through the western suburbs where are great cisterns, a mighty aqueduct, and many monasteries and churches – come together in a great open square called the Amastrianum. The heart of the city lies beyond the Amastrianum, at the eastern end of the peninsula – almost a city within a city, you could say. Here are the great imperial palace, the barracks of the Emperor’s guard, the offices of his ministers, the huge Church of the Holy Wisdom, and the Hippodrome where chariot races are held. Here you will see the very heart of the city’s heart, the kathisma or emperor’s box, a building in itself, crowned by four mighty horses in bronze.’

  ‘From what you tell us, Uldin, it would seem that the citizens do not keep herds or flocks,’ observed his father, ‘and that not many of them are warriors. So what, apart from chariot racing, do they find to talk about.’

  Uldin paused, aware that his answer could lead him into a verbal labyrinth, and wishing he possessed the skill to argue like a Greek. ‘Well, Father,’ he began, recalling the passionate theological debates he had overheard everywhere in the East Roman capital and which the translators had explained to him, ‘when not discussing trade or business, they converse mostly about their god.’

  ‘What is he like, this god of theirs?’

  Uldin groaned to himself. An intelligent and by nature an enquiring man, he had, as a senior member of the Hun Council, seen as one of his obligations the need to acquaint himself to some extent with the mores and beliefs of the Romans. But how to explain an abstract concept like the Trinity to his fellow tribesmen? Their deity, Murduk, the god of war, was symbolized by Attila’s Sacred Scimitar on its plinth, and was, therefore, something tangible and visible. They could also hear him; for was it not his voice that spoke whenever thunder rumbled in the sky?

  ‘They believe he is one god, yet at the same time three – a father and his son, together with a being called the Holy Ghost.’

  ‘I shall remember that, next time I barter for a yearling foal,’ declared one tribesman gravely. ‘As you all know, the price for such a horse is three heifers. The vendor will of course complain when I offer in exchange a single cow. I shall reply, however, “This is a Christian cow, my friend; it may look like one beast, but really it is three.”’

  When the laughter had died down, Uldin pressed on gamely, but with a growing sense of futility. ‘The Holy Ghost – who is god as well – fathered a child on a woman called Mary. The child, called Jesus – who is also god – after he was grown to manhood was put to death for his teachings by the Romans. Although they now believe in him, at that time they thought he was a danger to the state. Today, they worship him when they meet together in their churches, the houses where their god lives.’

  ‘But you said there were many churches,’ objected a shepherd. ‘How can their god live in them all at once, even if he can split himself in three?’

  Uldin shook his head. ‘I do not know,’ he confessed, giving a weary smile. ‘It is a mystery.’

  ‘What do they do, these Christians, when they worship their Jesus?’

  ‘A shaman in a white robe speaks some words of magic over bread and wine, turning them into Jesus’ flesh and blood.’

  ‘If it works the other way, we should have one of these shamans next time a beast is slaughtered,’ whispered a boy to the friend beside him. ‘Think of all that blood turned into wine!’ (Their muffled giggling was swiftly quelled by a stern look from an elder.)

  ‘And what happens to this fl
esh and blood of Jesus?’ enquired a grey-haired Hun with skin as brown and corrugated as a walnut.

  ‘They eat and drink it.’

  Exclamations of revulsion broke out around the yurt. ‘Then are these Romans cannibals,’ someone declared. ‘They call us savages, but we do not devour the flesh of men.’

  ‘The Christians call the change “transubstantiation”, Uldin pressed on lamely, aware that his audience was baffled, and that he himself was treading water. ‘By this they mean – at least I think they do – that, although the bread and wine continue to look like bread and wine after the shaman has pronounced his magic, in some way known only to their god, they have really—’

  ‘Enough,’ interrupted Uldin’s father gently, laying a hand on his son’s arm. ‘Let us leave these matters for the Romans to untangle, if they can. Look, you have sent poor Blitz to sleep.’

  THIRTY-ONE

  The fair-haired races are bold and undaunted in battle; they calmly despise death as they fight violently in hand-to-hand combat

  Mauricius, The Strategikon, sixth century

  ‘Sitting ducks, sir,’ called Constantius to Aetius cheerfully, as he splashed through the ford across the Phrudis,1 to join the rest of the general’s cavalry, who had dismounted and were having a scratch breakfast of bucellatum, the hard biscuit carried on campaign as emergency rations. ‘The Franks are all drunk as pigs, snoring their heads off – even the guards. They obviously think there isn’t a Roman soldier within a hundred miles.’ Swinging down from the saddle, he accepted the biscuit and cup of wine that Aetius handed him. ‘Thanks, sir. You know, I think we could take them,’ he said, shooting the general a shrewd glance. ‘We may be only light cavalry, but we’d have the advantage of surprise, and . . . Well, let’s just say I don’t think we’ll get another chance as good as this.’ He took a pull at his wine and grinned disarmingly. ‘What do you say, sir? Are you game for it?’