Hun Flag

Huns, nomadic Asian people, of Turkish, Tataric, or Ugrian origins, who spread from the Caspian steppes (the areas north of the Caspian Sea) to make repeated incursions into the Roman Empire during the 4th and 5th centuries AD.

These attacks culminated in a series of wars under Attila, the most renowned of its leaders, that brought both parts of the Roman Empire, East and West, to the verge of destruction. At the height of their power the Huns absorbed a number of different racial strains in their armies and assimilated the characteristics of the populations of their environment, so that in Europe they gradually lost their distinct Asian character; but even in their pre-European period they were highly variable in their physical characteristics, and of no easily determined ethnic or linguistic identity. All accounts, however, agree in describing them as an aggressive nomadic people of great vigor and comparatively low cultural achievement, who had developed considerable skill in the techniques of warfare, particularly in military horsemanship.

Before the beginning of their recorded European history, a tribe, possibly related to the Huns, was known in western China as the Xiongnu (Hsiung-nu), during the Earlier Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 8). Their power in the East was weakened during the following century, and eventually they separated into two distinct camps, one of which, amounting to about 50,000 families, went southward, while most of the remainder, after attempting to maintain themselves on the Caspian steppes, went west and northwest in search of new homes. Of those who went northwest, a large number settled for a time on the banks of the Volga River. In the second half of the 4th century AD, under a leader called Balamir (flourished 4th century AD), or Balamber, they advanced into the territories of the Alans, a powerful people dwelling between the Volga and the Don rivers, and in a battle fought on the banks of the Don routed the army of the Alans.
Their next conquest was the country of the Ostrogoths, whose retreat they followed as far west as the Danube River. In the process they threatened and uprooted the Visigoths, who then sought the protection of the Roman Empire. A few years later the Goths revolted against Roman authority, and the Huns crossed the Danube to join them (See Also Goths). In the wars that immediately followed, the Huns did not play a conspicuous part, but early in the following century they seem to have been joined by fresh hordes, and by 432, during the reign of Roman Emperor Theodosius I, they had increased so considerably in power that the Hunnish king, Roas, or Rugilas, collected a large annual tribute from Rome.

Roas was succeeded by his nephews Attila and Bleda. After the death of Bleda, Attila extended the Hunnish dominions westward to Gaul, where he was defeated in 451, and Italy. After Attila's death in 453, however, the power of the Huns was broken, and they no longer played a major role in European history. Many Huns took service in the Roman armies, while others joined fresh hordes of invaders from the north and east, assisting them in their repeated attacks upon the empire.