Attila:The Scourge of God

helmet, his long yellow hair allowing him to be instantly recognized, and rode along the Roman front exhorting the soldiers to stand firm. An obvious target, it was not long before his horse was killed beneath him; then he himself fell in the act of mounting a fresh steed, his brain transfixed by a Hun arrow.

Now in overall command, Aspar knew there could only be one conclusion to the battle. Had the sides been evenly matched, the day would have undoubtedly gone to the Romans. But with their huge preponderance in numbers the Huns could sustain enormous losses and still keep putting men into the field. Nevertheless, surveying the endless windrows of Hun dead that made the battlefield resemble a wheatfield after a hailstorm, Aspar felt a grim satisfaction. The Huns might win the battle, but it would be a Pyrrhic victory. It was clear that they had suffered losses on a scale which must leave them severely, perhaps permanently, weakened.

The fighting raged on until dusk. By then the Roman line had narrowed to a ribbon a mere two ranks deep — but still valiantly holding firm. As daylight began to bleed away, the Huns withdrew. Loading as many of the wounded as could be found on to the wagons, the Romans left the field and began to retreat eastwards, in good order. The formations they had maintained throughout the day were exactly delineated on the battlefield by the corpses of the slain, all facing the west. Whole numeri and legions had perished: the Third and Fourth Decimani, the Stobensian Horse, the Dafne Ballistiers, the Saracen Horse, the First and Second Isaurians, and many, many more. Though few had survived, their morale remained unbroken, for they had fought the Huns to a standstill, giving such an account of themselves that Attila must surely hesitate before again taking on a Roman army.

The following day, Attila inspected the field with a heavy heart. He had not taken part in the battle, for such was not his way; his was the mind that planned, not the hand that fought. The scale of the slaughter on the Hun side was immense — far, far worse than that suffered at Tolosa. It would take a generation to make good such losses. With a feeling akin to despair, Attila wondered, for the first time, if he could ever really beat the Romans, at least the Romans of the East. They were perhaps too populous, too organized, their cities too strong, for a barbarian people to defeat permanently. Especially now that they seemed, under strong leadership, to have discovered a new determination and fighting spirit. Or perhaps it was more a case of them having re-discovered the qualities that had made Rome great in the first place.

Had his life, despite all his fame and conquests, been a failure? In his dream of a Greater Scythia he had reached for the stars, but they had proved beyond his grasp. And now, perhaps, his invincibility as a warrior might begin to disappear, as the snows of the Caucasus melted in the spring. The Chinese had a saying: ‘He who rides a tiger cannot dismount, lest it rend him.’ Well, he was riding a tiger, the tiger of his people. He was old now and beginning to tire, but he had no choice except to continue to lead them in the course he had embarked them on, the course of slaughter and rapine. Even should that, in the end, bring about his and their destruction.

‘What now, friend?’ Areobindus asked Aspar, as the two generals, with what was left of the army, came in sight of the rebuilt walls of Constantinople.

‘Now we ride out the storm,’ replied the new Master of Soldiers, with a grim smile. He had no illusions about how terrible would be the vengeance that Attila would wreak on the Eastern Empire, for having the temerity to stand against him and inflict tremendous damage on his forces. The East would raise another army, as Rome had done after Cannae, but that would take time. Meanwhile, they must prepare to endure the whirlwind that the Scourge of God would surely unleash on them.

The battered but proud remnant of the great army that had marched out from Marcianopolis just weeks before, entered the capital by the Hadrianopolis Gate, to be cheered to the echo through the streets by the vast throng that had turned out to give them a heroes’ welcome: news of their stand against Attila had preceded them. Shrewd and tough, the citizens of Constantinople knew the greatness of the debt they owed such men and their leaders. The Emperor might hide from the national crisis in his palace, and his chief minister Chrysaphius scheme only to enrich himself, but with men of the calibre of Aspar, Anatolius, and Constantine to steer the ship of state through the perilous waters that lay ahead, they were confident the empire would be saved.

That night, Aspar had a dream; a solemn funeral procession moved along the Mese, which was lined by the mourning citizens of Constantinople, through the five great fora, past the Hippodrome and the great square of the Augusteum, to the Cathedral of the Holy Wisdom. The pallbearers placed the open coffin on the marble catafalque, which bore the inscription ‘THEODOSIUS’.

He woke feeling disorientated. The vision had been so real, so vivid — it was more like a memory than a dream. He tried to put it out of his mind, but it kept recurring. Was it a portent? A warning? A sudden chill ran through him, as a third possibility presented itself. An admonition? Immediately, he closed his mind against the thought. He was no traitor; all his life he had served the Emperor loyally, and he would continue to do so. But a part of his mind — the Cassius part, he thought ironically — seemed to ask, ‘But if the Emperor is unworthy, should not your loyalty be to the empire?’ And so began a dialogue in his mind between ‘Brutus’ and ‘Cassius’, Cassius urging that the well-being of the state would be served by the removal of its present ruler, Brutus countering with the argument that the curse of the Roman Empire in the past had been ambitious generals wading through blood to seize the throne.

At length, after protracted mental debate, Aspar faced the stark truth. So long as Theodosius lived, the Eastern Empire would continue to pay tribute to the Huns — a disgraceful humiliation which no self-respecting state should endure, especially if that state was the heir to the greatest civilization the world had known, and the tribute extorted by a race of illiterate savages. And Theodosius was not yet fifty; he might live another twenty, even thirty, years. But if Aspar were to contrive the death of Theodosius and himself assume the purple, he would be condemned as yet another murdering usurper, an Arian and barbarian to boot, motivated by selfish ambition; the consequence might well be bloody civil war. No: the successor must be a man of stature, with a career of solid achievement to his credit, acceptable to Senate and Consistory, but a man who could never be accused of acting solely from ambition. A man also of spotless integrity, proven courage, and highest principle. Did such a paragon exist? Yes, Aspar knew just such a one. This very day he would approach him.

Cassius had prevailed over Brutus.

¹ The Vid, in Bulgaria.

² The Balkan Mountains, in Bulgaria.

THIRTY-NINE

The river banks were covered with human bones, and the stench of death was so great that no one could enter the city¹

Priscus of Panium, Byzantine History, after 472

‘“After the Battle of the Utus, in which, though victorious, he sustained heavy losses, Attila appeared before the walls of Constantinople. He did not linger; their massive strength obviously convinced him that it would be a waste of time to invest the capital. Instead, the Scourge of God went on to vent his heathen fury on the dioceses of Thracia and Macedonia, ravaging without resistance and without mercy everything in his path from the Hellespontus to the Pass of Thermopylae. The most strongly defended cities like Heraclea and Hadrianopolis may have escaped, but seventy others have been utterly destroyed: Marcianopolis, Thessaloniki, Dyrrachium. .”’ Titus looked up from the letter, just arrived by express courier from the Imperial Secretariat in Constantinople, which he had been reading aloud to Aetius. They were in the general’s temporary headquarters, a suite in the archbishop’s palace at Lugdunum² in the Gallic province of Lugdunensis. ‘I’ll pass over the other sixty-seven, shall I, sir?’

‘And the rest,’ sighed the general, nodding wearily. ‘Just cut to the end, and tell me what it is they want.’

‘“After our gallant army sacrificed itself at the Utus,”’ continued Titus, after briefly scanning the remainder of the missive, ‘“we looked to the West for help, but sadly it was not forthcoming. This despite the fact that our