IIIATTILA AND THE EASTERN EMPIRE
When Attila had achieved the hegemony of the North he turned his attention upon the Empire; and it is curious for us at this moment to note the coincidence that this first attack upon civilisation was delivered at the very spot upon the Danube where the Germanic powers in August, 1914, began their offensive. Attila directed his armies upon the frontiers of modern Servia at the point where the Save joins the Danube, where the city of Singidunum rose then and where to-day Belgrade stands.
The pretext for this assault was almost as artificial and manufactured as that which Austria put forward for her attack upon Servia. Attila asserted that the Bishop of that same frontier town of Margus, on the Morava, where he had made treaty with the Empire, had crossed the Danube, and having secretly obtained access to the sepulchre of the Hunnish kings had stolen away its treasures.The Bishop, of course, eagerly denied this strange accusation, and it seemed indeed so unlikely that he was guilty that Theodosius was exceedingly reluctant to sacrifice him. The people of Moesia clamoured for a decision; if the Bishop were guilty then he must be delivered to Attila, but if not Theodosius must protect both him and them. For Attila had waited for nothing; he had crossed the Danube before making his accusation and had occupied Viminacium, one of the greater towns upon the frontier.
Meanwhile the Bishop, seeing the hesitation of Theodosius and expecting to be sacrificed, made his way to the camp of the Huns and promised in return for his life to deliver Margus to them, and this he did upon the following night. Then, dividing his forces into two armies, Attila began his real attack upon the Empire.
The first of these armies was directed upon Singidunum, the modern Belgrade, which was taken and ruined, and when that was achieved it proceeded up the Save to Sirmium, the ancient capital of Pannonia, which soon fell into its hands. The second crossed the Danube further eastward and besieged Ratiaria, a considerable town, the head-quarters of a Roman Legion and the station of the fleet of the Danube.
THE ATTACK OF ATTILA UPON THE EAST.
THE ATTACK OF ATTILA UPON THE EAST.
THE ATTACK OF ATTILA UPON THE EAST.
Having thus, with this second army, secured the flank, Attila marched his first army from Singidunum up the Morava to Naissus (Nisch), precisely as the Austrians tried to do but yesterday. They failed, but he succeeded and Naissus fell. Thence he passed on to Sardica where he was met by his second army which had taken Ratiaria. Sardica was pillaged and burnt.
Attila thus possessed himself in the year 441 of the gateways of the Balkans, almost without a protest from Theodosius. Five years later, in 446, he was ready to advance again. In that year and the next he destroyed two Roman armies, took and pillaged some seventy towns, and pushed south as far as Thermopylae, and eastward even to Gallipoli; only the walls of Constantinople saved the capital. Theodosius was forced to buy a disgraceful peace at the price of an immediate payment of 6000 pounds’ weight of gold, an annual tribute, no longer even disguised, of 2000 pounds, and an undertaking that the Empire would never employ or give refuge to any of those whom Attila claimed as his subjects.
It was easier to agree to such terms thanto fulfil them. The provinces were ruined, the whole fiscal system of the East in confusion, and even what wealth remained was, as Priscus tells us, “spent not in national purposes, but on absurd shows and gaudy pageants, and all the pleasures and excesses of a licentious society such as would not have been permitted in any properly governed State, even in the midst of the greatest prosperity.” Attila, who marked the decay and the embarrassment of the Imperial Government, forewent nothing of his advantage. He became more and more rapacious. When he did not obtain all he desired he sent an embassy to Constantinople to intimidate the government, and this became a regular means of blackmail with him, a means more humiliating than war and not less successful.
The first of these embassies arrived in Constantinople immediately after the terms of peace had been agreed upon. It made further demands, and was treated with the most extravagant hospitality. Three times within a single year other embassies arrived; they were a means of blackmail and were assured of an ever-increasing success.
The most famous and the most important of these embassies was that which arrived inConstantinople in 449. The ambassadors then employed by Attila are worthy of notice, for in them we see not only the condition of things at that time, but also the naive cunning of the Hun. The two chief legates whom Attila dispatched to Constantinople upon this occasion were Edecon and Orestes. Edecon was a Scythian or Hun by birth, a heathen of course, and a Barbarian, the commander of the guard of Attila, and the father of Odoacer, later to be so famous. Orestes, on the other hand, who was one of Attila’s chief ministers, was a Roman provincial of Pannonia, born at Petavium (probably Pettau on the Drave), who had made a fortunate marriage as a young man when he allied himself with Romulus, a considerable Roman personage of that province. He had, however, deserted the Imperial service, certainly open to him, for that of the Barbarians, and had made his fortune. Nor was his part in history to be played out in the service of Attila, for his son Romulus was to be the last of the Western Emperors, contemptuously known to history as Romulus Augustulus.
Orestes was then an adventurer pure and simple, but in sending him with the Barbarian Edecon, we see the system of Attila in hisblackmail of the Empire. The employment of a Roman provincial was a check upon the Barbarian envoy. A bitter jealousy subsisted between them, each spied on the other, and thus Attila was well served. The fact that the Hun was able to command the services of such as Orestes is a sufficient comment upon the condition of the frontier provinces.
It was these two jealous envoys that, in the early months of 449, appeared in Constantinople bringing, of course, new demands. Their mission, indeed, was the most insolent that Attila had so far dared to send. It demanded three main things; first, that all the country to the south of the Danube as far as Naissus should be regarded as a part of the Hunnish Empire; second, that in future Theodosius should send to the Hunnish court only the most illustrious ambassadors, but if this were done Attila for his part would consent to meet them on the frontier at Sardica; third, that the refugees should be delivered up. This last demand was a repetition of many that had gone before it. As before Attila threatened if his requests were not granted he would make war.
The ambassadors Edecon and Orestes came to Constantinople where a “Roman” named Vigilas acted as their guide and interpreter, anindiscreet and vulgar fellow of whom we shall hear more presently. Received in audience by Theodosius in the famous palace on the Bosphorus, the ambassadors with the interpreter later visited the chief minister, the eunuch Chrysaphius. On their way they passed through the noble halls of Constantine decorated with gold and built of marble, the whole a vast palace, perhaps as great as the Vatican. Edecon, the Hun, was stupefied by so much splendour, he could not forbear to express his amazement; Vigilas was not slow to mark this naive astonishment nor to describe it to Chrysaphius, who presently proposed to put it to good use. Taking Edecon apart from Orestes as he talked he suggested to him that he also might enjoy such splendour if he would leave the Huns and enter the service of the Emperor. After all it was not more than Orestes had done. But Edecon answered that it would be despicable to leave one’s master without his consent. Chrysaphius then asked what position he held at the court of Attila, and if he was so much in the confidence of his master as to have access freely to him. To which Edecon answered that he approached him when he would, that he was indeed the chief of his captains andkept watch over his person by night. And when Chrysaphius heard this he was content and told Edecon that if he were capable of discretion he would show him a way to grow rich without trouble, but that he must speak with him more at leisure, which he would do presently if he would come and sup with him that evening alone without Orestes or any following. Already in the mind of the eunuch a plan was forming by which he hoped to rid the Empire once for all of the formidable Hun.
Edecon accepted the invitation. Awaiting him he found Vigilas with Chrysaphius, and after supper heard apparently without astonishment the following amazing proposal. After swearing him to secrecy, Chrysaphius explained that he proposed to him the assassination of Attila. “If you but succeed in this and gain our frontiers,” said he, “there will be no limit to our gratitude, you shall be loaded with honours and riches.”
The Hun was ready in appearance at least to agree, but he insisted that he would need money for bribery, not much, but at least fifty pounds’ weight of gold. This he explained he could not carry back with him as Attila was wont upon the return of his ambassadors to exact a most strict accountof the presents they had received, and so great a weight of gold could not escape the notice of his own companion and servants. He suggested then that Vigilas should accompany him home under the pretext of returning the fugitives and that at the right moment he should find the money necessary for the project. Needless to say, Chrysaphius readily agreed to all that Edecon proposed. He does not seem either to have been ashamed to make so Hunnish a proposal or to have suspected for a moment that Edecon was deceiving him. He laid all before Theodosius, won his consent and the approval of Martial his minister.
Together they decided to send an embassy to Attila, to which the better to mask their intentions Vigilas should be attached as interpreter. This embassy they proposed to make as imposing as possible, and to this end they appointed as its chief a man of a high, but not of consular rank, and of the best reputation. In this they showed a certain ability, for as it seemed to them if their plot failed they could escape suspicion by means of the reputation of their ambassador. The man they chose was called Maximin, and he fortunately chose as his secretary Priscus, the Sophist, to whose pen we are indebted for an accountof all these things. He asserts, and probably with truth, that neither Maximin nor he himself was aware of the plot of assassination. They conceived themselves to be engaged in a serious mission and were the more impressed by its importance in that its terms were far less subservient to the Hun than had been the custom in recent times. Attila was told that henceforth he must not evade the obligations of his treaties nor invade at all the Imperial territories. And with regard to the fugitives he was informed that beside those already surrendered seventeen were now sent but that there were no more. So ran the letter. But Maximin was also to say that the Hun must look for no ambassador of higher rank than himself since it was not the Imperial custom towards the Barbarians; on the contrary, Rome was used to send to the North any soldier or messenger who happened to be available. And since he had now destroyed Sardica his proposal to meet there any ambassador of consular rank was merely insolent. If indeed the Hun wished to remove the differences between Theodosius and himself he should send Onegesius as ambassador. Onegesius was the chief minister of Attila.
Such were the two missions, the one official,the other secret, which set out together from Constantinople.
The great journey seems to have been almost wholly uneventful as far as Sardica, 350 miles from Constantinople, which was reached after a fortnight of travel. They found that town terribly pillaged but not destroyed, and the Imperial embassy bought sheep and oxen, and having prepared dinner invited Edecon and his colleagues to share it with them, for they were still officially within the Empire. But within those ruins, even among the ambassadors, peace was impossible. Priscus records the ridiculous quarrel which followed. The Huns began to magnify the power of Attila,—was not his work around them? The Romans knowing the contents of the letter they bore sang the praises of the Emperor. Suddenly Vigilas, perhaps already drunk, asserted that it was not right to compare men with the gods, nor Attila with Theodosius, since Attila was but a man. Only the intervention of Maximin and Priscus prevented bloodshed, nor was harmony restored till Orestes and Edecon had received presents of silk and jewels. Even these gifts were not made altogether without an untoward incident. For Orestes in thankingMaximin exclaimed that he, Maximin, was not like those insolent courtiers of Constantinople “who gave presents and invitations to Edecon, but none to me.” And when Maximin, ignorant of the Chrysaphian plot, demanded explanations, Orestes angrily left him. Already the plan of assassination was beginning to fester.
The ambassadors went on from ruined Sardica to desolate Naissus (Nisch) utterly devoid of inhabitants, full only of horror and ruins. They crossed a plain sown with human bones whitening in the sun, and saw the only witness to the Hunnish massacre of the inhabitants—a vast cemetery. “We found,” Priscus tells us, “a clean place above the river where we camped and slept.”
Close to this ruined town was the Imperial army, commanded by Agintheus, under whose eagles five of the seventeen refugees to be surrendered had taken refuge. The Roman general, however, was obliged to give them up. Their terror as they went on in the ambassadorial train towards the Danube may well be imagined.
The great river at length came in sight; its approaches lined and crowded with Huns, the passages served by the Barbarians in dug-outs, boats formed out of the hollowed trunks of trees. With these boats the whole Barbarianshore was littered as though in readiness for the advance of an army. Indeed, as it appeared Attila was in camp close by, and intent on hunting within the Roman confines to the south of the river, a means certainly of reconnaissance as habitually used by the Huns as commerce has been for the same end by the Germans.
We do not know with what feelings Maximin and Priscus saw all this and crossed the great river frontier at last and passed into Barbary. To their great chagrin, for they had made the way easy for the Hunnish ambassadors on the road through the Imperial provinces, Edecon and Orestes now left them brusquely enough. For several days they went on alone but for the guides Edecon had left them, till one afternoon they were met by two horsemen who informed them that they were close to the camp of Attila who awaited them. And indeed upon the morrow they beheld from a hill-top the Barbarian tents spread out innumerable at their feet, and among them that of the King. They decided to camp there on the hill; but a troop of Huns at once rode up and ordered them to establish themselves in the plain. “What,” cried they, “will you dare to pitch your tents on the heights when that of Attila is below?”
They were scarce established in their appointed place when to their amazement Edecon and Orestes and others appeared and asked their business, the object of their embassy. The astonished ambassadors looked at one another in amaze. When the question was repeated Maximin announced that he could not disclose his mission to any other than Attila to whom he was accredited. Scotta, the brother of Onegesius, then announced angrily that Attila had sent them and they must have an answer. When Maximin again refused the Huns galloped away.
The Romans, however, were not left long in doubt of the reception they were to get. Scotta and his friends soon returned without Edecon, and to the further amazement of Maximin repeated word for word the contents of the Imperial letter to Attila. “Such,” said they, “is your commission. If this be all depart at once.” Maximin protested in vain. Nothing remained but to prepare for departure. Vigilas who knew what Chrysaphius expected was particularly furious; better have lied than to return without achieving anything, said he. What to do? It was already night. They were in the midst of Barbary, between them and the Danube lay leagues of wild unfriendlycountry. Suddenly as their servants loaded the beasts for their miserable journey other messengers arrived from the Hun. They might remain in their camp till dawn. In that uneasy night, had Vigilas been less of a fool, he must have guessed that Edecon had betrayed him.
It was not the barbarous Vigilas, however, who found a way out of the difficulty, for at dawn the command to depart was repeated, but that Priscus who has left us so vivid an account of this miserable affair. He it was who, seeing the disgrace of his patron, sought out Scotta, the brother of Onegesius, the chief minister of Attila, in the Hunnish camp. With him went Vigilas as interpreter, and so cleverly did the Sophist work upon the ambition of Scotta, pointing out to him not only the advantages of peace between the Huns and the Romans, but also the personal advantage Scotta would gain thereby in honour and presents, and at last feigning to doubt Scotta’s ability to achieve even so small a matter as the reception of the embassy that he had his way. Scotta rode off to see Attila, Priscus returned to his patron, and soon after Scotta returned to escort them to the royal tent.
The reception must have been a strangespectacle. The tent of Attila was quite surrounded by a multitude of guards; within, upon a stool of wood, was seated the great Hun. Priscus, Vigilas and the servants who attended them bearing the presents remained upon the threshold. Maximin alone went forward and gave into Attila’s hands the letter of Theodosius saying: “The Emperor wishes Attila and all that are his health and length of days.” “May the Romans receive all they desire for me,” replied the instructed Barbarian. And turning angrily to Vigilas he said: “Shameless beast, why hast thou dared to come hither knowing as thou dost the terms of peace I made with thee and Anatolius. Did I not then tell thee that I would receive no more ambassadors till all the refugees had been surrendered!” Vigilas replied that they brought seventeen fugitives with them and that now there remained no more within the Empire. This only made Attila more furious: “I would crucify thee and give thee as food for the vultures but for the laws regarding envoys,” cried he. As for the refugees, he declared there were many still within the Empire, and bade his people read out their names, and this done he told Vigilas to depart with Eslas, one of his officers, to inform Theodosius that hemust forthwith return all the fugitives who had entered the Empire from the time of Carpilio, son of Aetius, who had been his hostage. “I will never suffer,” said he, “that my slaves shall bear arms against me, useless though they be to aid those with whom they have found refuge.... What city or what fortress have they been able to defend when I have determined to take it?” When he had said these words he grew calmer; informed Maximin that the order of departure only concerned Vigilas, and prayed the ambassador to remain and await the reply to the letter of the Emperor. The audience closed with the presentation and acceptance of the Roman presents.
Vigilas must surely have guessed now what his dismissal meant. Perhaps, however, he was too conceited and too stupid to notice it. At any rate he did not enlighten his companions but professed himself stupefied by the change of Attila’s demeanour towards him. The whole affair was eagerly discussed in the Roman camp. Priscus suggested that Vigilas’ unfortunate indiscretion at Sardica had been reported to Attila and had enraged him. Maximin did not know what to think. While they were still debating Edecon appeared andtook Vigilas apart. The Hun may well have thought he needed reassurance. He declared that he was still true to the plan of Chrysaphius. Moreover, seeing what a fool Vigilas was, he told him that his dismissal was a contrivance of his own to enable the interpreter to return to Constantinople and fetch the money promised, which could be introduced as necessary to the embassy for the purchase of goods. Vigilas, however, can scarcely have believed him, at any rate for long; a few hours later Attila sent word that none of the Romans were to be allowed to buy anything but the bare necessities of life from the Huns, neither horses, nor other beasts, nor slaves, nor to redeem captives. Vigilas departed with the order ringing in his ears, upon a mission he must have known to be hopeless.
Two days later Attila broke camp and set out for his capital, the Roman ambassadors following in his train under the direction of guides appointed by the Hun. They had not gone far on their way northward when they were directed to leave the train of Attila and to follow another route, because, they were told, the King was about to add one more to his innumerable wives, Escam, the daughter of a chief in a neighbouring village.
Very curious is Priscus’ description of the way followed by the patron and his embassy. They journeyed across the Hungarian plain, across horrible marshes and lakes which had to be traversed sometimes on rafts; they crossed three great rivers, the Drave, the Temes, and the Theiss in dug-outs, boats such as they had seen on the Danube hollowed out of the trunks of trees. They lived for the most part on millet which their guides brought or took from the wretched inhabitants, they drank mead and beer, and were utterly at the mercy of the weather, which was extremely bad. On one occasion, indeed, their camp was entirely destroyed by tempest, and had it not been for the hospitality of the widow of Bleda they would perhaps have perished.
For seven days they made their way into the heart of Hungary till they came to a village where their way joined the greater route by which Attila was coming. There they were forced to await the King, since they must follow and not precede him. It was in this place that they met another Roman embassy, that of the Emperor in the West, Valentinian III, who was quarrelling with Attila about the holy vessels of Sirmium. It seems that the Bishop of Sirmium in 441,seeing his city invested, had gathered his chalices and patens and plate, sacred vessels of his church, and had sent them secretly to a certain Constantius, a Gaul, at that time Attila’s minister. In case the city fell they were to be used as ransom, first of the Bishop, and in case of his death of any other captives. Constantius was, however, untrue to the trust placed in him by the Bishop, and sold or pawned the plate to a silversmith in Rome. Attila hearing of it when Constantius was beyond his reach claimed the booty as his own. It was upon this miserable business that Valentinian had sent an embassy to Attila from Ravenna.
It is certainly a shameful and an amazing spectacle we have here. In that little village of Barbary the ambassadors of the Emperors, East and West, of the Courts of Constantinople and Ravenna, of New Rome and of Old, wait in a marsh the passage of a savage that they may be allowed to follow in his train and humbly seek an audience. Surely Attila himself had arranged that meeting, and as he rode on to his capital, the two embassies following in his dust, he must have enjoyed the outrageous insult to civilisation, the triumph of brute force over law.