Attila the Hun (29 page)

The main thrust, though, lay westward, towards Orléans, where Attila’s old enemies, the Alans, prepared for assault. The Huns, with their wagons, were moving with less than
Blitzkrieg
speed, covering no more than 20 kilometres a day, through a countryside emptied by fear. Those with possessions buried them; the rich trembled in their fortified mansions; the poor fled to the woods and mountains.

They even began to flee a little town to the north, way off the Hun line of march. The Parisians didn’t want to be trapped on their river-island. It was (of course) a saint who brought them to their senses. Genevieve, like another later saintly maiden, had kept sheep as a child, before taking the veil at fifteen and becoming noted for her self-mortifying austerity and visions, the one no doubt producing the other. She
was good at miraculous cures and at seeing the future, both talents that came in handy when the Huns invaded. This, she saw, had to be the will of God, who could be mollified only by prayer and repentance. She made a dramatic appeal to the townsfolk not to abandon their homes, but instead to look to God for salvation. The men reviled her and went on fleeing, but courageous women put their cowardly men to shame, and the exodus stopped. Lo and behold, the Huns came nowhere near Paris. They had no need to, of course, because it wasn’t on their route. But Paris remembered this simple country girl who reversed the panic that could have turned the future French capital into a ghost town, and made Genevieve the city’s patron saint.

Where, meanwhile, was the imperial army? When the Huns had first invaded, no-one knew their destination. Perhaps it was Italy. Valentinian had ordered most of the army to remain at their home bases. Aetius, as a precaution, was sent off with a small force to Arles, at the mouth of the Rhône, where he awaited developments, no doubt in increasing impatience.

Now the Huns were heading south-west, aiming to go over the open lands of Champagne, across the Loire, then south towards the Visigothic capital, Toulouse. This would keep them well away from the Massif Central, and, once free of the Loire’s forests and out in the open, allow their cavalry to operate to full advantage.

On the way, though, were two major cities, Troyes and Orléans.

Orléans would be the key, as it had been for
centuries. Its original name, or rather the Latin version of its original Celtic name, was Genabum, since it sat on the
genu
, the knee, of the Loire, where the river kinked at its most northerly point. In winter the Loire was a torrent; but in summer it became a river-road, the best way of travelling through the thick oak forests either to the coast or to the high heartland and on down the Rhône to the Mediterranean. But it was also a meeting point for roads, one of which led south over a stone bridge. It was, in brief, the gateway to the north-west. Caesar having burned it, Marcus Aurelius rebuilt it, naming it after himself, Aurelianum, which later transmuted into Orléans. In the fifth century it was rich, big and sophisticated, far outdoing little Paris, and not bothered by the presence in the surrounding forests of an Alan clan.

It would have taken the Huns three weeks to cover the 330 kilometres from Metz to Orléans, assuming a clear run. They would be there by early May. The citizens locked themselves within their solid walls and prepared for a siege. Meanwhile, a Christian leader, Anianus – later sainted for his services as St Aignan (or Agnan) – had already hurried off to contact Aetius, to check for himself what help might be available, and when. Aetius was in Arles, at the mouth of the Rhône, a long haul for Anianus, whether by road or by river, perhaps a combination of the two, riding upriver beside the Loire’s springtime current for 300 kilometres (two weeks), over the watershed at St Etienne to the Rhône (a day), then fast downriver for 200 kilometres (another five days). It would take at least the same
again for Aetius to move north: say, five weeks in all – a close-run thing, especially as the Huns were not the only danger. The local Alans suddenly recalled that their kinsmen were Hun vassals, and were part of the approaching army. Their chief, Sangibanus, sent a message to Attila, saying that he would help take Orléans in exchange for fair treatment.

Attila’s route led across the rivers Aube and Seine through Troyes, and around it, for this was a large army, with wagons, which would have used every available road. He would have noted the landscape north of Troyes, today’s Aube
département
, the chalky savannahs of Champagne, where the Seine and Aube meander towards each other across the Catalaunian Plains. Troyes, a pretty place of wood-and-thatch houses and perhaps a stone-built villa or two, had no walls – easy prey for the advancing Huns. There was a substantial church, which rated a bishop, Lupus, famous for having been part of a mission to post-Roman Britain 20 years previously, and about to become much more famous – briefly, infamous – as a result of Attila’s arrival.

Attila’s troops would have entered Troyes. It was too good a source of supplies to ignore. No doubt looting had already started, inspiring a legend in which fact and fiction are hopelessly mixed, but which is often presented as history. According to Lupus’ official biography, he saved his city and his people by confronting Attila, a meeting that involved one of the supposed origins of a famous phrase. Assuming the meeting took place, how Lupus introduced himself
is not recorded, but it presumably included something like: I am Lupus, a man of God. At this, Attila came up with a smart one-liner, in impeccable Latin:

‘
Ego sum Attila, flagellum Dei
’ – ‘I am Attila, the Scourge of God.’

This was, of course, a Christian interpolation, made because Attila’s success demanded explanation. It would have been inconceivable that a pagan could prevail over God’s own empire, against God’s will. Therefore, pagan or not, he must have had God’s backing, the only possible explanation being that Christendom had not lived up to divine expectations and was being punished for its lapses. A folk tale tells of a hermit, captured by the Huns, foretelling doom: ‘You are God’s Scourge, but God may, if it pleases Him, break his instrument of vengeance. You will be defeated, so that you may know that your power has no earthly origin.’ Isidore of Seville, an encyclopedist of the sixth and seventh centuries, also used the phrase to describe the Huns. Within two centuries it was a cliché: one to which we shall return in chapter 12.

Precisely the same argument would be used by a later pagan leader against another monotheistic religion, when Genghis Khan swept into the Islamic world in 1220. He is said to have told the citizens of Bukhara: ‘I am the punishment of God. If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you.’ In both cases, the historian who recorded the leader’s words served an agenda, to remind the faithful of the need for piety. Thus churches make pagan leaders serve a divine purpose, despite themselves.

As the story goes, the bishop was intimidated. Since Attila was, it seemed, divine retribution, appeasement, rather than defiance, was in order: ‘What mortal could stand against God’s scourge?’ he replied. So the two found each other useful. Attila agreed to spare Troyes – not so much as a chicken taken from it – with the proviso that Lupus must stay with him until Attila saw fit to let him go. The bishop could prove a handy lever should his flock think of offering resistance, or if he, Attila, needed a bargaining chip at some time in the future. It was a deal that rather took the shine off Lupus’ reputation. Was he a hostage, as he would no doubt have claimed? Or more of a guide, an early example of what is now known as Hostage Syndrome, when the victim, in self-protection, becomes complicit in the crime?

M
eanwhile, Anianus was in Arles, doing his best to persuade Aetius to move. Orléans could hold out for a month, no more. According to the account of his life, he sets a deadline: ‘Thus shall the prophecies by the Spirit be fulfilled, that on the 8th day [before] the
kalends
(i.e. the 1st) of July, the cruel beast shall resolve to tear the flock to pieces. I beg that the Patrician shall come to our aid by the predicted date.’ Any later than mid-June and all would be lost. Aetius gave his word, and Anianus headed for home.

Aetius now faced the unpleasant task of going to war with the people he had known from childhood, whose soldiers he had used as mercenaries, with whom he had sought nothing but peace for the last fifteen years. To
fight them, he would have to make friends with Attila’s enemies, the Visigoths, the strongest of the many barbarian forces scattered across the face of Gaul, and Rome’s traditional enemy.

Theodoric had been resigned to war with Attila. Over the last 20 years, he had got used to being Aetius’ foe as well, and had no hopes of any help. He was therefore preparing to defend his land, his people and his capital, Toulouse. It had not occurred to him to take the war to Attila through the hostile territory of Gaul. Aetius knew all this. To bring Theodoric on board would take some very astute diplomacy, for which he obtained backing from the Emperor Valentinian himself.

As it happened, there was a man who could undertake this task quite nearby, in Clermont-Ferrand. It was, of course, Avitus: patrician, scholar, diplomat, future emperor and friend of Theodoric. Having retired from public office, for the past eleven years he had enjoyed the life of a wealthy aristocrat, supervising Avitacum and its huge estate, with its pines, waterfalls and delightful lake, pursuing not just the pleasures of the senses and the mind, but also a political and cultural agenda. He knew from personal experience that military power alone could not preserve the empire. He had seen wandering barbarians settle and change. The idea was this: that peace would grow from education in the ways of Rome. As O. M. Dalton put it in his edition of Sidonius’ letters, he probably believed that peaceful ‘understanding with the most civilised of the barbaric peoples might save an empire which Italy was too enfeebled to lead’. If this was so – and his later
life’s work suggests it was – he would have dreamed ‘of a Teutonic aristocracy more and more refined by Latin influences, which should impart to the Romans the qualities of a less sophisticated race and to their own countrymen a wider acceptance of Italian culture’. Theodoric and his Visigoths were the proof that such an aim could be successful.

Having led his people to an end of wandering, Theodoric now had ambitions to rival, if not Rome, then at least its provinces in the arts of civilization. He was flattered to have the friendship of a man admired even in Rome. From his estate by the shores of Lake Aydat, Avitus had brought silky sophistication to Theodoric’s untutored, fur-clad chieftains and his capital, Toulouse (Tolosa as it was then), 250 kilo-metres away to the south-west. Young Goths were now studying the
Aeneid
and Roman law. The patrician had even offered personal guidance on the tutoring of the youngest and brightest, another Theodoric. Of all Rome’s nobles, Avitus was the only one guaranteed to get a good reception from Theodoric. They were friends, almost equals.

The fate of Gaul, perhaps of the empire, now rested on the personal links between three men: Aetius, the commander; Avitus, the peaceful patrician; and Theodoric, the barbarian king wary of Rome’s motives, yet eager for Rome’s culture. Two days after Anianus’ departure, Aetius was with Avitus, putting his case. I imagine the two of them in the scroll-filled library overlooking the pines, the hot baths and the surrounding mountains. It was not an easy case, because Aetius
wanted Avitus to use his peaceful links with Theodoric to convince him of the need for war. Attila was no Theodoric. It would be useless to think of talking settlement, peace and education. Sidonius’ poem suggests what was said, the gist of which ran like this: ‘Avitus, it is no new honour to have me make a plea to you. At your command, enemies become peaceful and if war is in order, you produce it. For your sake, the Goths stay within their frontiers, and for your sake they will attack. Make them do it now.’

And Avitus went, bearing an urgent request to Theodoric from the Emperor Valentinian himself, which Jordanes turns into ringing words, delivered, we can assume, by the patrician in person:

Bravest of nations, it would be prudent of you to combine against Rome’s oppressor, who wishes to enslave the whole world, who needs no cause for war, but thinks that whatever he does is right. He grabs whatever he can reach, he takes pride in licence, he despises law both human and divine, he shows himself an enemy of all nature. Indeed, he who is the enemy of all deserves such hatred. I beg you to remember what you surely cannot forget: that the Huns do not win by fighting wars, in the results of which all share, but, more disturbingly, by treachery. To say nothing of ourselves, can your pride bear this to go unpunished? Being mighty in arms, heed your danger, and join hands with us.

Theodoric responded like a hero, declaiming his reply to Avitus in front of his chiefs:

Romans, you shall have what you desire. You have made Attila our foe as well. We will follow him wherever he summons us, and however puffed up he may be by divers victories over mighty peoples, the Goths know how to fight off these overbearing people. I call no war a burden, unless it lack good cause; for he on whom Dignity smiles fears no ill.

And so diplomacy and charm produced what no war could have achieved: a force that could confront the greatest barbarian army yet to threaten the empire. ‘Will future races and peoples ever believe this?’ commented Avitus’ son-in-law Sidonius later, eager to assert the primacy of negotiation over force. ‘A Roman’s letters annulled a barbarian’s conquests!’

For his hero’s words, Theodoric received a just reward. ‘The nobles shouted their acclaim, and the people gladly followed’ – no longer in defence but forward, to stop Attila in his tracks, with Theodoric leading ‘a countless host’, flanked by two of his sons, Thorismund and Theodoric, the four others being left to guard the home front. ‘O happy array,’ comments Jordanes, who was himself a Goth. ‘Sweet comradeship, to have the help and solace of those whom he chooses to share his dangers!’