![]() |
|
![]() |
|
|
Start |||
The
Philosophical Europe ||| The Political Progress ||| European Witness ||| EU News
European Forum ||| Special Homages: Meister Eckhart / David Copperfield ||| Donate |
|
From Hutton Webster's, Early European History (1917); edited for this on-line publication, by ELLOPOS
VIII. THE GERMANS TO 476 A.D.
» Contents of this Chapter
Page 11
INROADS OF THE HUNS
THE HUNS
We know very little about the Huns, except that they were not related to the Germans or to any other European people. Some scholars believe them to have belonged to the Mongolian race. But the Huns, to the excited imagination of Roman writers, were demons rather than men. Their olive skins, little, turned-up noses, and black, beady eyes must have given them a very frightful appearance. They spent most of their time on horseback, sweeping over the country like a whirlwind and leaving destruction and death in their wake.
ATTILA THE HUN
The Huns did not become dangerous to Rome for more than half a century after their first appearance in Europe. During this time they moved into the Danube region and settled in the lands now known as Austria and Hungary. At last the Huns found a national leader in Attila, "a man born into the world to agitate the nations, the fear of all lands," [15] one whose boast it was that the grass never grew again where his horse's hoofs had trod. He quickly built up a great military power obeyed by many barbarous nations from the Caspian to the Rhine.
[15] Jordanes, De rebus Geticis, 35.
THE MAKING OF EUROPE / EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY: Table of Contents
url: www.ellopos.net/politics/european-history/default.asp
Cf. The Ancient Greece * The Ancient Rome
Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) * Western Medieval Europe * Renaissance in Italy