Patrick Howarth Robinson: Atilla King Of The Huns

By JOHN CONNOR

In AD451 Aetius the Roman defeated Attila the Hun at the awful Battle of Chalons and saved civilisation from that terrible barbarian. That's the popular myth, anyway. As Patrick Howarth argues, however, there's not much truth in it.

By 451 civilisation, in the form of the Western Roman Empire, was beyond saving. Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Vandals and a half dozen or so other assorted barbarian tribes had already left the Western Empire mortally wounded.

Aetius was certainly Roman but his army, like the Roman Army had been for more than 100 years, was mainly Romanised Germans and barbarian Germans. The only thing the Battle of Chalons decided was which particular barbarians would inherit the Western Empire.

Attila was certainly a barbarian insofar as he wasn't Roman, but he was no more cruel or destructive than any other barbarian or, for that matter, any so-called civilised military leader of the time.

Pillage, plunder and the sacking of cities was not the exclusive province of barbarians.

Besides, Attila's empire depended on gold. If the rich cities paid him tribute, he left them alone. If they didn't, he sacked them. What choice did he have? It was business, nothing personal.

What? We'll be hearing next that Attila was a loving and kindly husband and father. Well, according to Howarth's sources that's exactly what he was. He also showed mercy and justice to those who plotted to murder him. Hardly the behaviour of a bloodthirsty tyrant.

All right, but surely it's true that Attila died of a burst blood vessel after a night of drunken debauchery.

Probably not. Howarth's sources tell us that Attila was a model of abstemiousness and plain living.

Howarth's sources, of course, are the same ones Gibbon used in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. No one could match that giant. Wisely, Howarth doesn't even try. His work lacks the depth, analysis and organisation of the true historian.

Still, Howarth is not aiming for the Chair of History at Oxford University. He wants to inform and entertain and invites us to meet the man behind the raging demon myth. In this he succeeds admirably.

* John Connor is an Auckland writer and lecturer.

* $27.95