Attila the Hun (22 page)

¹
These details are taken from
The Bridge over the Drina
(1945) by the Nobel Prize-winning Serb writer Ivo Andrić (trans. Lovett Edwards, London, 1959/1994).

²
The word translated as ‘repulsive’ is
teter
, a variant of
taeter
, ‘foul, hideous, noisome, repulsive’. Inexplicably, this appeared as ‘swarthy’ or ‘dark’ in some translations, a mistake much copied. The ‘complexion of his forefathers’ is
originis suae signa restituens
, literally ‘restoring the signs of his origin’. This odd phrase recalls Ammianus Marcellinus’ prejudiced descriptions of the Huns, but I think Jordanes is referring to a family trait.

³
The introduction is by his friend Lew Wallace, author of
Ben Hur
.

⁴
Many scholars place these events and the one-sided treaty in 442, when Bleda was still alive. ‘This is certainly not correct,’ comments Maenchen-Helfen, relying on Priscus to back him up. ‘Attila is the sole ruler of the Huns.
He
sends letters to the emperor,
he
is ready to receive the Roman envoys,
he
demands the tribute money. There are no more “kings of the Huns”. Bleda is dead.’

ATTILA LIVES AND BREATHES TODAY BECAUSE OF ONE MAN
, a civil servant, scholar and writer: Priscus, the only person to have met Attila and to have left a detailed record of him. It is largely from Priscus that we get a sense of his true character – less the beastly barbarian, more the revered leader with mixed qualities: ruthless, ambitious, manipulative, swift to anger, even swifter to pretend it, acquisitive for his people but personally austere, terrifying in opposition, generous in friendship. It is the portrait of a man who almost has it in him to change the course of Europe’s history.

For Priscus, a bookish 35-year-old with a flair for writing, this was an absolute gift of a story – a visit to the empire’s greatest challenger, court intrigues, an assassination plot, a journey full of incident and
tension, deception and life-threatening revelation. These bits of Priscus’
Byzantine History
– eight volumes originally, most of it lost – would make a good thriller, which is why his account was quoted so thoroughly by others and has survived. Priscus slips easily from history into narrative. He lacks a flair for the details of daily life, military matters and geography, because they did not loom large in the literary tradition of his classical models, but he has a novelist’s feel for relationships, because diplomacy was his main interest. His point of view is not all-seeing, not quite eye-of-God, because he does not enter minds, even concealing his own emotional responses. He is good on structure, though. He reveals up front what he could not have known at the time, but learned later. As a result,
we
know of the assassination plot, although
he
doesn’t until the very end. His whole journey is undertaken in ignorance, which injects a modern undertow of tension. Who knows what, exactly? When will all be revealed? How is he going to survive?

What follows is a version of Priscus’ account. The narrative technique is modernized by putting much of Priscus’ indirect speech into the form of direct quotation. I have added some details from other sources and brought others forward when it seems we should know them sooner. But the structure, the characters and many of the direct quotes are in his words, taken from the 1981–3 translation by R. C. Blockley (for details see the bibliography). Quotations from Priscus and other original sources appear in
this different typeface
to distinguish them from my own words.

* * *

T
he story starts with the arrival of Attila’s envoys at the court of Theodosius II in Constantinople in the spring of 449. The eminent team is led by Edika, the ex-Skirian leader and now Attila’s loyal ally,
who has performed outstanding deeds of war
. Orestes, a Roman from the strip of land south of the Danube now under Hun control, is the second senior member of the party, with a small retinue of his own, perhaps two or three assistants. Orestes, though rich and influential, is one of Attila’s team of administrators. He is always being sidelined by Edika and resents it. They are in the audience room of the Emperor Theodosius, in the Great Palace built at the behest of Constantine himself just over a century before, and they are open-mouthed with awe.

The Great Palace, the Mega Palation, is a sort of Byzantine Kremlin, a maze of residences, churches, porticoes, offices, barracks, baths and gardens, all surrounded by its own wall: a vast conglomeration of habitation, devotion and defence. Edwin Grosvenor, in his 1895 portrait of Constantinople, recalls its vanished glories: ‘In all the endless succession of those vast chambers and halls, all glittering with gold, mosaic and rarest marble, it seemed as if human resource and invention could achieve nothing more in overpowering gorgeousness and splendor.’ It was at this time still on the lower slopes of splendour, its peak lying 1,000 years in the future, but it already rivalled anything in Rome. Theodosius held court in Constantine’s core structure of the God-guarded palace, a mass of apartments and
state rooms known as the Daphne, named after a diviner’s column brought from a grove in Greece.

Orestes reads the letters he took at Attila’s dictation, and Vigilas, the court interpreter, translates. In summary, Attila tells the emperor what he should do to secure peace. He should cease harbouring Hun refugees, who are cultivating the no-man’s-land that he, Attila, now owns. Envoys should be sent, and not just ordinary men, but officials of the highest rank, as befits Attila’s status. If they are nervous, the King of the Huns will even cross the Danube to meet them.

A tense silence, no doubt, as an official takes the papyrus rolls. That is half the business done. Now responses must be considered, replies drafted. The delegation will be official guests for the next few days. Edika, Orestes and the assistants are ushered into a suite of rooms belonging to the chamberlain, Chrysaphius. They are nervous, for Chrysaphius is the most powerful official in the land, as was his much admired and famously incorruptible predecessor, the praetorian prefect Cyrus, the poet, philosopher and art lover who sponsored numerous beautiful buildings, developed Constantine’s university, rebuilt the walls damaged by the 447 earthquake, and was the first to publish decrees in Greek rather than in Latin. Chrysaphius is very different: a baby-faced eunuch, as venal as Cyrus was honest, whose power derives from schemes and plots. It was he who had engineered Cyrus’ fall from grace, and soon (in the words of another historian, John of Antioch) ‘controlled everything, plundering the possessions of all and hated by
all’. He now holds the compliant emperor in the palm of his hand, and it is he who will decide the best way of dealing with Attila. Chrysaphius joins them just as Edika is muttering his amazement at the lavish furnishings, thick carpets and gold-leaf ceiling.

Vigilas covers Edika’s embarrassment: ‘He was just praising the palace
and congratulating the Romans on their wealth
.’ He refers to his bosses and himself as Romans, although the ‘New Rome’ is becoming more Greek by the year.

No doubt there is an exchange of courtesies (I’m guessing: Priscus was not present to record such minor details and probably wouldn’t have done so anyway); then Chrysaphius picks up Edika’s comment with a hint at what he has in mind, speaking through Vigilas, who becomes a shadow: ‘You too, Edika,
would become the owner of wealth and of rooms with golden ceilings
if you should ever decide to work for the Romans.’ Chrysaphius has his eye on Edika, for he knows that Edika was once master of his own tribe, and must surely be resentful of his new overlord.

Edika is wary. ‘
It is not right for the servant of another master to do this without his lord’s permission
.’

Chrysaphius probes delicately. So Edika is that close to Attila? Does he, for example, have unrestricted access?

‘I am one of Attila’s closest attendants, responsible for guarding him.’

‘You alone?’

‘There are several of us. We take turns, a day each.’

‘H’m.’ Chrysaphius pauses. ‘There is something I
would like to discuss with you, which I think may be to your advantage. It would be better to do so at leisure, in private, over dinner, at my place. Without the others.’ A glance across the room at Orestes and his entourage. ‘But I will need your assurance that it will remain between us.’

So there are just the three at dinner that evening, except for the slaves waiting at table. With Vigilas whispering his interpretations, Chrysaphius and Edika clasp right hands and exchange oaths, the one swearing he will speak not to Edika’s harm but to his
great advantage
, the other promising total discretion, even if he should feel unable to comply with whatever it is his host is about to suggest.

This is the proposal:

Edika will go home, kill Attila, then return to Constantinople, and
to a life of happiness and very great wealth
.

Edika does not react outwardly, but there would surely have been a stunned silence while he absorbed the implications of this astonishing suggestion. Vigilas waits, the image of professional composure.

Then, quite simply, Edika agrees. It will take money, of course. He will have to pay off the guards under his command. Not much, he says casually; 50 pounds of gold (3,600 gold coins, or
solidi
;
¹
$320,000 today) should be enough. It certainly should: enough to set up all his underlings for life.

Mere pocket money for such a man as the chamberlain. Edika can have the money immediately.

Well, not so fast. Edika lays out the practicalities. When he returns to Attila to report on the mission, Orestes and the others will be in the party. ‘Attila always wants to know all the details of gifts and who the donors are. He’ll question everyone. There is no way we could hide fifty pounds of gold. But Vigilas will have to return to Constantinople with instructions on what to do with the fugitives. He will tell you how to send the gold.’

This seems sensible to the chamberlain. Vigilas is a good man. After dinner, Edika goes to his room while Chrysaphius seeks an audience with the emperor, who summons his Master of the Offices, Martialis, the man in charge of messengers, interpreters (which includes Vigilas) and imperial bodyguards. The plot thickens. The three of them decide that Vigilas, despite previous experience on embassies, is not after all the right person to carry the emperor’s reply to Attila’s demands. He is told he is now under the authority of Edika (fair enough, considering that these two are the plotters, but putting a Roman under a Hun will be a potential source of tension). Besides, there is another delicate matter to be resolved, which involves negotiating the ransom of a number of Roman prisoners held by Attila. This should all be in the hands of an imperial ambassador. The man they have in mind is Maximinus, a man of illustrious lineage and an imperial confidant, just the sort of high-level envoy Attila had demanded. Although Priscus does not say so, there must surely be a hidden agenda
too: they wish to have a senior man on hand when Attila is assassinated.

They brief Maximinus, without telling him about the plot. He is to point out that there is no need for Attila to stage a meeting across the Danube, which would obviously be a way of showing that he could enter Roman territory at will. If he wants a meeting, he can send his deputy, Onegesius (about whom we shall hear more later). Moreover, the letter from the emperor states categorically: ‘
In addition to those already handed over, I have sent you seventeen fugitives, since there are no more
.’ The fugitives are to be picked up from a military base on the new frontier, near Naissus, the town sacked by the Huns two years before.

This is where Priscus enters. Maximinus knows him, and of his skill with words. Possibly, Priscus is one of those who has been busy over the last ten years drafting the Theodosian Code of imperial laws. He certainly knows his Herodotus and his Thucydides well enough to lend his own writings authority by echoing their style and phraseology. He is good at writing speeches, too. He will be ideal for keeping an account of this important mission: scrupulous, a bit of a civil service fuddy-duddy, but with a fine turn of phrase. Unadventurous by nature, though; it takes more than a little persuasion to get him on board.