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The Huns!how responsible were they for the fall of rome??????

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  Posted by LeonidasMagnus (U2215769) on Monday, 6th March 2006

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  Posted by yankee014 (U3352255) on Monday, 6th March 2006

  The Huns were indirectly responsible for the fall of the Roman Empire. Attila and his Huns dealt a major blow to the already crumbling Roman economy by ravaging the Italian countryside. The Huns are also somewhat responsible for the other barbarian invaders. They were one of the tribes driving the other tribes further west.

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  Posted by Alaric the Goth (U1826823) on Wednesday, 8th March 2006

  The Huns were from the Asian steppes. They may be the same people that Chinese sources called the 'Hsiong-nu'. Infact the repulsion of them by Chinese forces may have caused then to turn their hordes west and head for Europe.
  
  Around 370 they 'crashed' into the Ostrogothic kingdom in what is now the Ukraine, and in a kind of domino effectt they in turn pushed the Visigoths (who had been living in Transylvania) westward, who sought, and were given, entry into the (Eastern) Roman Empire, but on very unfair terms.
  
  The Visigoths wer ill-treated and so rebelled, and the defeat of the Romans by them at the battle of Adrianopolis (378AD, IIRC) involving the death of the E. Roman Emperor, was a major 'landmark' on the way to Roman collapse.
  
  It was quite a lot later that the Huns themselves made their presence felt in Roman lands. Aetius, a consul in Gaul, had spent time at Attila's court as a hostage, and so knew Hunnish language and ways quite well. He used the Huns as a means of countering the Germanic people's power, e.g. they destroyed a Burgundian kingdom on the Rhine, and the remnant of that people moved south to found 'Burgundy'.
  
  But when things were getting out of hand with the Huns' power growing vast, he was forced into alliance with the Visigoths and others, and at the battle of the Catalaunian Plains the Huns and Ostrogoths (their allies) were defeated. It is said that Aetius did not allow the Visigoths to follow up the victory by destroying the Huns utterly, as he probably hoped in future to be able to use the Huns against the Goths, should they be getting too powerful. So he in a way may have consigned Italia to its fate of Hunnish invasion. Only Attila's death (form a nosebleed, allegedly!) saved it from total destruction.
  
  Though it could be argued that far worse awaited Italy: the Ostrogoths founded a kingdom there which was fairly civilised, but the efforts of the E. Roman *(Byzantine) Empire to reconquer it in the 6th century destroyed much of what remained in a very bitter war betweeen the Goths and the 'Greeks'. Just when the Goths had completely lost and things were settling down, the Lombards rode in from the north under their ruthelss king, Alboin. The sort of chap he was can be judged as he made a drinking vessel (scala) out of his father-in-law's skull.

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