WEBVTT - How Attila the Hun Worked 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.560 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from How Stuff Works 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:13.800 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. 0:00:13.920 --> 0:00:18.800 There's Charles w Chuck Bryant. There's a guest producer, Dylan Again. 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:21.680 You know, Dylan got a job here because he heard 0:00:21.680 --> 0:00:23.360 of How Stuff Works, because he was a Stuff you 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:26.799 Should Know fan. This might be the most thrilling moment 0:00:26.840 --> 0:00:29.840 of Dylan's life, the most thrilling two hours. Either that 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:33.640 or the most illusion shattering two hours. I think that 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:36.280 since Dylan started working here, it's just been a slow 0:00:36.520 --> 0:00:41.239 anti climax, down, down, down, leading to this moment of 0:00:41.360 --> 0:00:46.199 rock bottom. We're like that guy, rag him out. Oh 0:00:46.880 --> 0:00:50.320 how's it going. It's going terrifically. How are you Dylan good? 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:53.120 He said, I see, he knows he's a fan. He 0:00:53.120 --> 0:00:56.400 didn't even try to speak. Noel will be like, well 0:00:56.480 --> 0:00:58.240 let me tell you, yeah, let me see if I 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:01.400 can find a microphone. It just shows one of us 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:06.080 out of the way, knows what he's doing. Uh. You 0:01:06.120 --> 0:01:08.120 know what. I couldn't help. But when I was researching this, 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:12.920 probably because we just did this is think about Genghis 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:17.400 Khan and if you go on the internet and type 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:21.560 in Attil of the Hun or Genghis Khan. There are 0:01:21.720 --> 0:01:28.280 so many nerdy websites where people pitt uh fictional battles 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:32.240 against historic leaders really yeah, like who would have won 0:01:32.760 --> 0:01:35.520 in a cage match until of the Hunter Genghis Khan? Right? 0:01:35.520 --> 0:01:37.640 But there's like actual thought put behind it? Or is 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:42.119 it just like no genghas cool? There's a range from 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:45.720 that to like the people who really put too much 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:50.120 effort into it and um, but those are interesting to read, 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:54.440 you know, like you've got to remember guys like Genghis 0:01:54.520 --> 0:02:00.000 Khan had a thousand years of weaponry development to his advantage. 0:02:00.720 --> 0:02:03.559 And when it comes to personal fighting tactics as opposed 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:06.800 to leadership, those are two different things to talk about. 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:10.359 And then their voice changes until they've become Toby from 0:02:10.480 --> 0:02:16.040 American Splendor. Genghis Khan was what a thousand years after 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:19.080 at Till of the Hunt? Is that correct? Well? Because 0:02:19.120 --> 0:02:21.760 I thought the opposite. I thought he was BC And again, 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:23.680 we just did a show on him, and I already 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:29.720 forgot since here leven sixty two for Chingas and four 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:32.800 oh six for a Till of the Hunt. That is fascinating, 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:35.200 So okay, yeah, I mean ching has had a lot 0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:39.880 of advancements in that thousand years for sure. Yeah, And 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:41.919 I don't know, I couldn't help but compare these guys. 0:02:41.919 --> 0:02:45.280 So I might just sort of pepper that in here 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:48.880 and there and and comparing these because our own article 0:02:48.960 --> 0:02:53.200 starts out by mentioning Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, and 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:57.720 Chingis khan uh as some of the most brutal conquerors 0:02:58.040 --> 0:03:03.280 and antiquity. I really appreciate you moving to Chingas might 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:08.200 as well. So until of the Hun, he was around 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:14.160 between he was in the fifth century CE, right, four 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:17.320 oh six. You know, they don't know exactly about his 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:20.720 birth dates, but they're they're putting it around four or six. No, 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:23.880 we should do this, Um, we should do this chronologically. 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:25.839 But I think we should say out of the gate 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:29.680 that there is a lot of um debate in the 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:33.639 in the historical field of just how much we could 0:03:33.680 --> 0:03:37.240 say about um Attil of the Hun's early life. Yeah, 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:41.920 I mean over that period between him and Chingas, like, 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:44.720 there was a lot more record keeping. Two. Right, that's 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:46.760 a that's a great point. We don't even know what 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:50.480 language the Huns spoke necessarily, No, we debate on that. 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:53.800 No idea um. Apparently, one of the things you can 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:57.680 kind of glean what language people spoke is UM from 0:03:57.840 --> 0:04:02.680 their names, and a lot of the names associated with Attila, 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:05.840 the Hunt and the Huns in general are Germanic, so 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:08.640 they say, well, they spoke Germanic. The other people say 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:10.600 well no. By the time until of the Hun came 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:14.480 around in the fifth century UM, the Germanic tongue had 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:18.320 spread far and wide, so that's probably not what their 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:22.520 native tongue originally was. It's just lost the time. One 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:24.400 of the reasons it was lost the time is because 0:04:24.720 --> 0:04:28.200 these were, in the parliance of the day, total barbarians. 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:35.520 They were nomadic horse people who lacked virtually any anything 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:41.160 resembling a government, um, anything like an economy, anything like 0:04:41.800 --> 0:04:44.880 the trappings of what you would call a civilization. They 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:49.960 were by definition barbarians, right, But all that aside, it's 0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:54.440 not to say that that that civilization is just everything's perfect. 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:59.400 Definitely has its own flaws, and barbarianism has its own amazements, right. 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:06.320 But the thing that made the Huns definitive barbarians is 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:11.159 because they would come through sack your town, burn it down, 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:14.039 kill you and your family, and then just move on. 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:17.800 They would take your gold. They had no desire to 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:21.000 subjugate you, to to rule you, to extract taxes, to 0:05:21.040 --> 0:05:24.200 maybe make you grow crops for them. Nothing. It was 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:28.640 basically pillaging, raping, and murdering is what the Huns were 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:31.520 known for, because that's what they did. Yeah, and I 0:05:31.560 --> 0:05:34.880 think the main difference that I found, well, plenty of differences, 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:38.400 but the main one between he and Khan was sort of, 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:41.960 like you said, like Genghis, Khan wanted to rule the 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:46.279 world and spread his empire as as ruler of people's 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:50.320 and Attila the Hun, by all accounts, wanted to collect 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:56.560 gold right um, but was also for all his ferocity. 0:05:57.120 --> 0:06:01.800 There are also scholars and historians who believe that uh 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:03.520 Man I might get these names mixed up. Now that 0:06:03.560 --> 0:06:05.360 I'm all in my head about it, I'm I've been 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:08.400 just hanging on by my fingernail. There are a lot 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:10.480 of scholars and historians who believe that until of the 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:15.840 hun Is was also uh sort of a fair person 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:21.239 and generally a man of his word, and maybe rustled 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:24.320 up a lot of these stories to drive himself to 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:28.480 drive fear into his enemies, and was not as brutal 0:06:28.960 --> 0:06:32.760 as maybe history believes in some cases. Yeah, but I 0:06:32.480 --> 0:06:36.120 I so. You remember when we did the chinaskon episode, like, 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:39.040 there was a lot of um, a lot of examples 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:41.200 and things you could point to and be like they 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:45.360 improved the world in these ways. There you can count 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:47.680 the ones about until of the hun like basically on 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:51.880 your fingers, and when when it was an example of 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:56.800 him being like uncharacteristically magnanimous by sparing somebody's life, it 0:06:56.920 --> 0:07:01.320 was totally out of character for him, and like, um. 0:07:01.560 --> 0:07:04.080 One of the things about Chengiz Khan as well is 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:07.160 that if you surrendered without a fight, if you just said, 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:11.240 we surrender, take our town, you would live. And you 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:14.000 would live now under the rule of the Mongols the 0:07:14.080 --> 0:07:16.680 till of the Hun he and the Huns would kill you, 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:20.760 kill your whole town. Offering no resistance whatsoever, did not 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:23.920 guarantee in any way, shape or form survival when you 0:07:24.040 --> 0:07:27.640 encountered the Hunts. They terrified people for hundreds of years 0:07:27.640 --> 0:07:30.360 in Europe. But at the same time, if you paid 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:33.880 your your uh what what do you call it, like 0:07:33.920 --> 0:07:37.120 the gangster movies tribute? Yeah, but like you know when 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:39.880 you pay someone to protect your money, Yeah, sort of 0:07:39.920 --> 0:07:45.280 like that, Yeah, protection from you. Basically, Uh, generally, and 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:48.080 again there are examples even in this article of ours 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:50.760 where he he went back on that. But generally if 0:07:50.760 --> 0:07:55.320 you paid that gold, he would also leave you alone. Um, 0:07:55.440 --> 0:07:57.840 because he didn't want to lose. Like I said, he 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:01.520 wasn't trying to just conquer the world. So he seemed 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:04.040 like he would only undertake a mission or a or 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:06.600 a war if he if there was something in it 0:08:06.680 --> 0:08:11.840 for him other than just like expanding his kingdom, which 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:17.119 on a modern map eventually was it say here large 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:21.680 portions of eastern and western Roman Empires, from Germany in 0:08:21.720 --> 0:08:24.840 the west, to Romania in the south, to the Netherlands 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:27.880 and the north, and Russia and Kazakhstan in the east. 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:31.640 And uh, that was generally a till of the Huns 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:36.440 area over about a ten year span, well nine I 0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:40.839 think nine years, well nineteen years period. But in that 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:43.800 ten year span is when he really liked did a 0:08:43.840 --> 0:08:46.679 lot of his damage, which is that's impressive, and put 0:08:46.679 --> 0:08:49.360 a big dent in the Roman Empire. That was another 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:51.360 thing too, Like you can you can say what you 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:53.880 want about the guy, and I think it's worth pointing 0:08:53.880 --> 0:08:57.120 out there's all of this is to say, like nobody 0:08:57.240 --> 0:09:00.800 is bad. And when you get this far are away, 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:05.560 almost two thousand years away, years away from somebody like, 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:10.000 their character just becomes cartoonish. So there is not a 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:12.880 lot we can say, especially about the nuances of this 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:17.120 guy's character, but you can point to what he did 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:20.040 and say, this man change the course of history, and 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:23.960 he definitely did, especially by basically hastening the fall of 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:27.959 the Roman Empire. Right, this is pretty impressive stuff. I 0:09:28.000 --> 0:09:29.560 feel like we should almost stick a break. That was 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:33.080 a nice preamble. All right, we'll get back to his 0:09:33.200 --> 0:10:01.440 birth and start over right after this. Alright, So four 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:04.240 oh sixes when they think Attila the Hunt was born 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:11.160 in uh Pannonia, which what you would now say is Hungary. Yeah, 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:14.000 because by this time the Hunts, well they first appear 0:10:14.040 --> 0:10:20.120 in the Western record, and I think ce Tacitus, the 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:24.040 historian Roman historian says, oh, yeah, by the way, there's 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:26.080 these people out there called the Hunts. There are barbarian 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:28.559 tribe who cares watch you're back. Well, he didn't even 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:31.079 say that. He just basically said there's a barbarian tribe 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:33.559 out there. But by the time Attila was was born, 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:37.440 the Hunts had made a name for themselves is being fierce, 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:43.480 fearsome warriors that just basically could overtake anybody, and they had. Yeah, 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:47.319 he was not born. His story is very different from 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:50.800 Chingis Khans, and that he was born already into I 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:54.679 guess what you would consider royalty, uh and and privilege. 0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:58.720 And that they think the Huns came from Kazakhstan, I 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:01.719 think you said, or their their empire stretched all the 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:05.880 way kash Central Asia. They think that's where they probably originated. 0:11:05.920 --> 0:11:08.880 But by the time Untila was born, Um, he was 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:12.280 born on the Danube in Hungary, which is like became 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:15.000 the capital of the area they settled. Yeah, and you 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:17.800 mentioned that the Huns were known as fierce warriors. Um, 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:23.079 much like Khan's army. They really made their hay on horses. 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:26.520 I don't even know if that counts as a pun, 0:11:26.640 --> 0:11:29.920 It doesn't, all right, It was just delightful though. They 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:32.400 were excellent horsemen. UM. I don't know if they rode 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:35.800 those little squatty horses like uh, like Khan's army did. 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:40.520 But they were great on horseback, apparently so great that 0:11:40.640 --> 0:11:42.680 they kind of didn't get off their horses to do 0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:45.600 much when it when in terms of battle. But even 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:48.880 beyond battle. I saw that they held negotiations on their horses. 0:11:49.720 --> 0:11:53.240 Um that they were characterized as being one with their horse. 0:11:54.240 --> 0:11:56.800 That was one thing, right, right, in the true sense 0:11:56.920 --> 0:12:00.640 that was I hope not mainly for the horses, say yeah, 0:12:00.679 --> 0:12:04.080 but um they they they were. The fact that they 0:12:04.080 --> 0:12:07.800 were amazing horsemen. That's check one, and why they were 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:11.120 basically impossible to feat Check two was they had a 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:14.240 special kind of bow called the hun bow, right, and 0:12:14.360 --> 0:12:16.920 these things are beautiful. It was a recursive bow where 0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:22.120 the bow itself been curve back onto itself, which meant 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:24.720 you have more torque, which meant you could shoot an 0:12:24.800 --> 0:12:28.120 arrow through armor at a hundred yards. Yeah, they're all 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:31.320 kinds of recurve bows, but this one was especially squatty 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:34.439 and kind of short. So it's recurved. It's not recursive, 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:38.840 yeah recurve. Um. Oh yeah, it was short, which meant 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:41.840 it was mobile. Yeah yeah. Yeah. So if you picture 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:44.880 just like a U shaped bow, that's just a bow, 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:48.040 but a recurve bends back around to face the other 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:51.680 way at both ends and both points. And this one was, 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:54.120 like I said, especially squatty, and it just it's cool 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:57.800 looking like bow enthusiasts collect these things. I can imagine 0:12:57.880 --> 0:12:59.560 hun bows. You say, this is a till of the 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:03.959 huns areo boat. Everybody says that. So so wait a minute, 0:13:04.000 --> 0:13:06.080 So we've got two things. Now we've got they were 0:13:06.120 --> 0:13:08.400 basically one with their horse. They were so good on 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:12.880 a horse, they could shoot arrows through your armor a 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:17.480 hundred yards away, almost a hundred meters away. Um, while 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:21.760 on these horses. That's check two. And then number three 0:13:21.960 --> 0:13:25.720 is that they didn't fight in any sort of coherent 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:31.000 battle formation. It was just show up out of nowhere, 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:36.199 right around, start picking people off, scatter, regroup out of nowhere, 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:39.560 show up again, pick more people off, scatter, regroup and 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:41.679 like you just you had no idea that they were 0:13:41.720 --> 0:13:44.400 coming at any point in time, and they would just 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:47.480 come and basically waste your army. And there was no 0:13:47.679 --> 0:13:52.000 formation that you could form against. It was just chaos. Yeah, 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:55.040 and and fast, like before you knew what was going on, 0:13:55.920 --> 0:13:59.720 You're you're getting arrows slung your way. And like you said, 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:02.679 from any direction, wasn't like here they come from the north, 0:14:03.280 --> 0:14:05.880 Like they were all over the place. Uh. It said 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:08.160 here in this one article you sent that the soldiers 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:13.840 they wore these heavy leather greased uh outfits greased with 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:19.400 animal fat, which is good, which just said made them 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:22.800 both supple and rain resistant. Maybe that was for the 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:28.440 horses and steel line helmets chain mail. They're very nimble. 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:31.240 They also used swords, of course, and their leather boots. 0:14:31.240 --> 0:14:34.280 They rode horses so much they didn't even worry about hiking, 0:14:34.400 --> 0:14:36.440 so they would wear these leather boots. Had very thin 0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:43.120 soles that I guess major feet, more responsive to stirrup action. 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:47.480 I don't know, they were just more comfortable. They're like, 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:53.000 isoton boots? Did they make shoes? Oh? No, you're talking 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:55.520 about the gloves. They make slippers? I think, Oh really, 0:14:55.560 --> 0:14:57.960 I think so. I don't think it was Damn Marina, 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:02.000 want to hear that isotoneer gloves and uh ace ventura. 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:06.040 All right, So these are the huns. They're nomadic there 0:15:06.880 --> 0:15:11.120 chaotic and battle, their fierce, Their their stories precede them, 0:15:11.160 --> 0:15:14.320 their legend precedes them. So when you are getting attacked 0:15:14.800 --> 0:15:16.600 like that's got to do a mental number on you, 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:21.200 especially like when they came upon towns and cities, like 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:26.360 sometimes entire cities, they would level them, just utterly destroy 0:15:26.400 --> 0:15:29.520 They would take everything they wanted kill everybody that they wanted. 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:33.400 They would take hostages and slaves and prisoners, um. But 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:35.560 then they would just destroy the town. And there was 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:44.600 one town in Italy um called Aquileia. Aquileia, I believe um. 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:46.760 No one knows where it was, they know it existed, 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:49.600 but then the Huns got They Huns sacked it and 0:15:49.640 --> 0:15:51.760 now no one has any idea what it was because 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:54.440 they just utterly destroyed the tip. That was like the 0:15:54.480 --> 0:15:58.000 kind of thing they would do, almost just out of spite, 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:04.320 just maliciously, you know, because apparently Attila the Hun was 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:11.600 known for um using his fierce reputation at an advantage 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:14.040 and he didn't want to fight or thought that fighting 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:17.200 was unwise. He could use his reputation to get you 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:20.320 to to surrender and then maybe you would survive, maybe 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:24.960 you wouldn't. UM. But they didn't necessarily need that because 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:29.000 they backed up the fierce reputation actually did these things 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:31.520 that people feared them for. And they had a name 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:35.600 for the Huns, and apparently specifically Attila the Hun in 0:16:35.720 --> 0:16:38.680 the Holy Roman or the Roman Empires pre Holy Roman, 0:16:39.560 --> 0:16:43.400 they called them the flagellum day the scourge of God. 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:47.640 And this is what these Christians thought, that that God 0:16:47.680 --> 0:16:52.160 had sent this horrible, almost devil figure to come and 0:16:52.200 --> 0:16:55.120 wipe their towns from the earth because they weren't living 0:16:55.280 --> 0:16:58.280 upright enough. Yeah, and I saw some historians think that 0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:00.680 he might have even made that name up. Oh really, 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:03.800 it seems like he was a big promoter of his 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:07.720 of his wicked ways, just to scare people. Well, it's 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:10.119 still working on me, like he would because I'm passing 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:12.280 all this stuff off. He was often drawn with like 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:14.679 goats horns and things like that, And I don't I 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:17.560 think he encouraged this stuff. Well, he did famously say 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:21.600 that wherever he's trod or past, grass will never grow again. 0:17:21.720 --> 0:17:24.479 So yeah, he definitely, he definitely would play it up. 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:26.800 But it didn't hurt his feelings that people said these 0:17:26.840 --> 0:17:29.679 things about him, right, so he I don't think we 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:32.960 mentioned yet. He uh took over along with his brother 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:36.240 Blada b L E. D A when they were young 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:40.560 their uncles actually, um, that's there was a lot of 0:17:40.800 --> 0:17:43.760 biarchy going on at the time with the Huns, which 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:46.200 is a little bit unusual for a couple of people 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:49.440 to split ruling duties, and their uncles jointly ruled the 0:17:49.520 --> 0:17:52.919 Hunt empire. Eventually the brothers took over as co rulers 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:56.080 in four thirty four, and I think they even had 0:17:56.080 --> 0:17:58.480 their own territories that they were in charge of. It's 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:02.040 not like they were together. Uh. And then eventually Attila 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:06.000 was like, yeah, I think I'd rather just really operate 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:08.680 this show by myself. And he killed his brother, killed 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:11.520 his own brother. That's that's harsh. I didn't see. How 0:18:11.520 --> 0:18:13.560 did you see? I didn't. I couldn't find it. I 0:18:13.560 --> 0:18:17.520 couldn't either, as I saw once a story about a 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:22.320 night I think, who killed his own brother. But his 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:26.880 brother was a priest saying mass, and the night came 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:29.080 in and cut his own brother's head off while he 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:33.159 was saying mass. Like, if there is a god, that 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:37.560 really upset I'm unsure. So he and his brother uh 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:41.119 co rule and they settled down a little bit on 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:43.640 the great what was known as the Great Hungarian Plains, 0:18:44.160 --> 0:18:47.520 a little less nomadic at this point were the Huns. Yeah, 0:18:47.600 --> 0:18:50.760 because they were weighed down with so much golden plunder. Yeah, 0:18:50.840 --> 0:18:54.240 they just they couldn't ride around like they did. So 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:57.640 have we reached the point where he's the single ruler? Now, yeah, 0:18:57.760 --> 0:18:59.439 let's go ahead and get rid of his brother, so 0:18:59.480 --> 0:19:02.200 we should a. I don't know if this name came 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:07.240 upon him ascending to um being the co ruler with 0:19:07.280 --> 0:19:11.480 his brother or the single ruler. But Attila means little father. 0:19:12.160 --> 0:19:13.960 They do not think that this is his birth name, 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:18.240 because that's just no matter what age or period of 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:20.520 history we're talking about, it'd be weird to name your 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:24.280 son little father. Um. They think it was a name 0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:26.600 of respect and affection, is how I saw it put 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:29.240 and that they think that this was basically his His 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:32.879 king name was Attila. They have no idea what his 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:36.639 real name was, but they think that Attila was not it. No, 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:40.760 but by the time he became ruler, like you said, 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:44.560 he was born into a privileged household. Um, he he 0:19:44.680 --> 0:19:47.480 knew what to do from a very early age. His 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:51.600 uncle's as rulers brought him and his brother Bleda up 0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:54.119 to speak Latin. So maybe he did come up with 0:19:54.200 --> 0:19:58.760 Flagellum Davey Goth which was another Germanic tribe who figure 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:03.920 into this picture later on. Um and to to understand diplomacy, 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:08.320 military strategy, horsemanship obviously, UM all of this stuff. So 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:10.680 it was brought up to lead, so it was kind 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:12.760 of natural that he would kill his brother and take 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:16.280 over the entire hunt empire. Yeah, and the other another 0:20:16.320 --> 0:20:18.399 thing I thought was interesting was even though he was 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:22.879 sort of on a conquest for gold and riches, he 0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:26.919 lived sort of simply as a ruler. Like all of 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:32.280 his his upper uh subordinates. Apparently they did live the 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:34.720 high life, and they drank from silver and gold chalices 0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:39.240 and had fancy clothes and big you know, make mansions, 0:20:39.480 --> 0:20:43.280 platform shoes, platform shoes with goldfish in the heel. And 0:20:43.400 --> 0:20:46.720 Attila lived in a log house with animal skins on 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:49.440 the walls and drank from a wooden cup. And even 0:20:49.480 --> 0:20:51.720 though he wanted to get all this gold, it doesn't 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:54.280 look like he lived that way, which is pretty interesting. Yeah. 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:58.960 That really kind of opens up the guy for interpretation. 0:20:59.040 --> 0:21:01.600 You know, like says a couple of things. One, he's 0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:04.919 surrounded by all these material goods, but his tastes are 0:21:04.920 --> 0:21:08.520 extraordinarily simple, and he stuck to it. He didn't try 0:21:08.520 --> 0:21:10.240 to show off at any point. He just was who 0:21:10.280 --> 0:21:13.240 he was as far as his taste point. And then secondly, 0:21:13.640 --> 0:21:18.040 he also didn't demand that the people subordinate to him 0:21:18.320 --> 0:21:22.480 live like he lived. That says an enormous amount you know, like, 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:24.399 there's so many people at the top who want the 0:21:24.400 --> 0:21:28.000 people below them to act like them, to live like them, 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:30.720 to behave like them. So for him to to have 0:21:30.920 --> 0:21:33.520 like there was a cult of personality around this guy, 0:21:33.800 --> 0:21:37.359 and for him to allow and maybe even encourage people 0:21:37.400 --> 0:21:41.000 to live their own way totally counter to how he lived. 0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:46.240 I don't know. He's a complex figure for sure. Um. 0:21:46.320 --> 0:21:48.840 Should we talk about the Treaty of Marcus. Yeah, this 0:21:48.920 --> 0:21:52.160 is a big turning point in history. Yeah. So this 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:56.720 was in four thirty four. Uh, and he I believe 0:21:56.760 --> 0:22:00.000 that what we're going back to when Bledah was still alive. Um, 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:02.080 they worked up a peace treaty called the Treaty of 0:22:02.119 --> 0:22:06.359 Marcus with what is this the Eastern Roman Empire. Yes, 0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:09.920 and they basically said, hey, if you return all these 0:22:10.040 --> 0:22:14.200 hunt refugees, basically people that fled my rule, return these 0:22:14.200 --> 0:22:18.280 people to us. How many were there? At least of fourteen, 0:22:18.320 --> 0:22:21.760 but I think maybe seventeen Yeah, like not seventeen thousand, 0:22:21.800 --> 0:22:25.160 but seventeen people. But that's how much he prized loyalty, 0:22:25.280 --> 0:22:26.640 is how I saw it. Put. Yeah, like I want 0:22:26.640 --> 0:22:28.840 these people back, and he also didn't want them going 0:22:28.880 --> 0:22:31.960 off into the Roman Empire and stirring up rebellion to 0:22:32.080 --> 0:22:35.640 come take over the Hunting Empire. Yeah, exactly. So if 0:22:35.640 --> 0:22:38.720 you return, these people will establish some trading rights that 0:22:38.760 --> 0:22:42.119 are fair. You guys pay us about seven hundred pounds 0:22:42.160 --> 0:22:45.240 of gold every year directly to me and my bro 0:22:46.320 --> 0:22:49.720 and we'll, like, we'll lay off and you can just 0:22:49.800 --> 0:22:52.560 kind of do your thing here in the Eastern Roman Empire. Yeah, 0:22:52.560 --> 0:22:57.000 it's extortion. Yeah, I saw that that Attila was. He 0:22:57.080 --> 0:23:00.640 plundered in war and extorted in peacetime. That's what he did. 0:23:01.480 --> 0:23:03.240 So yeah, he said, we won't invade you if you 0:23:03.240 --> 0:23:05.320 pay a seven hundred pounds of goal of a year, 0:23:05.600 --> 0:23:09.879 and he didn't. But then he said, um, there was 0:23:09.920 --> 0:23:13.280 another part of this too. He said that that he 0:23:13.400 --> 0:23:18.520 wanted not just the traitorous Huns who left or escaped 0:23:18.560 --> 0:23:22.520 his rule to be returned to him. He also wanted um, 0:23:22.560 --> 0:23:27.520 a Roman bishop who he believed had come into the 0:23:27.600 --> 0:23:31.840 Hunting Empire and desecrated some graves and stolen grave goods 0:23:31.920 --> 0:23:35.680 from the graves, to be handed over to him. And 0:23:35.960 --> 0:23:43.840 apparently the Eastern Empire uh Emperor Theodosius the second said, hey, 0:23:43.880 --> 0:23:47.119 man I gave, I gave all of the Huns I 0:23:47.160 --> 0:23:49.959 could find in the empire over to you and this bishop. 0:23:49.960 --> 0:23:51.399 I don't know what you're talking about. I don't think 0:23:51.440 --> 0:23:55.240 this is actually true. Um, they didn't give over the bishop. 0:23:55.720 --> 0:24:00.200 And so Attila actually said, um, you guys just broke 0:24:00.240 --> 0:24:03.560 the treaty, were invading, And he did invade, and they 0:24:03.600 --> 0:24:07.520 actually invaded through Marguts. And the guy who opened the 0:24:07.520 --> 0:24:11.119 gates of Marguts too for them to the Huns was 0:24:11.200 --> 0:24:14.320 the bishop who stole the grave goods. So had the 0:24:14.359 --> 0:24:18.960 emperor handed over this guy, the the invasion of Italy 0:24:19.280 --> 0:24:26.119 by the Huns would have never happened. And that's the 0:24:26.119 --> 0:24:29.320 sound that played when he opened the gate. Apparently they 0:24:29.320 --> 0:24:35.720 got within about twenty miles of Constantinople. And Theodosius too said, whoa, 0:24:36.640 --> 0:24:41.600 you're getting a little too close. How about pounds of 0:24:41.600 --> 0:24:44.240 gold per year three times as much cold? And I 0:24:44.280 --> 0:24:49.400