Simon Sebag Montefiore on Attila

“Attila, king of the Huns from 434 to 453, was an outstanding general and formidable warrior with a voracious appetite for gold, land and power. Defeated only once, he was the most powerful of the barbarian rulers who fed off the last vestiges of the crumbling Roman Empire. According to legend, he carried the ‘Sword of Mars’, bestowed on him by the gods as a sign he would rule the world.”

“To his people, Attila was an idol, helping to consolidate a mighty and prosperous empire. The 6th century Gothic historian Jordanes later described him as a ‘lover of war, yet restrained in action, mighty in counsel, gracious to suppliants and lenient to those who were once received into his protection’. Yet to the Romans he was the ‘Scourge of God’, ‘the ravager of the provinces of Europe’, personally responsible for wanton cruelty and violence, and in Dante’s Divine Comedy, he appeared in the seventh circle of Hell.”