I have a thing for Ancient Rome. It was so vast, so powerful, so long-lasting, and in so many ways is still with us....just think of our legal codes, all of the Romance languages (French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian), and all of the ruins throughout Europe, western Asia and North Africa. It's all around us and yet it's been gone for fifteen hundred years, too; like all things, it ran its course and eventually came to an end. History books have often cited barbarian incursions as one of the catalysts for the dissolution of the Roman Empire and the best-known of these barbarians was the ultimate bad-guy, Attila the Hun. The End of Empire: Attila the Hun & the Fall of Rome by Christopher Kelly is a well-researched and engaging book that explores the role of the Huns as a primary cause behind the ultimate dissolution of Eternal Rome.
Far from being another dry historical textbook, The End of Empire is a fun and fascinating read. It focuses on the last century of the western Roman Empire, roughly 376 to 476 A.D. A lot happened in that hundred years and the sheer number of players in this book can be a bit confusing. Still, the focus of The End of Empire is on a relatively small number of figures: Attila, Roman emperor Theodosius II, Roman general Flavius Aetius, and Roman ambassadors Maximinus and Priscus. The center of this book is the depiction of a diplomatic mission in 449 A.D. in which Maximinus and Priscus were sent to the Hungarian Plain in order to meet with Attila. They discovered that Hun society was fairly advanced and that Attila, far from being a brute, was ambitious, cunning, politically astute, and a loving father as well. Romans saw themselves as the pinnacle of human civilization and Roman historians, most of whom had never met a barbarian, portrayed the Huns as little more than animals, uncivilized in every way. First-hand knowledge contradicted that view.
Indeed, the great revelation of The End of Empire is that it's not always clear who was the greater barbarian, the Huns or the Romans. Attila's sometime-ally and sometime-nemesis Flavius Aetius was also cunning and politically savvy but he was equally known for his ruthlessness and divided loyalties. Theodosius II, along with most other late-period Roman emperors, is portrayed as being largely ineffectual. The general impression is that the rot had set into Roman society, particularly in the west, and that it could no longer defend itself against a seemingly endless stream of invaders of whom the Huns were the most dangerous and most feared. And a huge part of what made them so fearsome was the powerful figure of Attila himself.
Full of maps, illustrations, high drama and surprising conclusions, Christopher Kelly's The End of Empire is a refreshing take on a subject that has preoccupied students of history since 476 A.D. Check it out!
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