Attila Sacks Metz: Huns Expose Roman Weakness

Attila the Hun sacked the Roman city of Metz on April 7, 451 AD, burning it so thoroughly that only a single chapel reportedly survived the destruction. The attack was part of a massive invasion of Gaul that had already destroyed multiple cities along the Rhine frontier, exposing the terminal weakness of Roman military power in the western provinces. Attila's army, estimated between 30,000 and 50,000 warriors drawn from a confederation of Hunnic, Germanic, and Slavic peoples, moved through Gaul with a speed that Roman commanders could not match. Attila had spent the previous decade building the Hunnic Empire into the most feared military power in Europe. Operating from the Hungarian plain, he had extracted enormous tribute payments from the Eastern Roman Empire, receiving an annual payment of 2,100 pounds of gold from Constantinople by 447. When the new Eastern Emperor Marcian cut off the payments in 450, Attila turned his attention westward. The pretext for invading Gaul was an appeal from Honoria, sister of Western Emperor Valentinian III, who had sent Attila her ring and asked for his help escaping an arranged marriage. Attila interpreted the ring as a marriage proposal and claimed half the Western Empire as dowry. The invasion route followed the Rhine and then turned south through the interior of Gaul. Rheims, Tongeren, Cologne, Trier, and Metz all fell. Cities that lacked significant garrisons or fortifications were overwhelmed. Refugee columns streamed south ahead of the advance. The bishop of Paris, Geneviève, reportedly organized the city's defense and convinced its residents not to flee, though whether Paris was actually threatened is debated. The Roman response depended on an unlikely alliance. Flavius Aetius, the supreme military commander of the Western Empire, assembled a coalition that included Visigoths under King Theodoric I, Burgundians, Franks, and Alans. These were peoples who had themselves carved territories from Roman Gaul, and their cooperation with Rome against a common threat was fragile and temporary. The two forces met at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains in June 451, where Attila was fought to a standstill and withdrew from Gaul. Attila died two years later from a nosebleed on his wedding night, and the Hunnic Empire disintegrated almost immediately.