The
Battle of the Utus was fought in
447-Eastern Roman Empire:* Battle of the Utus: Attila the Hun meets the Romans in an indecisive battle. The Huns invade the Balkans as far as Thermopylae...
between the army of Eastern Roman (
ByzantineThe Byzantine Empire or Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on the capital of Constantinople, and ruled by Emperors in direct and de jure succession to the ancient Roman Emperors...
) Empire, and the Huns led by Attila at what is today the
VitThe Vit also Vid is a river in central northern Bulgaria with a length of 189 km. It is a tributary of Danube. The source of the Vit is in Stara Planina, below Vezhen Peak at an altitude of 2,030 m, and it empties into the Danube close to Somovit...
river in
BulgariaBulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a country in the Balkans in south-eastern Europe. Bulgaria borders five other countries: Romania to the north , Serbia and the Republic of Macedonia to the west, and Greece and Turkey to the south...
. It was the last of the bloody pitched battles between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Huns, as the former attempted to stave off the Hunnic invasion.
The details about Attila's campaign which culminated in the battle of Utus, as well as the events afterwards, are obscure.
The
Battle of the Utus was fought in
447-Eastern Roman Empire:* Battle of the Utus: Attila the Hun meets the Romans in an indecisive battle. The Huns invade the Balkans as far as Thermopylae...
between the army of Eastern Roman (
ByzantineThe Byzantine Empire or Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on the capital of Constantinople, and ruled by Emperors in direct and de jure succession to the ancient Roman Emperors...
) Empire, and the Huns led by Attila at what is today the
VitThe Vit also Vid is a river in central northern Bulgaria with a length of 189 km. It is a tributary of Danube. The source of the Vit is in Stara Planina, below Vezhen Peak at an altitude of 2,030 m, and it empties into the Danube close to Somovit...
river in
BulgariaBulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a country in the Balkans in south-eastern Europe. Bulgaria borders five other countries: Romania to the north , Serbia and the Republic of Macedonia to the west, and Greece and Turkey to the south...
. It was the last of the bloody pitched battles between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Huns, as the former attempted to stave off the Hunnic invasion.
The details about Attila's campaign which culminated in the battle of Utus, as well as the events afterwards, are obscure. Only a few short passages from the extant Byzantine sources (
JordanesJordanes , was a 6th century Roman bureaucrat , who turned his hand to history later in life.Though he also wrote Romana, a book about the history of Rome, his most known work is his Getica, written in Constantinople about AD 551...
'
RomanaRomana, short for Romanadvoratrelundar, is a fictional character in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who...
,
Marcellinus Comes-Life:An Illyrian by birth , he spent most of his life at the court of Constantinople, and died around 534.-Works:Only one work of his survives, a chronicle , which was a continuation of Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History. It covers the period from 379 to 534, although an unknown writer added a...
chronicle and Paschal Chronicle) are available. Therefore, as with the whole activity of Attila's Huns in the Balkans, the fragmentary evidence does not permit an undisputed reconstruction of the events.
Battle
In the previous years the Huns had invaded the Balkan regions of the Eastern Empire, as punishment for refusing to continue tributes to Attila. In
447-Eastern Roman Empire:* Battle of the Utus: Attila the Hun meets the Romans in an indecisive battle. The Huns invade the Balkans as far as Thermopylae...
, Attila's army invaded the Balkan provinces again. A strong Roman force under general Arnegisclus,
magister utriusquae militiaeMagister militum was a top-level military command used in the later Roman Empire, dating from the reign of Constantine. Used alone, the term referred to the senior military officer of the Empire...
, "master of both forces" (both foot and horse) of Thrace, moved out of its base at Marcianople westwards and engaged the Hunnic army at Utus in the roman province of
Dacia RipensisDacia ripensis was the name of a Roman province first established by Aurelian after he withdrew from Dacia north of the Danube River...
. It must be noted that Arnegisclus was one of the defeated Roman commanders during Attila's campaign of
443-Western Roman Empire:* The Burgundians create a kingdom on the banks of the Rhone....
.
The Roman army was most likely a
combined forceCombined arms is an approach to warfare which seeks to integrate different arms of a military to achieve mutually complementary effects. Combined arms doctrine contrasts with segregated arms where each military unit is composed of only one type of soldier or weapon system...
, including the field armies of
IllyricumThe Roman province of Illyricum or Illyris Romana or Illyris Barbara or Illyria Barbara replaced most of the region of Illyria. It stretched from the Drilon river in modern north Albania to Istria in the west and to the Sava river in the north...
,
ThraceThrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded on the north by the Balkan Mountains, on the south by the Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea and on the east by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara...
, and the Army in Emperor's Presence. Next to no details of the battle are known, with the exception that general Arnegisclus, fought bravely on foot until being cut down after his horse was killed. The Romans were defeated, but it seems that losses were severe for both sides.
Aftermath
An immediate result of the Roman defeat was the fall of Marcianople; after the battle, the city laid desolate until the
Emperor JustinianFlavius Petrus Sabbatius Iustinianus ; AD 483 – 13 or 14 November 565, known in English as Justinian I or Justinian the Great, was the second member of the Justinian Dynasty and Eastern Roman Emperor from 527 until his death...
restored it one hundred years later. Even worse,
ConstantinopleConstantinople was the imperial capital of the Roman Empire , the Byzantine/Eastern Roman Empire , the Latin Empire , and the Ottoman Empire...
, the capital of the eastern half of the Roman empire, was under the grave threat of the Huns, as its
wallsThe Walls of Constantinople are a series of stone walls that have surrounded and protected the city of Constantinople since its founding as the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire by Constantine the Great...
had been ruined during an earthquake in January 447 and its population suffered from the ensuing plague. However, the
Praetorian prefectPraetorian prefect was the title of a high office in the Roman Empire. Originating as the commander of the Praetorian Guard, the office gradually acquired extensive legal and administrative functions, with its holders becoming the Emperor's chief aides...
Flavius Constantinus managed to repair the walls in just two months by mobilizing the city's manpower, with the help of the Circus factions. These hasty repairs combined with the urgent transfer of a body of
IsaurianIsauria , in ancient geography, is a rugged isolated district in the interior of South Asia Minor, of very different extent at different periods, but generally covering much of what is now Konya/Bozkir province of Turkey, or the core of the Taurus Mountains...
soldiers into the city and the heavy losses incurred by the Huns' army in the Battle of Utus forced Attila to abandon any thought of besieging the capital.
Instead, Attila marched south and laid waste the now-defenseless Balkan provinces (including
IllyricumThe Roman province of Illyricum or Illyris Romana or Illyris Barbara or Illyria Barbara replaced most of the region of Illyria. It stretched from the Drilon river in modern north Albania to Istria in the west and to the Sava river in the north...
,
ThraceThrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded on the north by the Balkan Mountains, on the south by the Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea and on the east by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara...
,
MoesiaMoesia was an ancient region and Roman province situated in the Balkans, along the south bank of the Danube River...
,
ScythiaScythia Minor, "Lesser Scythia" was in ancient times the region surrounded by the Danube at the north and west and the Black Sea at the east, corresponding to today's Dobrogea, with a large part in Romania and a very small part in Bulgaria.The earliest description of the region is found in...
and both provinces of
Roman DaciaRoman Dacia, also Dacia Traiana or Dacia Felix, was a province of the Roman Empire . Its territory consisted of eastern and southeastern Transylvania, the Banat, and Oltenia . Dacia was from the very beginning organized as an imperial province and remained so throughout the Roman occupation...
) until he was turned back at
ThermopylaeThermopylae is a location in Greece where a narrow coastal passage existed in antiquity...
. Monk Callinicus of Rufinianae wrote in his
Life of Saint HypatiusSaint Hypatius of Bithynia was a monk and hermit of the fifth century. A Phrygian, he became a hermit at the age of nineteen in Thrace. He then traveled to Constantinople and then Chalcedon with another hermit named Jason...
, who was still living in Thrace at the time, that "more than a hundred cities were captured, Constantinople almost came into danger and most men fled from it", although this was probably exaggerated. Peace was only restored when a treaty was signed a year later in
448-Eastern Roman Empire:* Theodosius II sends an ambassador to Attila; Priscus records one of the few eyewitness accounts of the Hun kingdom....
; under the terms of this treaty, the Eastern Emperor
Theodosius IIFlavius Theodosius , called the Calligrapher, known in English as Theodosius II, was a Eastern Roman Emperor . He is mostly known for promulgating the Theodosian law code as well for the Theodosian Walls of Constantinople...
agreed to pay Attila a large annual tribute. Under the same treaty, a vast
no man's landNo man's land is a term for land that is not occupied or more specifically land that is under dispute between countries or areas that will not occupy it because of fear or uncertainty...
in the Roman territory was created; this extended to a distance of a five days' journey south of the
DanubeThe Danube is the longest river in the European Union and Europe's second longest river after the Volga.The river originates in the Black Forest in Germany as the much smaller Brigach and Breg rivers which join at the German town Donaueschingen, after which it is known as the Danube and flows...
and functioned as a
buffer zoneIn geography, a buffer zone is any zonal area that serves the purpose of keeping two or more other areas distant from one another, for whatever reason. Common types of buffer zones are demilitarized zones and certain restrictive easement zones and greenbelts...
.
Sources
- Martindale, J. R. (ed.). The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, Cambridge University Press, 1980, vol.2, ISBN 0-521-20159-4
- Thompson, E. A.
Edward Arthur Thompson was a British classicist, medievalist and professor at the University of Nottingham from 1948 to 1979. He wrote from a Marxist perspective, and argued that the Visigoths were settled in Aquitaine to counter the internal threat of the peasant bagaudae...
; Heather, PeterPeter Heather is an historian of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, currently Professor of Medieval History at King's College London.Heather was born in Northern Ireland in 1960. He was educated at Maidstone Grammar School and New College, Oxford...
. The Huns, Blackwell, 1999. ISBN 0-631-21443-7
- Williams, Stephen; Friell, Gerard. The Rome that Did Not Fall: The Survival of the East in the Fifth Century, Routledge, 1999. ISBN 978-0415154031