| Battle of Nedao | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of Germanic-Hunnic Wars | |||||||
 Topographic map of Carpathian Basin | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
| Gepids Heruli Rugii Sciri Suebi | Huns Alani | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Ardaric | Ellac † [2] | ||||||
The Battle of Nedao was fought in Pannonia in 454 CE between the Huns and their former Germanic vassals. Nedao is believed to be a tributary of the Sava River. [3]
After the death of Attila the Hun, allied forces of the subject peoples under the leadership of Ardaric, king of the Gepids, defeated the Hunnic forces of Ellac, the son of Attila, who had struggled with his brothers Ernak and Dengizich for supremacy after Attila's death. Ellac himself was killed in the battle. [4]
According to the 6th-century historian Jordanes:
And so the bravest nations tore themselves to pieces. For then, I think, must have occurred a most remarkable spectacle, where one might see the Goths fighting with pikes, the Gepidae raging with the sword, the Rugii breaking off the spears in their own wounds, the Suavi fighting on foot, the Huns with bows, the Alani drawing up a battle-line of heavy-armed and the Heruli of light-armed warriors... ...after many grave clashes, victory surprisingly favours the Gepids for the sword and plotting of Ardaric killed nearly thirty thousand men, Huns as well as other tribes who brought them aid. In this battle, the eldest son of Attila, named Ellac, whom his father was said to have loved so much more than the rest that he favoured him above all his various sons in his empire, was killed. [5]
According to the medieval Hungarian chronicles:
But Detre of Verona and the German princes plotted, as during his rule, King Attila sat on their necks, they divided the unified Hun community into factions; some wanted to make Csaba king after Attila, the son of Emperor Honorius of Greece, who was the daughter of King Attila, while others wanted Aladar, who was born to Princess Krimhild of Germany. The smarter part of the Huns were drawn to Csaba, the foreign lineage, with few Huns, to Aladar: both began to rule; when each wanted to surpass the other, the cunning Detre, who was with Aladar in Sicambria at that time, created such a fierce and strong battle between the two kings that the Danube flowed continuously with German blood for fifteen days; in those days, the Huns carried out such a massacre that if the Germans did not conceal it out of hatred, they would indeed have to admit that from Sicambria to Potentiana, neither humans nor dumb animals could drink clean water from the Danube. This is the battle that the Huns still call the Battle of Krimhild to this day. In these battles, Csaba and the Huns always emerged victorious; later, however, Detre of Verona defeated Csaba through treachery. At first, Csaba defeated his brother, but later he was the one who was defeated, to the extent that barely fifteen thousand remained on Csaba's side; the Huns and Attila's sons were completely wiped out, killed. After Attila's death, his sons and the Huns killed each other. Therefore, the defeated Csaba and his brothers, the sons of Attila who were opposed to him, sixty in number according to tradition, fled to their great-grandfather, Honorius, with fifteen thousand Huns. However, although Emperor Honorius wanted to settle them in Greece, they did not stay but returned to Scythia, to their ancestral seat, to remain there.
Jordanes claimed that at the Battle of Nedao the Ostrogoths fought against the Huns, but this is rejected by modern historians such as Herwig Wolfram [7] and Hyun Jin Kim. The latter believes that this is a forged story and that the Ostrogoth king Valamir himself fought alongside the Huns. [8] Alternatively, J.R. Martindale and Franz Altheim accept that the Ostrogoths were among the victors of Nedao, while many others, including Otto J. Maenchen-Helfen, believe that none of this existed at all. [9]
Hunnic dominance in Central and Eastern Europe was broken as a result of the battle. It is hard to reconstruct the exact course of events, but by the early 460s the Hunnic Empire was dissolved with the Gepids, Rugii, Heruli, Suebi, and Ostrogoths achieving independence [10] and eventually becoming federates of the Eastern Roman Empire. [11] The Huns, reorganized under Dengizich, moved to the east, where they attacked the Eastern Roman Empire and were decisively defeated in 469. After that point, the Huns cease to exist in European history. [4]
Attila, frequently called Attila the Hun, was the ruler of the Huns from 434 until his death, in March 453. He was also the leader of an empire consisting of Huns, Ostrogoths, Alans, and Bulgars, among others, in Central and Eastern Europe.
The Ostrogoths were a Roman-era Germanic people. In the 5th century, they followed the Visigoths in creating one of the two great Gothic kingdoms within the Roman Empire, based upon the large Gothic populations who had settled in the Balkans in the 4th century, having crossed the Lower Danube. While the Visigoths had formed under the leadership of Alaric I, the new Ostrogothic political entity which came to rule Italy was formed in the Balkans under the influence of the Amal dynasty, the family of Theodoric the Great.
The 450s decade ran from January 1, 450, to December 31, 459.
Year 454 (CDLIV) was a common year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Aetius and Studius. The denomination 454 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
The Heruli were an early Germanic people. Possibly originating in Scandinavia, the Heruli are first mentioned by Roman authors as one of several "Scythian" groups raiding Roman provinces in the Balkans and the Aegean Sea, attacking by land, and notably also by sea. During this time they reportedly lived near the Sea of Azov.
The Gepids were an East Germanic tribe who lived in the area of modern Romania, Hungary and Serbia, roughly between the Tisza, Sava and Carpathian Mountains. They were said to share the religion and language of the Goths and Vandals.
Bleda was a Hunnic ruler, the brother of Attila the Hun.
Mundus or Mundo was a Barbarian commander of Gepid, Hun, and/or Gothic origins. He appears to have been the son of the Gepid king Giesmus. In the early 500s he commanded a group of bandits in Pannonia, eventually allying himself to the Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great. After Theodoric's death in 526, Mundus entered Byzantine service under emperor Justinian I, fighting in the Balkans, defending Justinian during the Nika riots, and fighting in the first stage of the Gothic War, during which he died in 536.
The Sciri, or Scirians, were a Germanic people. They are believed to have spoken an East Germanic language. Their name probably means "the pure ones".
Ernak was the last known ruler of the Huns, and the third son of Attila. After Attila's death in 453 AD, his Empire crumbled and its remains were ruled by his three sons, Ellac, Dengizich and Ernak. He succeeded his older brother Ellac in 454 AD, and probably ruled simultaneously over Huns in dual kingship with his brother Dengizich, but in separate divisions in separate lands.
Dengizich, was a Hunnic ruler and son of Attila. After Attila's death in 453 AD, his Empire crumbled and its remains were ruled by his three sons, Ellac, Dengizich and Ernak. He succeeded his older brother Ellac in 454 AD, and probably ruled simultaneously over the Huns in dual kingship with his brother Ernak, but separate divisions in separate lands.
Ardaric was the king of the Gepids, a Germanic tribe closely related to the Goths. He was "famed for his loyalty and wisdom," one of the most trusted adherents of Attila the Hun, who "prized him above all the other chieftains." Ardaric is first mentioned by Jordanes as Attila's most prized vassal at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains (451):
Keve, the son of Csele of the Zemény clan, was a legendary Hun leader in the 4th century. Keve was captain of a group of soldiers who headed west into Pannonia in the late 4th century. They fought against the armies of Prince Macrinus from Lombardy. As Huns settled on his land above the Tisza, he felt that his country was being destroyed. Living within the Roman Empire, he asked the Romans for help fighting against the Huns.
Ellac was the oldest son of Attila (434–453) and Kreka. After Attila's death in 453 AD, his Empire crumbled and its remains were ruled by his three sons, Ellac, Dengizich and Ernak. He ruled shortly, and died at the Battle of Nedao in 454 AD. Ellac was succeeded by two of the three brothers, Dengizich and Ernak.
The Greuthungi were a Gothic people who lived on the Pontic steppe between the Dniester and Don rivers in what is now Ukraine, in the 3rd and the 4th centuries. They had close contacts with the Tervingi, another Gothic people, who lived west of the Dniester River. To the east of the Greuthungi, living near the Don river, were the Alans.
Balamber was ostensibly a chieftain of the Huns, mentioned by Jordanes in his Getica. Jordanes simply called him "king of the Huns" and writes the story of Balamber crushing the tribes of the Ostrogoths in the 370s; somewhere between 370 and more probably 376 AD.
The Battle of Bassianae was a battle between the Ostrogoths and the Huns in 468. Recovering from the defeat at Nedao in 454, the Hunnic leader Dengizich launched an invasion across the Danube with a large Hun force, but was defeated by the Ostrogothic king Valamir. Jordanes writes that in turn the Huns "for ever after" left the Goths in peace.
The Battle of Bolia, was a battle in 469 between the Ostrogoths and a coalition of Germanic tribes in the Roman province of Pannonia. It was fought on the south side of the Danube near its confluence with the river Bolia, in present-day Hungary. The Ostrogoths won, achieving supremacy in Pannonia, but soon migrated south towards richer lands.
The history of the Huns spans the time from before their first secure recorded appearance in Europe around 370 AD to after the disintegration of their empire around 469. The Huns likely entered Western Asia shortly before 370 from Central Asia: they first conquered the Goths and the Alans, pushing a number of tribes to seek refuge within the Roman Empire. In the following years, the Huns conquered most of the Germanic and Scythian tribes outside of the borders of the Roman Empire. They also launched invasions of both the Asian provinces of Rome and the Sasanian Empire in 375. Under Uldin, the first Hunnic ruler named in contemporary sources, the Huns launched a first unsuccessful large-scale raid into the Eastern Roman Empire in Europe in 408. From the 420s, the Huns were led by the brothers Octar and Ruga, who both cooperated with and threatened the Romans. Upon Ruga's death in 435, his nephews Bleda and Attila became the new rulers of the Huns, and launched a successful raid into the Eastern Roman Empire before making peace and securing an annual tribute and trading raids under the Treaty of Margus. Attila appears to have killed his brother and became sole ruler of the Huns in 445. He would go on to rule for the next eight years, launching a devastating raid on the Eastern Roman Empire in 447, followed by an invasion of Gaul in 451. Attila is traditionally held to have been defeated in Gaul at the Battle of the Catalaunian Fields, however some scholars hold the battle to have been a draw or Hunnic victory. The following year, the Huns invaded Italy and encountered no serious resistance before turning back.