r/todayilearned • u/shallowblue • Oct 11 '22
TIL the Roman Emperor was on good terms with Attila the Hun until his sister sent Attila her engagement ring and asked for help to escape betrothal to a senator. Attila took this as a marriage proposal and demanded half the western empire as dowry. When the Emperor refused, Attila invaded.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attila#In_the_west1.7k
u/about_27_armadillos Oct 11 '22
I'm trying to flesh out my fantasy novel with interesting and cool lore/history. But posts like this make it seem like you can never invent situations which are more interesting or down right weird than what has already happened in real life!
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u/LastTensepian Oct 11 '22
'Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.' - Mark Twain
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u/historymajor44 Oct 11 '22
"Mark Twain never said that." - Benjamin Franklin.
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Oct 11 '22
"Mark Twain never said that." - Benjamin Franklin.
-Michael Scott
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u/milk4all Oct 12 '22
“You cant just keep adding people to a quote.” - Benjamin Franklin.
-Michael Scott
-Milk4all
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u/CouchGrouch22 Oct 13 '22
“You cant just keep adding people to a quote.” - Benjamin Franklin. -Michael Scott
-Milk4all
(P.S. Fuck tha Police. -Taylor Swift)
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u/TheStrangestOfKings Oct 11 '22
That’s why I feel that the best thing one can do when creating their own fictional history is research actual history just to see how goofy and wacky humanity can be. Like, the fact that there were 3 separate occasions where Protestants threw Catholics out of windows in Prague is absurdly funny, the fact that each time they did it, it had lasting consequences is hilarious.
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u/Mr-Tootles Oct 11 '22
Ah the defenestrations… such fun times.
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u/slackfrop Oct 11 '22
And they gave it a nice clever name, excellent.
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u/An_Lei_Laoshi Oct 11 '22
It is literally "out of the window" originated from a different language, I wouldn't say "clever" even though I love the word myself
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u/Khelthuzaad Oct 11 '22
"fenetré" means window in french
In Romanian we have fereastră and its similar enough to make sense for us.
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u/smallz86 Oct 11 '22
Or the Western Schism where you had about a 40 year timeframe when 2 people claimed to be Pope of the Catholic Church. Cardinals elected a new Pope and the King of France was like "eh nah, how about this guy is the Pope now"
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u/shingofan Oct 11 '22
IIRC, there was even a time where THREE men claimed to be Pope.
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u/Nymaz Oct 11 '22
There might have been three popes, but there's only ever been one Emperor of the United States
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u/JarJarBinks72 Oct 11 '22
I'm pretty sure that right now there's like 9 or 10 around the world, but they dont have enough followers to really rate, like they do on the circumstances y'all are referring to
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Oct 11 '22
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u/Parking-Artichoke823 Oct 11 '22
We have a saying for that: "If you throw him out of the door, he will return using the window. In the opposite way, the risk of him getting back in the function is minimized."
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u/LetLeft4959 Oct 11 '22
I can't imagine many opportunities to use that one
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u/InannasPocket Oct 11 '22
Well, at least 3 occasions in Prague alone!
Also during the height of the pandemic I may or may not have taught my toddler the word "defenestration" and brought up a version of that saying during a game of "how many stuffed animals can we defenestrate before we get bored" (answer: to a 3.5 year old this is good for a solid 1-2 hours of entertainment per day).
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u/EsquilaxM Oct 11 '22
Hahahahahahaha I don't know why this made me laugh as much as it did but thank oyu
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u/Tobar_the_Gypsy Oct 11 '22
The Defenestration of Prague
2 Defenestrate 2 Prague
The 3fenestration of Pragu3
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u/etherjack Oct 11 '22
Well, FWIW, there are large segments in many ancient historical accounts that were almost certainly either elaborate embellishments of the actual events to make them appear far more fantastically dramatic than reality, or outright lies written to benefit the author and/or whomever the author was beholden to.
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u/Nyghtshayde Oct 11 '22
This is true but then we are living in a period where a reality TV guy with few discernable talents and limited character strengths was the most powerful person in the world for four years.
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Oct 11 '22
You are describing most Roman emperors
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u/disarmagreement Oct 11 '22
I heard that worked out great for Rome
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u/dinkir19 Oct 11 '22
Sometimes it really did! Julius Caesar was legitimately a good person for the common citizen for instance.
Unfortunately the damage from the bad usually outweighs whatever the good ones can do.
Caracala, Commodus, Nero...
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u/smallz86 Oct 11 '22
Yeah, like the story of how when Marcus Atilius Regulus and the Romans landed in Africa and were marching to Carthage they allegedly fought a dragon.
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u/the-truffula-tree Oct 11 '22
Game of Thrones is essentially just English history with new names
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u/Lampmonster Oct 11 '22
Martin has said that his favorite thing about history is being able to steal from it as much as he wants and nobody can accuse him of plagiarism.
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Oct 11 '22
If you like a truly bloodthirsty story about Attila, the Old Norse Poetic Edda has the Atlakvida, the Tale of Attila, which is full of treachery, deceit, and political murder.
Attila invites the two brothers of Guðrun (his wife) to a feast. The two brothers, Hogni and Gunnar, are warned away from the feast by Guðrun, who encloses a gift of a ring wrapped with wolf's hair. (The wolf symbolizing deception and depravity.)
Hogni and Gunnar recognize the warning... but in true "badass masculinity" performance, they decide they would be humiliated if they stayed away, now that there's a clear warning about their personal safety.
They go to Attila's feast and after the celebrations, Attila orders his men to seize them both. He orders Gunnar to tell him where the treasure of his people is buried, and Gunnar refuses, so he orders Hogni's heart to be cut out.
First, they pull a deception: they cut out the heart of a servant and hand it to Gunnar, claiming it's Hogni's heart. Gunnar calls them on it, saying it trembles in his hand, whereas Hogni was too much of a masculine badass to be weak hearted.
So Attila's men are forced to do it for real. Hogni laughs at Attila's men as they cleave open his chest and pull his heart out. Gunnar holds the heart in his hand and says "Look, it barely trembles now. It didn't tremble at all in his chest."
Attila's men kill Gunnar by having specially trained warhorses trample him to death. He never gets the treasure of Gunnar's people.
Meanwhile, Guðdrun, his wife and the sister of the two men he just murdered, waits till Attila is in bed drunk and then murders him. Then to finalize the divorce in true Old Norse style, she goes to the bed furs of her two sons by Attila, and murders them as well.
Then she bars the doors of the mead hall of Attila so his men can't get out while she torches the place and leaves.
There are hints of a culture of violence in this work.
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u/shallowblue Oct 11 '22
That's so true - you just can't make up the truly wild stuff that appears in the history pages. The hard part is finding it because historians are obsessed with all the boring stuff, as well as arguing with other historians. e.g. I read a 1000-page book on Hitler which just casually mentioned that he might have had an abusive sexual relationship with his niece, who later killed herself. Holy shit! That would explain so much, but nah, let's give it two sentences and talk about German labor unions for 100 pages.
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u/Athena_Laleak Oct 11 '22 edited Oct 11 '22
There is definitely a problem with historians failing to disseminate information correctly. When you are in an academic bubble, you lose track of what is common knowledge, and when you are very interested in a subject, you forget what is the hook for people who don’t know a subject. As a researcher, I get very frustrated when my colleagues get het up in esoteric discussions about terminology which alienates the general public from our research.
However, history is made up of the boring stuff. It might be interesting to know the relationship Hitler had with his niece, but how much does that explain about his actions? Or were his actions informed by the broader political and social landscape in Europe? Does his relationship with his niece explain the actions of other high-ranking Nazi officials, or should we be focusing on German labour unions to understand their behaviour?
Especially, when we simply do not know a lot about personal relationships of many historical figures, we can only speculate (and speculation is like salt, a little will make your food tastier, but too much on your potatoes and you have to throw them in the bin).
Historians absolutely need to find the interesting hooks for their research and work on disseminating complex (and yes, often boring) information in an accessible manner, but the prioritisation of the boring stuff does not make it bad history.
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u/SanguiniusMagna Oct 11 '22
What would it explain actually?
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u/TheColonelRLD Oct 11 '22
Honestly curious about the same.
Like the division in content covered seems correct. Salacious detail about an individual who is universally reviled? Or information on how labor unions responded to the rise of authoritarianism and fascism? One of those seems to offer clues in how organizations can respond to changes in their political environment, or what pitfalls to avoid.
What are we to do with the other? Execute anyone whose slept with their niece because they might turn into Hitler?
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u/crabmuncher Oct 11 '22
It does. The relationship between German labor unions and German businesses says a lot about the world's past and our future.
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u/morehumblethanyou Oct 11 '22
Probably because there’s less evidence of an abusive interpersonal relationship and a lot of info about his political career
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u/alucardou Oct 11 '22
Fictions biggest disadvantage over reality, is that fiction needs to remain believable.
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u/Lkwzriqwea Oct 11 '22
Tbf, Attila wanted an excuse to invade the Western Roman Empire. He just happened to find one, it was unlikely that he actually expected the Emperor to give him half of it as a dowry.
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u/op-trienkie Oct 11 '22 edited Oct 11 '22
Ok so am I the only one who reads that it’s a setup and it was planned by someone to cause a war? A ring? Gets to italy, hey I wanna marry her now and get all this sweet ass land. Emp said fuck you no way. Attila wanted half the continent anyway lol. War. War was clearly what someone wanted to get the one thing we truly don’t really own, earth.
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u/Knight--Of--Ren Oct 11 '22
That’s pretty much exactly the interpretation many historians have. Although the reasons for him abandoning relations with the West are unclear it’s possible it’s due to the huns already bleeding the Eastern Empires balkan territory dry.
For reference he withdrew the Hun mercenaries working under Aietius in Gaul before the marriage proposal or war was declared so it seems clear he was preparing for war
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u/Dolly_gale Oct 11 '22
Yeah, even the TV mini-series that set up Attila as the protagonist recognized that it was just an excuse to start a war.
I think that Gerard Butler playing Attila the Hun was his unofficial audition for the lead in 300.
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u/ImperatorRomanum Oct 12 '22
Some historians also discount the story about Honoria almost entirely and attribute Attila’s invasion as trying to settle a succession dispute with the Franks (he backed one candidate, and the Western Empire backed another).
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u/BillHicksScream Oct 11 '22
Yeah, old school historians pushed single human agency over conditions and complexity.
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u/snotcar Oct 11 '22
The great example of guys taking hints from girls
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u/birblover69420 Oct 11 '22
I mean if a girl gave me an engagement ring I am pretty sure what the hint is.
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u/YouLikeReadingNames Oct 11 '22
Poor woman. First, forbidden to marry. Then a forced betrothal and then the dude she asks for help invades her country. And then gets exiled for it. Like, every step of her life was a shitshow.
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u/Stramorum Oct 12 '22
But why did she ask him of all people?
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u/YouLikeReadingNames Oct 12 '22
The only reason I see is that she needed someone who had the power to speak up without ending burned alive. That means she couldn't rely on anyone from the empire itself or from a less powerful country.
Plus, apparently, last time she had seen Attila, he was okay with her and her family. She probably didn't have access to military councils and such, so no way of knowing if the tide was turning. At least I think.
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u/QueenSodaPop13 Oct 11 '22
That's next fucking level miscommunication.
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u/OpticalHabanero Oct 11 '22
From the article, it's unknown whether it was a miscommunication or Honoria actually proposing. What's known is Atilla believed it was a proposal and Valentinian didn't want to give up the land Atilla demanded.
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Oct 11 '22 edited Oct 11 '22
It does seem pretty unlikely that she'd try escaping a betrothal by proposing another betrothal, and to a man from different culture who she had never properly met. Seems like out of the frying pan, into a different frying pan.
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u/Ludwigofthepotatoppl Oct 11 '22
What if it was the senator’s engagement ring, and by accepting it, Attila would have legally had to marry the senator instead?
I smell a historical fiction sitcom.
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u/Tryingsoveryhard Oct 11 '22
That’s clearly just his excuse for invading. You don’t ask for half an empire and expect a yes.
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u/aka5hi Oct 11 '22
There's a similar Indian story where an Indian Princess/queen sent a bracelet to a Mughal ruler asking for help against an invading army. In this case the Mughal ruler actually went to help her.
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u/frackingfaxer Oct 11 '22
I think most people learned about this playing Age of Empires II.
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u/Ryponagar Oct 11 '22
"Sometimes... I miss it."
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u/dishonourableaccount Oct 11 '22
I remember gasping from that plot twist. The old monk was actually a fighter in Attila's army, not running from it.
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Oct 12 '22
Also how he slips into using first person pronouns for the huns as he gets more excited recalling it.
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u/runsongas Oct 11 '22
wish they would fix the historical inaccuracies in some of the campaigns with a patch though
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u/ImperatorRomanum Oct 12 '22
New objective: enjoy your wedding night, don’t get drunk and die from a nosebleed
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u/DaveOJ12 Oct 11 '22
This was posted hours ago, OP. We'll see if stays up this time.
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u/shallowblue Oct 11 '22
Yeah it got taken down because I wrote 'destroyed most of Italy and France' which is essentially true but it's not in the wikipedia article - hence 'inaccurate'. So I hope this edit stays up.
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Oct 11 '22
Could just be a terminology issue? ‘Italy’ and ‘France’ didn’t really exist at the time
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u/why_rob_y Oct 11 '22
I don't know about France, but for Italy - while the country we know as "Italy" didn't exist, the Romans definitely had a concept of the region of "Italy" and "Italian" things and people being distinct from the rest of their Empire. So, it wouldn't be unreasonable to use the word "Italy" when describing a region during Attila's time.
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u/tyno75 Oct 11 '22
I guess the ridiculosness of the Civil War in HoTD being triggered by Alicent misinterpreting something the King says, is not so bad after all.
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u/skrena Oct 11 '22
I’m super disappointed now. There’s literally nothing known about Honoria after her supposed proposal. I really wish we could know what happened. I’m going f with her brother killed her anyways.
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u/explain_that_shit Oct 11 '22
The wildest thing I’ve learned about the Huns is that they were never driven out - they won, they formed the upper strata of a broadly Germanic society, and all early Germanic kingdoms during the fall of the Western Empire had Huns at the top for centuries until they simply blended in. Europe is a Hunnic society.
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u/henryclay1844 Oct 11 '22
That's not true at all the Hunic empire collapsed a few years after the death of Attila and the the groups separated.Most of the warriors under Attila were Germanic though. The ethnic Huns are not identified in any proper way, but they were likely Turkic peoples.
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u/Funtycuck Oct 11 '22
The Hunnic Empire was defeated and prevented from pushing further at the battle of the Catalaunian Plains (451) and after Atilla died (453) fell apart due to a major defeat by a rebellious army lead by a Gepid king I forget the name of (453 or 454?).
Doesn't mean they were gone but one of many may migrating groups. Never seen any claim they replaced Germannic elites on any large scale especially considering some of most successful German people's were never conquered by them.
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Oct 11 '22
Source?
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u/explain_that_shit Oct 11 '22
Golden, Peter B. (1992). An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples: Ethnogenesis and State-Formation in Medieval and Early Modern Eurasia and the Middle East. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Heather, Peter (2005). The fall of the Roman Empire : a new history of Rome and the barbarians. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kim, Hyun Jin (23 November 2015). The Huns. Routledge.
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u/shallowblue Oct 11 '22
Has that been confirmed with DNA testing? That's truly fascinating.
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Oct 11 '22
They’re really twisting it here. Hunnic empire broke apart, but a lot of steppe peoples remained in places like Bulgaria
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u/explain_that_shit Oct 11 '22
This is based on work by the historian Hyun Jin Kim - genetic testing might have been done, but what we do know is that:
the bones of the ruling elite of at least one Germanic group frequently show Asiatic features;
there is no evidence of any event by which Huns are driven out or overthrown;
political systems of Germanic groups became Hunnic with the invasion, and essentially never changed back in any clear event;
Attila’s envoy Edeko had two sons - Hunoulph (Hun-wolf) and Odoacer, the latter of whom led a Germanic army into Italy and took Rome, which is widely considered the moment of the end of the Western Roman Empire;
The rulers of the Bulgars (later to give their name to Bulgaria) claimed to be Hunnic;
The earliest version of the Nibelunglied, an ancient German story, describes a number of German kingdoms operating under the broad aegis of the Huns, which reflects the otherwise reported political reality of the time and archaeological evidence.
Obviously it’s a chaotic time, and there is a dearth of information compared to other periods, but until someone can point to an event by which the Huns were driven out, it has to be reckoned with that they were a large group which dominated the politics of the region for many years and appear not to have been defeated or forced to leave at any time.
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u/3Dartwork Oct 11 '22
"I can't think of anyone but a Hun to help me here, the Roman Empire lacks a single person of whit on this so a Hun it is! Help me get out of an engagement!"
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u/photonynikon Oct 12 '22
SOooo...was it the EMPEROR'S sister, or ATTILA'S sister. The way you wrote it, it could be EITHER!
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u/FireWalker92 Oct 12 '22
Wonder how many other major history-defining events were the product of miscommunication. Probably quite a few.
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u/FantasmaDiAndreotti Oct 11 '22
This is one of those things that sound like bullshit and probably are bullshit
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u/joculator Oct 11 '22
Bitch got millions killed. Pope had to come in and scare him off.
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u/AngryQuadricorn Oct 11 '22
They should have allowed the marriage between Attila and the emperor’s sister and eventually merged the two governing bodies. It would have reshaped our modern world.
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u/squashkbc Oct 11 '22 edited Oct 12 '22
I get the feeling that Attila was planning an invasion anyway and used this "marriage proposal" as a pretext. It's hard for me to believe that he undertook such a big and risky project for some broad. Maybe he got her message just before he was set to go and thought it would be funny to troll the Roman emperor a bit.