Part 552

In the summer of 451 Attila, retreating from the bloody plain of Chalons, recrossed the Rhine and returned to his quarters in Hungary. There, through the following autumn and winter, he nursed his chagrin and his wrath, and in the spring of 452 he set his host in motion again, directing its march to the Julian Alps and through their passes into Italy. The city of Aquileia, then prominent in commerce, and prosperous and rich, was the first to obstruct the savage invasion. The defence of the city proved so obstinate that Attila was at the point of abandoning his siege, when a flight of storks, which his shrewdness construed favorably as an omen, encouraged the Huns to one more irresistible assault and the doomed town was carried by storm. "In proportion to the stubbornness of the defence was the severity of the punishment meted out to Aquileia. The Roman soldiers were, no doubt, all slain. Attila was not a man to encumber himself with prisoners. The town was absolutely given up to the rage, the lust, and the greed of the Tartar horde who had so long chafed around its walls. … When the barbarians could plunder no more, they probably used fire, for the very buildings of Aquileia perished, so that, as Jornandes tells us, in his time, a century later than the siege, scarcely the vestiges of it yet remained. A few houses may have been left standing, and others must have slowly gathered round them, for the Patriarch of Aquileia retained all through the middle ages considerable remains of his old ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and a large and somewhat stately cathedral was reared there in the eleventh century. But the City of the North Wind never really recovered from the blow. … The terrible invaders, made more wrathful and more terrible by the resistance of Aquileia, streamed on through the trembling cities of Venetia." Patavium (modern Padua), Altinum and Julia Concordia, were blotted out of existence. At Vicenza, Verona, Brescia, Bergamo, Pavia and Milan, the towns were sacked, but spared destruction, and the inhabitants who did not escape were carried away into captivity. Many of the fugitives from these towns escaped the Huns by hiding in the islands and fens of the neighboring Adriatic coast, and out of the poor fishing villages that they formed there grew, in time, the great commercial city and republic of Venice. "The valley of the Po was now wasted to the heart's content of the invaders. Should they cross the Appennines and blot out Rome as they had blotted out Aquileia from among the cities of the world? This was the great question that was being debated in the Hunnish camp, and strange to say, the voices were not all for war. Already Italy began to strike that strange awe into the hearts of her northern conquerors which so often in later ages has been her best defence. The remembrance of Alaric, cut off by a mysterious death immediately after his capture of Rome, was present in the mind of Attila, and was frequently insisted upon by his counsellors." So, the grim Hun was prepared by his superstitions to listen to the embassy from Rome which met him at the Ticino, praying for peace. At the head of the embassy was the venerable bishop of Rome, Leo I.—the first of the great Popes. To his influence the pacific disposition into which Attila was persuaded has been commonly ascribed. At all events, the king of the Huns consented to peace with the Romans, and withdrew beyond the Danube in fulfilment of the treaty, leaving Italy a desert to the Appennines, but not beyond.

_T. Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, book 2, chapter 4 (volume 2)._

ALSO IN: _E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 35._

See, also, VENICE: A. D. 452.

HUNS: A. D. 453. Death of Attila and fall of his empire.

Attila died suddenly and mysteriously in his sleep, after a drunken debauch, some time in the early months of the year 453, and his death was the end of the "reign of terror" under which he had reduced half the world. "Immediately after his death, the Germans refused to submit to the divided rule of his sons. The army of Attila split up into two great camps; on the one side were the Gepidæ and Ostrogoths, with the majority of the Teutonic nations; on the other the Huns, the Alans, the Sarmatians or Slavonians, and the few Germans who still owned allegiance to the memory of Attila. A vast plain between the Drave and the Danube was selected to decide this vital struggle, known as the battle of Netad, which, though less famous in history, may perhaps claim equal importance with that of Chalons, as an arbiter of the destinies of civilization. … Fortune at first seemed to favour the Huns; but German steadfastness prevailed; Goths and Gepidæ scattered the less-disciplined bands of Asia; and Ardaric, the king of the latter tribe for the time, established himself in the royal residence of Attila, and assumed the leading position in the barbarian world."

_J. G. Sheppard, Fall of Rome, lecture 4._

"Thirty thousand of the Huns and their confederates lay dead upon the field, among them Ellak, Attila's first-born. … The rest of his nation fled away across the Dacian plains, and over the Carpathian mountains to those wide steppes of Southern Russia in which at the commencement of our history we saw the three Gothic nations taking up their abode. Ernak, Attila's darling, ruled tranquilly under Roman protection in the district between the lower Danube and the Black Sea, which we now call the Dobrudscha, and which was then 'the lesser Scythia.' {1690} Others of his family maintained a precarious footing higher up the stream. … There is nothing in the after-history of these fragments of the nation with which anyone need concern himself. … Dacia, that part of Hungary which lies east and north of the Danube, and which had been the heart of Attila's domains, fell to the lot of the Gepidae, under the wise and victorious Ardaric. Pannonia, that is the western portion of Hungary, with Sclavonia, and parts of Croatia, Styria and Lower Austria, was ruled over by the three Amal-descended kings of the Ostrogoths."

_T. Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, book 3, chapter 1 (volume 2)._

HUNS: Attila in Teutonic legend.

"Short as was the sway of Attila (from 434 to 453), the terror it had inspired and the great commotion it had brought over the whole Teuton and Roman world, were, not … soon forgotten. … The memory of the great chieftain hovered for a long time, like a bloody phantom, in the Roman annals and in the German sagas. … When we compare the historical Attila, before whose piercing glance Rome and Constantinople trembled, with Etzel of the Nibelungen Lied, we find that the latter bears but a slight resemblance to the former. It is true that Attila's powerful sway is still reflected in the Nibelungen Lied, as Kriemhild at her arrival in the land of the Huns is surprised at seeing so many nations submitted to his sceptre. Yet upon the whole Etzel plays in the German epic the part of a weak and sometimes even contemptible king, while glimpses of his real might can be detected only at rare intervals, fluttering as it were in the far-distant background of a by-gone time. … The Eddas and the Volsunga Saga bear the impress of the early Teutonic era, when the king was little more than the chosen leader in war; and the Northern people for a long time had in their political institutions nothing by which the conception of a great monarchy, or still less of a far-stretching realm like that of Attila, could be expressed."

_G. T. Dippold, Great Epics of Mediæval Germany, chapter 4._

HUNS: End--------

HUNS, The White.

"It was during the reign of this prince [Varahran V., king of Persia, A. D. 420-440] that those terrible struggles commenced between the Persians and their neighbours upon the north-east which continued, from the early part of the fifth till the middle of the sixth century, to endanger the very existence of the empire. Various names are given to the people with whom Persia waged her wars during this period. They are called Turks, Huns, sometimes even Chinese; but these terms seem to be used in a vague way, as 'Scythian' was by the ancients; and the special ethnic designation of the people appears to be quite a different name from any of them. It is a name the Persian form of which is 'Haïthal,' or 'Haïtheleh,' the Armenian 'Hephthagh,' and the Greek 'Ephthalites,' or sometimes 'Nephthalites.' … All that we know of the Ephthalites is, that they were established in force, during the fifth and sixth centuries of our era, in the regions east of the Caspian, especially in those beyond the Oxus river, and that they were generally regarded as belonging to the Scythic or Finno-Turkic population, which, at any rate from B. C. 200, had become powerful in that region. They were called 'White Huns' by some of the Greeks; but it is admitted that they were quite distinct from the Huns who invaded Europe under Attila. … They were a light-complexioned race, whereas the Huns were decidedly swart; they were not ill-looking, whereas the Huns were hideous; they were an agricultural people, while the Huns were nomads; they had good laws, and were tolerably well civilised, but the Huns were savages. It is probable that they belonged to the Thibetic or Turkish stock."

_G. Rawlinson, Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy, chapter 14._

"We are able to distinguish the two great divisions of these formidable exiles [the Huns], which directed their march towards the Oxus and towards the Volga. The first of these colonies established their dominion in the fruitful and extensive plains of Sogdiana, on the eastern side of the Caspian, where they preserved the name of Huns, with the epithet of Euthalites [Ephthalites], or Nephthalites. Their manners were softened, and even their features were insensibly improved, by the mildness of the climate and their long residence in a flourishing province; which might still retain a faint impression of the arts of Greece. The White Huns, a name which they derived from the change of their complexion, soon abandoned the pastoral life of Scythia. Gorgo, which, under the appellation of Carizine, has since enjoyed a temporary splendour, was the residence of the king, who exercised a legal authority over an obedient people. Their luxury was maintained by the labour of the Sogdians."

_E. Gibbon. Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 26._

The White Huns were subjugated by the Turks.

See TURKS: SIXTH CENTURY.

HUNTER, General David. Command in Kansas.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (JULY-NOVEMBER).

Emancipation Order.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (MAY).

Command in the Shenandoah.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D.1864 (MAY-JUNE: VIRGINIA).

HUNTSVILLE, Capture of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (APRIL-MAY: ALABAMA).

HUPAS, OR HOOPAHS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MODOCS.

HURON, Lake: Start--------

HURON, Lake: Discovery.

See CANADA: A. D. 1611-1616; and 1634-1673.

HURON, Lake: A. D. 1679. Navigated by La Salle.

See CANADA: A. D. 1669-1687.

HURON, Lake: End--------

HURONS, OR WYANDOTS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: HURONS, and IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY.

HURST CASTLE, King Charles at.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1648 (NOVEMBER-DECEMBER).

HUS AND THE REFORMATION IN BOHEMIA.

See BOHEMIA: A. D. 1405-1415.

HUSCARLS.

See HOUSECARLS.

HUSSARS.

Matthias, son of John Hunyadi, was elected king of Hungary in 1458. "The defence of the country chiefly engaged the attention of Matthias at the commencement of his reign. Measures of defence were accordingly carried on with the utmost speed, the most important of which was the establishment of regular cavalry; to levy which one man was enrolled out of every 20 families. This was the origin of the 'Hussar,' meaning in Hungarian the price or due of twenty."

_E. Szabad, Hungary, Past and Present, page 50._

HUSSEIN, Shah of Persia, A. D. 1694-1722.

{1691}

HUSTINGS. COURT OF HUSTING.

"The 'hygh and auncyent' Court of Husting of the City of London is of Anglo-Saxon, or, to speak more accurately, of Scandinavian origin, being a remarkable memorial of the sway once exercised over England by the Danes and other Northmen. The name of the Court is derived from [hus], 'a house,' and [dhing], a thing, 'cause,' or 'council,' and signifies, according to general acceptation, 'a court held in a house,' in contradistinction to other 'things,' or courts, which in Saxon times were usually held in the open air. … The term 'Husting' or, less correctly, 'Hustings' is commonly applied at the present day to open-air assemblies or temporary courts, usually held in some elevated position, for the purpose of electing members of Parliament in counties and boroughs, its strict etymological meaning, being lost sight of. … [The Court of Husting] is the oldest court of record within the City, and at one time constituted the sole court for settling disputes between citizen and citizen."

_R. R. Sharpe, Introduction to Calendar of Wills, Court of Husting, London._

HUTCHINSON, Mrs. Anne, and the Antinomian troubles.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1636-1638; and RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1638-1640.

HUTCHINSON, Governor Thomas, and the outbreak of Revolution in Massachusetts.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1761; and UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1765, NEWS OF THE STAMP ACT; 1772-1773; 1774 (MAY-JUNE).

HWICCAS.

A name borne by the West Saxons who first settled in Gloucestershire and Worcestershire when that region was conquered. They led a revolt against the West Saxon king Ceawlin, in which they were joined by the Britons, or Welsh. The battle of Wanborough, fought A. D. 591, drove Ceawlin from the throne.

_J. R. Green, The Making of England, pages 129-208._

See ENGLAND: A. D. 547-633.

HYACINTHIA, Feast of the.

"The feast of the Hyacinthia was held annually at Amyclæ [Lacedæmonia], on the longest day of the Spartan month Hecatombeus, corresponding to our June and July. … Hyacinthus, the beautiful youth slain accidentally by Apollo, was the chief object of the worship. He took his name from the flower, which was an emblem of death; and the original feast seems to have been altogether a mournful ceremony,—a lamentation over the destruction of the flowers of spring by the summer heat, passing on to a more general lament over death itself.'

_G. Rawlinson, History of Herodotus, Note, book 9, section 7._

ALSO IN: _E. Abbott, History of Greece, volume 1, page 222._

HYBLA.

"There was a Sikel goddess Hybla, whom the Greeks looked on as the same with several goddesses of their own mythology, here with one, there with another. Three towns in Sicily were called after her, one in the southeastern part of the island, now Ragusa, another on the coast north of Syracuse, near the place where the Greek colony of Megara was afterwards planted. This gave Its name to the Hyblaian hills not far off, famous for their honey; but there is no hill strictly called Mount Hybla. The third Hybla is inland, not far from Catania, and is now called Paterno."

_E. A. Freeman, Story of Sicily, page 33._

HYDASPES, The.

The ancient name of the river Jelum, or Jhelum, in the Punjab, on the banks of which the Indian king Porus made a vain attempt to oppose the invasion of Alexander.

_C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 53._

HYDER ALI AND TIPPOO SAIB, English Wars with.

See INDIA: A. D. 1767-1769; 1780-1783; and 1785-1793.

HYDERABAD OR HAIDERABAD, The Nizam of.

See INDIA: A. D. 1662-1748; and 1877.

HY-IVAR, The.

See NORMANS. NORTHMEN: 8TH-9TH CENTURIES, and 10TH-13TH CENTURIES.

HYKSOS, The.

See EGYPT: THE HYKSOS.

HYLLEANS, The.

"The Hylleans are never mentioned in any historical narrative, but always in mythical [Greek] legends; and they appear to have been known to the geographers only from mythological writers. Yet they are generally placed in the islands of Melita and Black-Corcyra, to the south of Liburnia."

_C. O. Müller, History and Antiquity of the Doric Race, volume 1, introduction._

HYMETTUS.

One of the noted mountains of Attica, "celebrated for its excellent honey, and the broad belt of flowers at its base, which scented the air with their delicious perfume."

_M. and R. P. Willson, Mosaics of Grecian History, page 9._

HY-NIALS AND EUGENIANS.

"As surnames were not generally used, either in Ireland or anywhere else, till after the 10th century, the great families are distinguishable at first only by their tribe or clan names. Thus, at the north we have the Hy-Nial race; in the south the Eugenian race, so called, from Nial and Eoghan, their mutual ancestors."

_T. D. McGee, Popular History of Ireland, book 1, chapter 2 (volume 1)._

HYPATIA.

See ALEXANDRIA: A.D. 413-415.

HYPERBOREANS, The.

A mythical people, supposed by the ancients to dwell beyond the north wind, and therefore to enjoy a perfect climate in the extreme north.

HYPHASIS, The. The ancient name of the river Sutlej, in the Punjab.

HYRCANIA. HYRCANIAN SEA.

"The mountain-chain which skirts the Great Plateau [of Iran] on the north, distinguished in these pages by the name of Elburz, broadens out after it passes the south-eastern corner of the Caspian Sea till it covers a space of nearly three degrees (more than 200 miles). Instead of the single lofty ridge which separates the Salt Desert from the low Caspian region, we find between the 54th and 59th degrees of east longitude three or four distinct ranges, all nearly parallel to one another, having a general direction of east and west. … Here in Persian times was settled a people called Hyrcani; and from them the tract derived the name of Hyrcania (Vehrkana), while the lake [Caspian Sea] on which it adjoined came to be known as 'the Hyrcanian Sea.' The fertility of the region, its broad plains, shady woods, and lofty mountains were celebrated by the ancient writers."

_G. Rawlinson, Five Great Monarchies: Persia, chapter 1._

"In the inscriptions of the Achæmenids their land [Hyrcania] is known as Valkana; the modern name is Jorjan. Here, according to the Greeks, the mountains were covered with forests of oaks, where swarms of wild bees had their hives; in the valleys vines and fig-trees flourished, and the soil down to the sea was so luxuriant that corn grew from the fallen grains without any special sowing."

_M. Duncker, History of Antiquity, book 7, chapter 1._

See, also, PARTHIA.

{1692}

I.

IAPYGIANS, The.

See ITALY, ANCIENT; also, ŒNOTRIANS.

IAZYGES, OR JAZYGES, The.

See LIMIGANTES.

IBERA, Battle at.

See PUNIC WAR, THE SECOND.

IBERIANS, The eastern.

"The Sapeires [of Herodotus] appear to be the Iberians of later writers. The name is found under the various forms of Saspeires, Sapeires, Sabeires, or Sabeiri, and Abeires, whence the transition to Iberes is easy. They are always represented as adjoining on the Colchians to the east and southeast, so that they must evidently have inhabited the greater part of the modern province of Georgia. … There is reason to believe that the modern Georgians—still called 'Virk' by their neighbours—are their descendants, and preserve, in the original seat of the nation, a name and a nationality which have defied the destroying touch of time for more than twenty-four centuries."

_G. Rawlinson, History of Herodotus, book 7, appendix 1._

See, also, ALARODIANS.

If these Iberians of the east were connected in race or origin of name with the Iberians of western Europe, the connection does not seem to have been traced. Iberia was devastated and subjugated by the Seljuk Turks in the 11th century.

See TURKS (SELJUKS): A. D. 1063-1073.

IBERIANS, The western.

"The numerous skulls obtained from Basque cemeteries possess exactly those characters which have been remarked … in the Neolithic tombs and caves in Britain and on the Continent, and may therefore be taken to imply that the Basque-speaking peoples are to be looked upon as a fragment of the race which occupied the British isles, and the area west of the Rhine and north of the Alps, in the Neolithic age. … Nor can there be any reasonable doubt as to this small, dark-haired people being identical with the ancient Iberians of history, who have left their name in the Iberian peninsula [Spain] as a mark of their former dominion in the west. … In ancient times they were spread through Spain as far to the south as the Pillars of Hercules, and as far to the north-east as Germany and Denmark. The Iberic population of the British Isles was apparently preserved from contact with other races throughout the whole of the Neolithic age. On the Continent, however, it is not so; a new set of men, differing in physical characteristics from them, make their appearance. … The new invader is identified by Thurnam and Huxley with the Celtæ of history. … These two races were in possession of Spain during the very earliest times recorded in history, the Iberians occupying the north-western region, and the Celts, or Gauls, extending in a broad band south of the Pyrenees along the Mediterranean shore. … In the north the Vascones then, as now, held the Basque provinces of Spain. The distribution of these two races in Gaul is similar to that which we have noted in Spain. … When Cæsar conquered Gaul, the Iberian Aquitani possessed the region bounded by the river Garonne, the Cevennes, and the Pyrenees. … An ethnological connection also between Aquitaine and Brittany (Armorica) may be inferred from the remark of Pliny, 'Aquitania Armorica ante dicta.' … Just as the Celts pushed back the Iberian population of Gaul as far south as Aquitania, and swept round it into Spain, so they crossed the channel and overran the greater portion of Britain, until the Silures, identified by Tacitus with the Iberians, were left only in those fastnesses which were subsequently a refuge for the Welsh against the English invaders."

_W. B. Dawkins, Early Man in Britain, chapter 9._

ALSO IN: _I. Taylor, Origin of the Aryans, chapter 2, section 5._

See CELTS; LIGURIANS; AQUITAINE: THE ANCIENT TRIBES; AND PORTUGAL: EARLY HISTORY; and, also, volume 1, APPENDIX A.

IBERION.

See ALBION.

IBRAHIM, Caliph, A. D. 744.

Ibrahim, Turkish Sultan, 1640-1649.

ICARIA, Attica.

One of the demes or ancient townships of Attica, where Icarius, in a Greek legend, was taught the art of wine-making by Dionysus.

ICARIA, in the Ægean.

An island near Samos and anciently belonging to the Samians, who used it chiefly for their pasture land.

ICELAND: Start--------

ICELAND: Supposed identity with the Ultima Thule of the ancients.

See THULE.

ICELAND: A. D. 860-1100. Discovery and Settlement by the Northmen. A Norse Commonwealth. Development of the Saga Literature.