Even before the famous or infamous
Attila the Hun came along , these guys were a bunch of, what would be termed today, badasses.
They arrived on the fringes of the Roman Empire in the late fourth century. They rode their horses out of the great steppes of Asia and struck fear into Germanic barbarians and Romans alike. It is believed that they had moved against the Chinese Empire but were turned away. They set their sights on Rome instead. As they approached the Black Sea, they conquered a people called the Ostrogoths, they also drove the Visogoths across the Danube and into the Roman Empire.
The early Huns used traditional tactics of mounted archers and must have seemed like some kind of monster from the dark when compared to their more civilized contemporaries. A Roman historian, Ammainus Marcellinus, wrote the following towards the end of the fourth century in describing their tactics and customs.
"The nation of Huns surpasses all other Barbarians in wildness of life. And though the Huns do just bear the likeness of men (of a very ugly pattern), they are so little advanced in civilization that they make no use of fire, nor any kind of relish, in the preparation of their food, but feed upon the roots which they find in the fields, and the half raw flesh of any sort of animal."
"I say half raw, because they give it a kind of cooking by placing it between their own thighs and the backs of their horses."
"When attacked, they will sometimes engage in regular battle. Then, going into the fight in order of columns, they fill the air with varied and discordant cries. More often, however, they fight in no regular order of battle, but by being extremely swift and sudden in their movements, they disperse, and then rapidly come together again in loose array, spread havoc over vast plains, and flying over the rampart, they pillage the camp of their enemy almost before he has become aware of their approach. It must be owned that they are the most terrible of warriors because they fight at a distance with missile weapons having sharpened bones admirably fastened to the shaft. When in close combat with swords, they fight without regard to their own safety, and, while their enemy is intent upon parrying the thrust of the swords, they throw a net over him and so entangle his limbs that he loses all power of walking or riding."
So it seems that when the Huns first appeared on the edge of the Roman Empire, they made quite an impression. After their initial threats, they settled along the Danube in the Great Hungarian Plain. For about 50 years, they served the Romans more as
allies than enemies. In return , the Eastern Emperor paid them an annual
subsidy. On the whole, the uneasy relationship between the Huns and the Roman Empire worked well. That is, until
Attila the Hun came along.