Huns
Huns, a nomadic people, of Mongoloid origin, who plundered and terrorized Europe in the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. Roman writers described Hun warriors as unsightly, short-legged and stout, with strongly knit limbs, thick necks, beardless faces, and small, black eyes. The Huns had no permanent home and never tilled the soil. They raised cattle, horses, sheep, and goats.
The Huns originally lived in what is now Mongolia. The Hun community split into two groups in about the third century A.D., the eastern Huns, who remained in Mongolia, and the western Huns, who began migrating west, across Central Asia to eastern Europe.
For a time, the eastern Huns dominated Mongolia, but eventually were integrated with the other tribes in the area. The western Huns plundered Central Asia and conquered Ostrogoth and Visigoth lands in eastern Europe. By the early fifth century, the Huns had established an empire in eastern and central Europe.
The Huns attained their greatest power in the mid-fifth century under Attila. In 447 they raided Constantinople. They withdrew after receiving large sums of money as tribute. During 448–449 they plundered towns on the Balkan Peninsula.
The Huns raided Roman outposts along the Danube River in 451, but suffered a major defeat at the hands of the Visigoths and the Romans at the Battle of Chālons. In 452 they pillaged Italy, but were persuaded to withdraw by Pope Leo I.
After Attila's death in 453, his sons quarreled. The Huns were routed by their Slavic and Germanic subject peoples in 454. They fled eastward in several fragments, gradually disappearing from European history.