Attila

Attila was ruler of the Huns in the mid-fifth century and one of the most formidable opponents of the late Roman Empire. His campaigns across the Balkans, Gaul and northern Italy placed enormous pressure on both eastern and western Roman governments.

In William Napier’s Attila: The Scourge of God, the opening novel of the Attila Trilogy introduces the fifth-century Roman world as imperial authority weakens and new powers press against its borders. In Cecelia Holland’s The Death of Attila, when Attila dies in 453, the system held together by his personality begins to fracture. Other novels featuring Attila include Michael Curtis Ford’s The Sword of Attila, William Napier’s Attila: The Gathering of the Storm, William Napier’s Attila: The Judgement, Tim Hodkinson’s Sword of the War God, and Faith L. Justice’s Twilight Empress.

In non-fiction, Attila is discussed in John Man’s Attila the Hun and Nick Holmes’s Rome and Attila. In John Man’s Attila the Hun, Attila the Hun reconstructs the career of the fifth-century ruler who turned a loose confederation of peoples into the most dangerous power on Rome’s European frontier.