Attila the Hun

Attila ruled the Hunnic Empire from 434 until his death in early 453, commanding a confederation of Huns, Ostrogoths, Alans, Gepids and other peoples across Central and Eastern Europe that made him one of the most feared military leaders of late antiquity, remembered in later tradition as the Scourge of God. He ruled jointly with his brother Bleda from 434 until Bleda's death in 445, after which he ruled alone. Between 441 and 447 Attila's forces crossed the Danube twice and plundered the Balkan provinces of the Eastern Roman Empire, sacking cities including Viminacium and Naissus, though Constantinople's walls held against him. In 451 he turned west, crossing the Rhine into Roman Gaul and marching as far as Aurelianum, modern Orleans, before a combined Roman and Visigothic army halted his advance at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains. The following year he invaded northern Italy and destroyed the city of Aquileia, but withdrew after negotiations that later tradition credited to Pope Leo I, and he died in early 453, born around 406.