Attila as told to his Scribes

Attila the Hun, the most powerful man in Europe for almost a generation (circa 433-453), evolves in his account, from romantic young prince betrayed by his uncle, to ruthless conqueror. To his followers, he was famously generous, yet his stay in the Empire as a Roman hostage, he claims, taught him all he needed to know about cruelty and torture. His Roman interlude also motivated him to avenge his father, and to overcome all odds: he became the greatest king of all the Huns and war-leader of a huge confederation of steppe peoples.

This is a fictional autobiography--yes an autobiography …as told to his scribes: what he tells them, what they think, and what he thinks, or sees, when he's telling them. He's not a nice guy, although his tale (based on history and folktales) begins when he is an attractive boy on the cusp of manhood--when he witnesses his beloved father's murder. Attila is a lover and a megalomaniac, an attractive one--up to a point.

Sigidinum and Ravenna taught him to despise urban living; later, nothing pleased him quite so much as destroying Roman cities like Acquilea and Sigidinum (modern day Belgrade).

Of course, Attila's greatest weakness was his thirst for conquest. He was not an imperialist, like Alexander the Great, or Julius Caesar, nor like the conquistadors Cortez and Pissarro. Nor, like the Europeans and Americans after them. He was partly driven by a prophecy, only half remembered, from his youth. He wasn't interested in holding a piece of land; he only wanted to assert his will, and to carry off the wealth of settled lands. He believed (with some justification) that Roman wealth had been stolen already, anyway. He depopulated a whole region north of the Danube, and kept people out--a buffer for his people's protection, he claimed, but that gave him greater power over them, too. Paradoxically, he often wished he were on the open steppes, where he couldn't see a tent from one horizon to the next.

And, Attila had a weakness for women. He had numberless wives, who he justified as his way to cement ties with his allies and, later, with newly conquered tribes. It was, ultimately, a risky game and his first wife, his queen, Erekan, knew it. And so, finally, did his last scribe--and his last bride.

Attila as told to his scribes, will be out on Kindle soon. I will keep you posted.