Attila The Hun is THE O.G. M.V.P.
- May 30, 2025
- 5 min read
Now, gather round! I’ve got to drop a line on one of the baddest to ever do it, the man by the name of Attila! Now, this might be a hot take but lowkey I can’t help but respect the effort that Attila the Hun put into his career. Now hold up, don’t ostracize me just yet, I recognize that he committed atrocities and genocides that have shaped the world tenfold but I’m just sayin’; if I was born around 406 CE into what was essentially the royal family of a barbaric warrior clan that was hellbent on world domination and the beyond brutal annihilation of their enemies I would probably have been a warmongering deathlord that exhibited the most unimaginably horrific and devastating behavior in all of human history, too. I mean, try to put yourself in the poor guy’s infamous leather riding boots for a minute and have some sympathy.
It’s classic nature vs. nurture, right? I’m sure if he had more time on an iPad and less time fighting his childhood friends to the brink of death that he would’ve been a charming and forthright gentleman. Nah, I’m just playin’. I guarantee that if Attila was alive today he would still be one Hell of a savage and unforgiving monster, but whatever, we’ve certainly elected worse. (RECENTLY) I mean, this cut-throat (or cut-ALL if we bein’ real) ruler from the deepest of the dark ages is undoubtedly one of the most remarkably horrific, tragic, strategic, and mysterious figures in the whole of the world. For one thing, his likeness, name, and exact date of birth have never been officially verified so there’s no way to know if any of them are true! So many dominos have gone cascading through history from the stomps this heartless king made through the eastern world.
By the time of his death in 453 Attila had conquered over a 100 cities snaking from modern day Germany through southern Russia. Sure, his older brother Bleda was technically the one wearin’ the pants (or crown in this case) but homeboy Attila shed that (literally) dead weight around 445. He just picked a direction and didn’t stop choppin’, droppin’, and coppin’ himself a piece of pretty much whatever he wanted for over a decade, dominating every battlefield he stepped foot in on top of that. This bad MF had the Huns fiendin’ for war so bad Rome had to pay them off annually for almost twenty years just to let ‘em keep what he allowed them to have. If that doesn’t sound like the official invention of the protection racket then maybe I’m deaf, I don’t know.
Alright, so now seems like a good time to mention that recorded history on Attila is total garbage at best. Most records on the man actually come from Roman scripture by this dude Priscus. So to reiterate, Attila had Rome under his heel for a long time and they were less than satisfied with his performance as their oppressor over the years. (Preaching to the choir amiright?) So while a lot of what they wrote can be considered slander there is still material written in there that elevates his status quite a bit, even going so far as to curate rumors that the the sword Attila used to was given to him by Mars to give him the power to win every battle he fought. Which, “Sword of God” or not, is a pretty wild claim.
Imagine Biggie writing a song about Tupac’s Jordans being sewed by Athena, that is basically what the Romans wrote down there. (Did Tupac have Jordans? I’m researching the wrong history here, for real.) Even though Priscus does claim that Attila looked like Gimli from The Lord of the Rings (which if that isn’t true does sound a little more like Biggie) the fact that he would be willing to spread that kind of gossip into an official record just blows my mind. Although, maybe that description of our Hun in question isn’t too far off since the Germanic origins of the alias “Attila” can be translated to “Little Father”. Just talking statistically, imagine if the Knicks won every championship since ‘95 and Joe Mazzulla was just like, “Yeah, well God gifted Brunson that ball so that they would win so…”
Now, since we are getting into Attila’s history with Rome here’s some considerably juicy tea for ya’. Around 450 or so, this Roman princess Honoria comes hollerin’ to Attila to save her from this arranged marriage. Homeboy claimed her as one of his wives (one of MANY) and when Rome refused to hand her over he decided to go all Thunderdome on ‘em and said, “Dyin’ times here!”, and he attacked the Hell out of them. There is a thought that Attila was just looking for an excuse to invade a bitter Rome regardless of Honoria but either way he decimated their defense and had considerably no opposition on the path to single-handedly end the Roman empire. For whatever reason, though, around the Po River in Italy the Huns flipped a 180 and headed home. Some claim plague thinned out the Hun ranks, some say Valentinian III bribed him, one way or the other this is one account without a precise determination. Quite the Shakespearian level drama to garnish Attila’s story with.
Although he did not seem to end up claiming Honoria as his own, he did eventually take one more wife who some think could have been responsible for poisoning him! The “official” (Roman) story is that he had a brain hemorrhage but again pretty much anything could be possible here, some theories support a conspiracy around the marriage. (Especially since he died on his wedding night!) On top of this, my favorite mystery around Attila is the fact that his tomb has NEVER been found. I mean, if he was really as short as Priscus claims, then maybe he’d be harder to find than we think?
Still, how juicy is that mystery, there is an endless amount of speculation on Attila’s final resting place and personally I think it is pretty sweet that there are still some questions like that to be answered out there. Back to my initial point and the reason you were hopefully drawn in to this article, I think it is safe to say that after looking at all of his strategies, albeit political, economical, or especially on the battlefield and comparing them to the highest ranked criminals, public enemies, gangsters, movers, shakers, and hustlers in all of history you won’t find any of those conqueror’s methods outside the inspiration of the definitive Original Gangster and Most Valued Player, (in regards to the sport that is tribal warfare) Attila The Hun.
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