What role did the huns play in the fall of rome?

Answer 1

There is a long established view that when the Huns pushed into Eastern Europe and settled on the Hungarian plains, they pushed local peoples into central Europe. Eventually some these peoples got under further pressure from peoples migrating from northern Europe and, their lands being squeezed, invaded the western part of the Roman Empire, precipitating the fall of this part of the empire (the eastern part of the Roman Empire was not affected by these invasions and continued to exist for nearly 1,000 years). This is how the invasion into Gaul and push into Spain of the Vandals, Sueves and Alans has been interpreted. However, this view has now been questioned.

The advance of the Hun also caused the Visigoths (the western Goths) to abandon their land in Ukraine and ask permission to settle in the lower Danube area of the Roman Empire. The emperor Valens granted this in 380. The Visigoths were left to their devices during a famine. They routed a Roman army led by Valens at the Battle of Adrianople, one of the heaviest defeats of the Romans in their history. It has been argued that the army of the eastern part of the Roman Empire never recovered from the losses incurred in this betel. This view has also been questioned recently. The Visigoths made peace and supplied soldiers to the emperors. One of their kings Alaric wanted to be promoted to the rank of general of the Roman army. Rebuffed, he tried to invade Italy, but was defeated by Stilicho, the commander of the army of the western Part of the Roman Empire. The two made a pact to invade a part of the eastern part of the Roman Empire, but Stilicho was betrayed and executed. Alaric made demands which Honorius, the emperor of the western part of the Roman Empire, turned down. As a result of this Alaric besieged Rome three times. On the third occasion he also sacked it. He died soon after this and his successor moved the Visigoths to south-western France.