320 Outlines of Eu7'opean History Attila and the Huns The " fall " of the Empire in the West, 476 Odoacer Theodoric conquers Odoacer and establishes the kingdom of the East Goths in Italy To add to the universal confusion caused by the influx of the German tribes, the Huns (the Mongolian people who had first pushed the West Goths into the Empire) now began to fill all western Europe with terror. Under their chief, Attila, this sav- age people invaded Gaul. But the Romans and the German inhabitants joined together against the invaders and defeated them in the battle of Chalons, in 45 1 . After this rebuff in Gaul, Attila turned to Italy. But the danger there was averted by a Roman embassy, headed by Pope Leo the Great, who induced Attila to give up his plan of marching upon Rome. Within a year he died and with him perished the power of the Huns, who never troubled Europe again. The year 476 has commonly been taken as the date of the " fall " of the Western Empire and of the beginning of the Middle Ages. What happened in that year was this. Most of the Roman emperors in the West had proved weak and indolent rulers. So the barbarians wandered hither and thither pretty much at their pleasure, and the German troops in the service of the Empire became accustomed to set up and depose emperors to suit their own special interest, very much in the same way that a boss in an American city often succeeds in securing the election of a mayor who will carry out his wishes. Finally in 476, Odoacer, the most powerful among the rival German generals in Italy, banished the last of the emperors of the West and ruled in his stead.-^ It was not, however, given to Odoacer to establish an endur- ing German kingdom on Italian soil, for he was conquered by the great Theodoric, the king of the East Goths (or Ostro- goths). Theodoric had spent ten years of his early youth in Constantinople and had thus become familiar with Roman life and was on friendly terms with the Emperor of the East. The struggle between Theodoric and Odoacer lasted for sev- eral years, but Odoacer was finally shut up in Ravenna and 1 The common misapprehensions in regard to the events of 476 are discussed by the author in The New History, pp. 154 ff.
