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They have one more struggle, the most terrible of all; and then they will be for a while the most important people of the then world. The Gepidae are in Hungary before them, now a great people. Ever since they helped to beat the Huns at Netad, they have been holding Attila's old kingdom for themselves and not attempting to move southward into the Empire; so fulfilling their name.
The Teutons who had obeyed Attila, turned on their Tartar conquerors, the only people who had ever subdued German men, and then only by brute force of overpowering numbers. At Netad, upon the great plain between the Drave and the Danube, they fought the second Hunnenschlacht, and the Germans conquered.
The East Goths, meanwhile, after various wanderings to the north of the Alps, lay in the present Austria and in the Danube lands, resting after their great struggle with the Huns, and their crowning victory of Netad. To follow the fortunes of Italy, we must follow those of these East Goths, and especially of one man among them, Theodoric, known in German song as Dietrich of Bern or Verona.
On his death, the German tribes refused longer to serve under the divided rule of his sons, and after a severe contest with the more barbarous Huns, the empire of Attila disappeared as one of the great powers of the world, and Italy was delivered forever from this plague of locusts. The battle of Netad, in which they suffered a disastrous defeat, was perhaps as decisive as the battle of Chalons.
He is Odoacer, the giant Herule, Houd-y-wacker, as some say his name really is, a soubriquet perhaps from his war-cry, 'Hold ye stoutly, 'Stand you steady. His father was AEdecon, Attila's secretary, chief of the little Turkling tribe, who, though Teutonic, had clung faithfully to Attila's sons, and after the battle of Netad, came to ruin. There are strange stories of Odoacer.
In a bloody and decisive conflict on the banks of the River Netad, in Pannonia, the lance of the Gepidæ, the sword of the Goths, the arrows of the Huns, the Suevic infantry, the light arms of the Heruli, and the heavy weapons of the Alani, encountered or supported each other; and the victory of the Ardaric was accompanied with the slaughter of thirty thousand of his enemies.
Ellac, the eldest son of Attila, lost his life and crown in the memorable battle of Netad: his early valor had raised him to the throne of the Acatzires, a Scythian people, whom he subdued; and his father, who loved the superior merit, would have envied the death of Ellac.
Thirty thousand Huns fell on that dreadful day, and the rest streamed away into the heart of Asia, into the infinite unknown deserts from whence the foul miscreants had streamed forth, and left the Teutons masters of the world. The battle of Netad; that, and not Chalons, to my mind, was the saving battle of Europe. So Rome was saved; but only for a few years.
Their father was AEdecon, secretary at one time of Attila, and chief of the little tribe of Turklings, who, though German, had clung faithfully to Attila's sons, and came to ruin at the great battle of Netad, when the empire of the Huns broke up once and for ever.
The Teutons, Goths, Gepidæ, Alani, and Heruli reasserted their independence in the great victory of Netad in Pannonia in 454; and though the Huns left their name in Hungary, henceforth the empire of Attila became mere "drift-wood, on its way to inevitable oblivion." By THOMAS WYATT, A.M.
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