Bleda

Bleda (390-445) was king of the Huns jointly with his brother Attila after the death of King Rugila. Both were sons of the Hunnic nobleman Mundzuk.

At first, Bleda and Attila opted to continue peace with the Eastern Roman Empire in exchange for Emperor Theodosius II doubling the annual tributes (ascending these to 700 pounds per year) and handing over several deserters who had fled to the south of the Danube and had taken refuge with the Romans. During the following five years peace was maintained, time that Bleda and Attila took advantage of to carry out incursions into the southern Caucasus, although they were defeated when they tried to sack Armenia.

In 439 they accused the Romans of breaking the agreement after the bishop of the city of Margus crossed the Danube and desecrated the Hunnic royal tombs on its north bank. Bleda and Attila crossed the Danube and sacked several Roman cities, including Margus, Viminacium, Singidunum, and Sirmium. After a relative calm during the year 442, Emperor Theodosius II hastened to bring in troops from North Africa and considered stopping paying tribute to the Hunnic kings. Attila and Bleda responded by resuming the war in 443 by taking the cities of Ratiaria, Naiso, Serdica, Filipopolis, and Arcadiopolis, where they made use of sophisticated siege weapons such as battering rams and towers, something the Huns had never done before. They defeated a Roman army outside Constantinople but were unable to take the city because of its double wall and formidable port, making a long-term siege untenable. Even so, they defeated a second Roman army at Gallipolis.

Theodosius II acknowledged defeat and agreed to a new peace, much more onerous than the previous one, in which he agreed to pay six thousand pounds of gold, as punishment for not having complied with the previous peace treaty, and an annual tribute tripled which amounted to two thousand one hundred pounds a year. After these victories Bleda and Attila withdrew to their domains north of the Danube.

Bleda died in 445 during a hunt, according to some sources possibly killed by his brother Attila.