Bleda

Bleda was king of the Huns together with his brother Attila. They took the throne at the death of their uncle Rua in the 430s, and Bleda reigned until about 445.^[1] He was the elder of the two.^[2] Jordanes says that he “ruled over a great part of the Huns”.^[3]

Joint rule

Priscus names him with Attila from the first. The two met the Roman envoys on horseback outside Margus and made the treaty of Margus. Then they went off together to subdue the peoples of Scythia and to make war on the Sorosgi.^[4] Hun envoys may have treated at Margus, and not the brothers in person.^[5] The brothers employed a secretary from Gaul, Constantius. They crucified him together on a suspicion of treason.^[6] The chronicler Marcellinus Comes records under 442 that “the brothers Bleda and Attila, the kings of many peoples,” ravaged Illyricum and Thrace.^[7]

The brothers acted in concert, but each ruled his own share. Bleda may have ruled the tribes in the east and Attila those in the west. It explains the double kingship as the joining of two groups of tribes.^[8] Others say it is not known which part fell to each.^[9] A third has Bleda inherit the eastern part of Rua’s realm and Attila take the place of Octar. It notes that the Gallic chronicle names Bleda alone as Rua’s successor. In most sources Bleda appears as a shadowy co-ruler beside his younger brother.^[5] Each brother, one modern study suggests, strove to unseat the other.^[10]

Zercon

Priscus describes Bleda through his jester. Zercon was a Moor, short and hunchbacked, with crooked feet and a nose so flat that only the nostrils showed. A Hun raid on Thrace had taken him, and he had been brought to the royal Scythians.^[11] Attila could not bear the sight of him. Bleda was delighted beyond measure, whether Zercon spoke nonsense or merely walked. He took him to feasts and on campaign, in a suit of armour made to raise a laugh.^[11] Zercon once fled with some Roman prisoners. Bleda let the others go and had Zercon hunted down. Brought back in chains, Zercon said that he had run away because he had been given no wife. Bleda laughed and gave him one, a noblewoman who had served the queen.^[11] The attribution of the passage to Priscus goes back to the editor Valesius.^[12] Bleda’s rough, boisterous character was very different from his brother’s.^[2]

Death

About 445 Attila had his brother killed.^[13] Jordanes writes that Attila was preparing for a great campaign and sought to increase his strength by the murder of his own kin. When treachery had killed Bleda, Attila united the whole people under his own rule.^[1] Marcellinus Comes gives the same account: Bleda was killed through the plots of his brother.^[14] The chronicles date the murder to 444, 445 or 446. Modern accounts place it in 445.^[13]^[15] Nothing is known of the cause of the quarrel.^[15]

In one version, Bleda tried to trap Attila on a boar hunt in a forest. Bleda’s own men surrounded Attila, went over to him and helped him kill his brother. The same account adds that it is argued whether Bleda was really killed by his own kin.^[16] Jordanes gives no circumstances of the killing.^[3]

After Bleda’s death Attila sent Zercon as a gift to Aetius.^[11] In 449 one of Bleda’s widows ruled a village on the Romans’ road north. She received the envoys hospitably.^[17]

Name

ΒλήδαςGreekPriscus
BledaLatinJordanes
BudaHungarian

The name is generally held to be Germanic, the short form of a longer name.^[18] The name may derive from a Turkic word for “wise”.^[19] The medieval Hungarian tradition names the town of Buda, later joined with Pest, after him. Buda is the Hungarian form of his name.^[16]

References

^ a b Jordanes; Mierow 1915, § 180–181, p. 101–102
^ a b Thompson 1948, p. 73
^ a b Jordanes; Mierow 1915, § 181, p. 102
^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 1, p. 72
^ a b Sinor 1990, p. 188
^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 84–85
^ Maenchen-Helfen 1973, p. 111
^ Maenchen-Helfen 1973, p. 86
^ Thompson 1948, p. 76–77
^ Yavuz 2025, p. 213
^ a b c d Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 11, p. 96
^ Müller 1851, p. 96
^ a b Maenchen-Helfen 1973, p. 104–105
^ Mierow 1915, p. 173
^ a b Thompson 1948, p. 88
^ a b Yavuz 2025, p. 96
^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 83–84
^ Maenchen-Helfen 1973, p. 388
^ Golden 1992, p. 90

Sources

Priscus
Jordanes (after Priscus and Ammianus Marcellinus)

Literature

Otto J. Maenchen-Helfen, The World of the Huns: Studies in Their History and Culture (1973)
E. A. Thompson, A History of Attila and the Huns (1948)
Karl Müller (ed.), Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, Bd. IV (darin: Menandri Protectoris fragmenta, griechisch mit lateinischer Übersetzung) (1851)
Charles Christopher Mierow, The Gothic History of Jordanes in English Version, with an Introduction and a Commentary (1915)
Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
Emre-E. Yavuz, The Gokturk Empire: 2nd Edition (2025)
Denis Sinor (ed.), The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia (1990)