Ildico

Ildico was the last wife of Attila. According to Priscus, whom Jordanes follows, Attila married her shortly before his death, “a very beautiful girl named Ildico, after countless other wives, as was the custom of his race”.^[1] On the morning after the wedding Attila’s attendants broke down the doors. They found him dead of a haemorrhage, without a wound, and Ildico weeping with downcast face beneath her veil.^[1] Turkic Atlas covers the night and the funeral under the death of Attila.

Her name is Germanic.^[2]^[3] She was probably of Germanic or Gothic descent.^[4] Nothing else is known of her. Priscus does not accuse her. A rumour soon had it that Attila was killed by a woman. Marcellinus Comes records it a century later. It is generally taken to be false.^[5]

References

^ a b Jordanes; Mierow 1915, § 254, p. 123
^ Maenchen-Helfen 1973, p. 364
^ Thompson 1948, p. 149
^ Yavuz 2025, p. 103
^ Thompson 1948, p. 151

Sources

Jordanes (after Priscus and Ammianus Marcellinus)
Priscus

Literature

Charles Christopher Mierow, The Gothic History of Jordanes in English Version, with an Introduction and a Commentary (1915)
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)
Emre-E. Yavuz, The Gokturk Empire: 2nd Edition (2025)