The Huns and the great migrations
Steppe nomads arrive in Europe and push everyone else west.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 83 years
- Known to
- ± 5 years
- Era
- Classical, Holocene
Hunnic groups reach the Pontic steppe around 370 CE and displace the Goths, who cross the Danube into the empire and destroy a Roman army at Adrianople in 378. Under Attila from 434 the Huns extract enormous tribute and raid Gaul and Italy before his empire dissolves at his death in 453. The chain reaction moves Goths, Vandals, Burgundians, Suebi and Franks into the western provinces, and their settlement is what actually ends Roman rule there.