Battle of the Utus

Battle of the Utus
Part of Hunnic invasion of Balkans
Date447 AD
Location
near the river Utus (today Vit, Bulgaria)
Result Hunnic victory
Belligerents
Hunnic Empire Eastern Roman Empire
Commanders and leaders
Attila the Hun Arnegisclus 
Strength
30,000[1] 3 field armies (totalling on paper about 71,232 men) and local forces they could meet en-route.[2][3]
Casualties and losses
Heavy Entire army

The Battle of the Utus was fought in 447 between the army of the Eastern Roman Empire, and the Huns led by Attila at Utus, a river that is today the Vit in Bulgaria. It was the last of the bloody pitched battles between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Huns, as the former attempted to stave off the Hunnic invasion.

The details about Attila's campaign which culminated in the battle of Utus, as well as the events afterwards, are obscure. Only a few short passages from Byzantine sources (Jordanes' Romana, the chronicle of Marcellinus Comes, and the Paschal Chronicle) are available. As with the whole activity of Attila's Huns in the Balkans, the fragmentary evidence does not permit an undisputed reconstruction of the events.[4]

  1. ^ Taylor (2016), p. 182.
  2. ^ Williams & Friell 1999, p. 79.
  3. ^ Blockley 1981, p. 53.
  4. ^ Williams & Friell 1999, p. 250, citation 9.