Huns (Lat. Hunni, Gr. Ounnoi and Chounoi), a nomad race of antiquity, whose remote ancestors were probably the Hiung-nu, a people of Turkish stock, who formed a powerful state in Mongolia in the 2d century B.C. In 177 they conquered another large nomad race, the Yue-chi, akin to the Tibetans, and drove them westward and southward, they themselves following. But about the dawn of the Christian era their political power fell to pieces and the tribesmen were scattered. One section, however, seems to have fled westwards and to have settled in the neighbourhood of the river Ural and the Volga. At all events, some three centuries and a half later the people known to classic and medieval writers as Huns stepped upon the stage of history from that part of the world. About the year 372 they moved westwards again, under a leader called Balamir, and subdued first the Alani, who dwelt between the Volga and the Don, and then proceeded to attack the Ostrogoths, part of whom submitted somewhat tamely, whilst another part offered strenuous opposition, but were in the end compelled to submit likewise. This business completed, the Huns next invaded the territories of the Visigoths, and drove this people before them across the Danube, except one section, who, under Frithigern, sought permission of Valens, emperor of the East, to settle in his territories. The districts quitted by the Goths were occupied by the Huns. This, their first wave of invasion and conquest, seems then to have subsided; and, though it was followed by more than one smaller after-wave, it was not until about 430 that the second and greater wave began to gather head again in Rhuas or Rugulas. This chief acquired such power and influence that in 432 he imposed upon Theodosius II., emperor of Byzantium, an annual tribute of 350 pounds of gold. He was succeeded in 433 by his more illustrious nephew Attila (q.v.). With Attila's death, however, in 453, the power of the Huns crumbled to pieces amid the intestine strifes of his sons and generals, and the attacks of their foes round about. After a most disastrous defeat inflicted upon them in Pannonia in 454 by the combined armies of the Goths, Gepidæ, Suevi, Herulians, and others, the tribesmen of the Huns rapidly dispersed. Some settled in the Dobrudja, others in Dacia, whilst the main body seem to have returned to the land from whence they came—viz. the region about the river Ural. Some authorities identify these with the later Bulgarians, who about the end of the 5th century had risen into a powerful state on the Volga, and sent off conquering bands to the south-west, who finally settled in the modern Bulgaria.
The Huns are described as being of a dark complexion, deformed in appearance, of uncouth gesture and shrill voice. 'They were distinguished,' says Gibbon, 'from the rest of the human species by their broad shoulders, flat noses, and small black eyes deeply buried in the head; and, as they were almost destitute of beards, they never enjoyed either the manly graces of youth or the venerable aspect of age. A fabulous origin was assigned worthy of their form and manners—that the witches of Scythia, who for their foul and deadly practices had been driven from society, had united in the desert with infernal spirits, and that the Huns were the offspring of this execrable conjunction.' Like the Mongols, they were essentially a race of horsemen; they fought with javelins tipped with bone, with sabres, and with slings or lassoes. They ate herbs and half-raw meat, which they first used as saddles; and they clothed themselves with the skins of wild animals.
The White Huns or Ephthalites or Hephthalites are by some regarded as a branch of the Hiung-nu, though others make them the descendants of the ancient Royal Scythians, identifying them with the Barsileens, the allies of the Khazars. Whatever be their real origin, they were certainly established in ancient Bactria and the adjoining districts, between the Oxus and the Caspian, at a period contemporaneous with Attila's career. From the third decade of the 5th century onwards for about 120 years they were engaged in constant wars with their neighbours on the south, the Persians. In 484 the Ephthalites routed them in a fierce battle, in which Peroz, king of Persia, was amongst the slain. But their power seems to have been finally broken about 560 by the all-conquering Turks on their way to Asia Minor and Constantinople.
See De Guignes, Histoire Générale des Huns (vol. i. 1756); Neumann, Die Völker des südlichen Russland (2d ed. 1855); Thierry, Histoire d'Attila (4th ed. 1874); and Howorth, in Jour. Anthropol. Inst. (1872-74).