Ardaric (died around 460) was the most renowned king of the Gepids. He was "famed for his loyalty and wisdom", one of the most trusted adherents of Attila the Hun, who "prized him above all the other chieftains". After Attila's death, Ardaric led the rebellion against Attila's sons and routed them in the Battle of Nedao, thus ending the Huns' supremacy in Eastern Europe.
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Background: the Gepids
Nothing is known of Ardarics early life. Presumably he was a member of the nobility among the Gepids. The Gepids were an East Germanic tribe that first appears in historical record in the sixth century in Jordaness Origins and Deeds of the Goths. They first settled along the Vistula River between the first and third centuries A.D. In the fourth century they moved closer to the Eastern Roman Empire, and converted to Arian Christianity, as did their neighbours the Goths. This southward shift is demonstrated by archaeology; Gepids buried their dead with swords, spears, or shields, which their Gothic neighbours did not.
Gepidic society was divided by wealth. From burial grounds found scattered throughout the Carpathian Basin and Hungarian Plain, archaeologists can divide Gepidic sites into two distinct groups. Large burial grounds indicate villages of common people with no significant wealth, and small burial grounds of larger houses which often have weapons, jewelry, and religious icons, wealth far greater than the goods found in the mass gravesites of the larger and poorer villages.
Under Attila
Attila had unified the Eastern European tribes outside the Roman Empires border and attacked the Western Roman Empire, in 451 CE facing a coalition put together by Flavius Aëtius in northern Gaul. Ardaric is first mentioned by Jordanes as Attila's most prized vassal at the battle of the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains. "The renowned king of the Gepidae, Ardaric, was there also with a countless host, and because of his great loyalty to Attila, he shared his plans. For Attila, comparing them in his wisdom, prized him and Valamir, king of the Ostrogoths, above all the other chieftains."
The battle ended with the retreat of Attila's forces. However, the Gepids and Ardaric still remained loyal to their Hunnish overlord. When Attila made another attempt to penetrate Italy, he and his armies were successful in capturing Aquileia, Pavia, and Milan. But disease struck the Hun forces, forcing Attila to retreat once again back to the Hungarian Plain. Here Attila died in 453 CE.
After Attila
After Attilas burial, his eldest son Ellak rose to power. Supported by Attilas chief lieutenant, Onegesius, he wanted to assert the absolute control with which Attila had ruled. However, Attilas other two sons, Dengizik and Ernak, objected to the idea of their brother being the sole ruler. They claimed kingship over smaller subject tribes. In 454 CE, Ardaric led his Gepid and Ostrogothic forces against Attilas son Ellak and his Hunnish army. The Battle of Nedao was a bloody but decisive victory for Ardaric, in which Ellak was killed.
Jordanes' account of the Battle of Nedao
When Ardaric, king of the Gepidae, learned this [about the strife between Attila's sons], he became enraged because so many nations were being treated like slaves of the basest condition, and was the first to rise against the sons of Attila. Good fortune attended him, and he effaced the disgrace of servitude that rested upon him. For by his revolt he freed not only his own tribe, but all the others who were equally oppressed; since all readily strive for that which is sought for the general advantage. They took up arms against the destruction that menaced all and joined battle with the Huns in Pannonia, near a river called Nedao.
There an encounter took place between the various nations Attila had held under his sway. Kingdoms with their peoples were divided, and out of one body were made many members not responding to a common impulse. Being deprived of their head, they madly strove against each other. They never found their equals ranged against them without harming each other by wounds mutually given. And so the bravest nations tore themselves to pieces. For then, I think, must have occurred a most remarkable spectacle, where one might see the Goths fighting with pikes, the Gepidae raging with the sword, the Rugi breaking off the spears in their own wounds, the Suavi fighting on foot, the Huns with bows, the Alani drawing up a battle-line of heavy-armed and the Heruli of light-armed warriors.
The cause of Ardaric, king of the Gepidae, was fortunate for the various nations who were unwillingly subject to the rule of the Huns, for it raised their long downcast spirits to the glad hope of freedom... Finally, after many bitter conflicts, victory fell unexpectedly to the Gepidae. For the sword and conspiracy of Ardaric destroyed almost thirty thousand men, Huns as well as those of the other nations who brought them aid.[1]
Aftermath of the battle
"But the Gepidae by their own might won for themselves the territory of the Huns and ruled as victors over the extent of all Dacia, demanding of the Roman Empire nothing more than peace and an annual gift as a pledge of their friendly alliance. This the Emperor freely granted at the time, and to this day that race receives its customary gifts from the Roman Emperor."[2]
Death
Nothing is known about Ardaric after the battle of the Nedao. He may have died shortly afterwards.
Analysis
Ardarics most immediate achievement was the establishment of his people in Dacia. His defeat of the Huns at the River Nedao not only banished and dispersed the Huns, but cut the thread that strung the Eastern European tribes together. With the divisions between these formerly federated tribes, the Eastern Roman Empire had less fear of barbarian invasion. While the Western Roman Empire lay in ruins after 476 CE, the Eastern Roman Empire was allowed to continue on for almost one thousand years. This is due in great part to Ardaric
The Gepids (Latin: Gepidae; Old English: Gifð; possibly Proto-Germanic: *Gibiðaz, "giver"[1] or gepanta) were an East Germanic tribe who were closely related to the Goths.[2] The Gepids were recorded in the area along the southern Baltic coast in the 1st century AD, having migrated there from southern Sweden some years earlier. Subsequently, the Gepids migrated further south during the 2nd century and were reported in the mountains north of Transylvania by the end of the 3rd century. In the 4th century, they were incorporated into the Hunnic State.
Under their leader Ardaric, the Gepids united with other Germanic tribes and defeated the Huns at Battle of Nedao in 454. The Gepids then founded a kingdom centered in Sirmium, commonly known as Gepidia[3] or Kingdom of the Gepids.
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History
In the 3rd century (around 260 AD), the Gepids participated with the Goths in an invasion of Dacia. Their early origins are reported in Jordanes' Origins and Deeds of the Goths, where he claims that their name derives from their later and slower migration from Scandinavia:
You surely remember that in the beginning I said the Goths went forth from the bosom of the island of Scandza with Berig, their king, sailing in only three ships toward the hither shore of Ocean, namely to Gothiscandza. One of these three ships proved to be slower than the others, as is usually the case, and thus is said to have given the tribe their name, for in their language gepanta means slow. (xvii.94-95)[4]
The first settlements of the Gepids were at the mouth of the Vistula River, which runs south to north from the Polish Carpathian mountains. Their first named king, Fastida, enlarged their boundaries by war and overwhelmed the Burgundians, almost annihilating them in the 4th century. Like the Goths, the Gepids were converted to Arian Christianity.
Then in 375 they became subjects of the Huns. Under King Ardaric, Gepid warriors joined Attila the Hun's forces in the Battle of Chalons (the "Catalaunian fields") in Gaul in 451. On the eve of the main encounter between allied hordes, the Gepids and Franks met each other, the latter fighting for the Romans and the former for the Huns, and seem to have fought one another to a standstill with 15,000 dead.[5]
After Attila's death in 453, the Gepids and other people allied to defeat Attila's successors. Led by Ardaric they broke the Hunnic power in the Battle at the River Nedao in 454. After the victory they finally won a place to settle in the Carpathian Mountains in Gepidia. Not long after the battle at the Nedao the old rivalry between the Gepids and the Ostrogoths spurred up again, and they were driven out of their homeland in 504 by Theodoric the Great. In 552 the Gepids suffered a disastrous defeat from Alboin in the Battle of Asfeld and were finally conquered by the Avars in 567. Many Gepids followed Alboin to Italy, but many remained. In 630, Theophylact Simocatta reported that the Byzantine Army entered the territory of the Avars and attacked a Gepid feast, capturing 30,000 Gepids (they met no Avars).
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