The Battle of Nedao (454)

Attila died unexpectedly in 453. His sons Ellac, Dengizich, Ernak and others wanted to divide the realm among themselves. The historian Jordanes writes that they began to share out the subject peoples like slaves, and this drove those peoples to revolt.

The revolt was led by Ardaric, king of the Gepids, joined by some of the Ostrogoths, the Rugii, the Suebi and the Heruli. In 454 a great battle was fought in Pannonia by the river Nedao. According to Jordanes some thirty thousand Huns and allies fell, among them Ellac, Attila's favourite son.

After Nedao the Huns lost Pannonia and withdrew to the Black Sea steppe. Attila's youngest son Ernak stayed on the lower Danube, while Dengizich died fighting Byzantium in 469. Medieval Hungarian chronicles tell this battle as a war between Attila's sons Csaba and Aladar.