Ardaric

Ardaric, Arcadius, Aldigar (died around AD 460) was the king of the Gepids, a Germanic tribe closely related to the Goths. 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' dominance in Eastern Europe.

Nothing is known of Ardaric’s 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 Jordanes’s 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.

Attila had unified the Eastern European tribes outside the Roman Empire’s border and attacked the Western Roman Empire, in AD 451 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."

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