A few years ago now, Wess Roberts made a bestseller out of a book titled Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun by arguing that-for blood-spattered barbarians-the Huns had plenty to teach American executives about вЂњwin-directed, take-charge management.вЂќ And Bill Madden reported, in his biography of George Steinbrenner, that the one-time owner of the New York Yankees was in the habit of studying Attila in the hope of gaining insights that would prove invaluable in business. Yet there are those who think we have much to learn from a people who came apparently from nowhere to force the mighty Roman Empire almost to its knees. For Edward Gibbon-no great admirer of the Roman Empire that the Huns ravaged repeatedly between 434 and 453 A.D.-Attila was a вЂњsavage destroyerвЂќ of whom it was said that вЂњthe grass never grew on the spot where his horse had trod.вЂќ For the Roman historian Jordanes, he was вЂњa man born into the world to shake the nations.вЂќ As recently as a century ago, when the British wanted to emphasize how barbarous and how un-English their opponents in the First World War had grown-how very far they had fallen short in their sense of honor, justice and fair play-they called the Germans вЂњHuns.вЂќ

His real name was Attila, King of the Huns, and even today the mention of it jangles some atavistic panic bell deep within civilized hearts. Then as now, he seemed the epitome of an Asian steppe nomad: ugly, squat and fearsome, lethal with a bow, interested chiefly in looting and in rape. Ancient artists placed great stress on his inhumanity, depicting him with goatish beard and devilвЂ™s horns. He called himself flagellum Dei, the scourge of God, and even today, 1,500 years after his blood-drenched death, his name remains a byword for brutality. Attila entertainsвЂ“as imagined by a 19th- century artist.

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