Battle of the Utus The Battle of the Utus was fought in 447 between the army of the Eastern Roman ( Byzantine ) Empire , and the Huns led by Attila at what is today the Vit river in Bulgaria . It was the last of the bloody pitched battles between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Huns , as the former attempted to stave off the Hunnic invasion . The details about Attila ' s campaign which culminated in the battle of Utus , as well as the events afterwards , are obscure . Only a few short passages from Byzantine sources ( Jordanes ' " Romana " , the chronicle of Marcellinus Comes , and the Paschal Chronicle ) are available . As with the whole activity of Attila ' s Huns in the Balkans , the fragmentary evidence does not permit an undisputed reconstruction of the events . Battle . Beginning in 443 , when the Eastern Empire stopped its tribute to the Huns , Attila ' s army had invaded and ravaged the Balkan regions of the Eastern Empire . Attila ' s army invaded the Balkan provinces again in 447 . A strong Roman force under Arnegisclus , " magister utriusque militiae " , " master of both forces " ( both foot and horse ) of Thrace , moved out of its base at Marcianople westwards and engaged the Hunnic army at Utus in the Roman province of Dacia Ripensis . Arnegisclus was one of the Roman commanders who had been defeated during Attila ' s campaign of 443 . The Roman army was most likely a combined force , including the field armies of Illyricum , Thrace , and the Army in Emperor ' s Presence . The Romans were defeated , but it seems that losses were severe for both sides . Arnegisclus ' horse was killed and he fought bravely on foot until he was cut down . Aftermath . Marcianople fell immediately to the Huns , who destroyed it ; the city then lay desolate until the Emperor Justinian restored it one hundred years later . Even worse , Constantinople , the capital of the eastern half of the Roman empire , was under the grave threat of the Huns , as its walls had been ruined during an earthquake in January 447 and its population suffered from the ensuing plague . However , the Praetorian prefect of the East Constantinus managed to repair the walls in just two months by mobilizing the city ' s manpower , with the help of the Circus factions . These hasty repairs , combined with the urgent transfer of a body of Isauria n soldiers into the city , and the heavy losses incurred to the Huns ' army in the Battle of Utus , forced Attila to abandon any thought of besieging the capital . Instead , Attila marched south and laid waste the now - defenseless Balkan provinces ( including Illyricum , Thrace , Moesia , Scythia and both provinces of Roman Dacia ) until he was turned back at Thermopylae . Callinicus of Rufinianae wrote in his " Life of Saint Hypatius " , who was still living in Thrace at the time , that " more than a hundred cities were captured , Constantinople almost came into danger and most men fled from it " , although this was probably exaggerated . Peace was only restored when a treaty was signed a year later in 448 . By this treaty , the Eastern Emperor Theodosius II agreed to pay Attila a large annual tribute . Additionally , a vast no man ' s land in the Roman territory was created ; this extended to the distance of a five days ' journey south of the Danube and functioned as a buffer zone .