It was in 374 or 375 that the Huns made their first really important advance into Europe. Jordanes tells us their leader was named Balamir, or, as some of the Mss. make it, Balamber; see Thierry, _History of Attila and His Successors_, p. 617. Ammianus tells us that the Huns, being excited by an unrestrainable desire of plundering the possessions of others, went on ravaging and slaughtering all the nations in their neighbourhood, till they reached the Alani. Having attacked and defeated them, they enlisted them in their service, and then proceeded to invade the empire of the Ostrogoths, or Grutungs, ruled over by Hermanric. Having been beaten in two encounters with them, Hermanric committed suicide. His son, Withimir, continued the struggle; but was also defeated and killed in battle, and the Ostrogoths became subject to the Huns. The latter now marched on towards the Dniester, on which lived the Visigoths or Thervings. Athanaric, the king of the latter, took great precautions, but was nevertheless surprised by the Huns, who forded the river in the night, fell suddenly upon his camp, and utterly defeated him. He now attempted to raise a line of fortifications between the Pruth and the Danube, behind which to take shelter; but was abandoned by the greater portion of his subjects, who, under the command of Alavivus, crossed the Danube, and by permission of the emperor Valens settled in Thrace. The Huns now occupied the country vacated by the Goths; they succeeded in fact to the empire of Hermanric, and apparently subjected the various nations over which he ruled. They did not disturb the Roman world by their invasions for fifty years, but contented themselves with overpowering the various tribes who lived north of the Danube, in Sarmatia and Germany. Many of them, in fact, entered the service of the Romans. Thus, in 405 one Huldin, a king of the Huns, assisted Honorius in his struggle against the Visigoths of Radagaisus. During the regency of Placidia, sixty thousand Huns were in the Roman service, according to Thierry. Meanwhile, although they did not attack Rome directly, the Huns were gradually forcing the tribes of Germany, the Suevi, the Vandals, the Alans, etc., across the Rhine, and gradually pushing themselves along the valley of the Danube. In 407, they appeared under their chief, Octar, in the valley of the Rhine, and fought with the Burgundians on the Main; [see Thierry]. This Octar was the brother of Mundzuk, the father of Attila; there were two other brothers, Abarre and Ruas, who divided between them the greater part of the Hunnic tribes.