In the meantime, Theodoric was no less occupied in humbling the Roman power in southern Gaul. While meditating hostilities against the triumphant Suevi, he was summoned to encounter the renowned Attila, king of the Huns. His well-known valour placed him at the head of the right wing of the Franks, Romans, and Goths, who combined to arrest the progress of the tremendous torrent. His death on the plains of Châlons (451) where the pride of the barbaric king was humbled, endeared him still more to his subjects, who gratefully elevated his son Torismond to the vacant throne. But the reign of the new king was brief, and his end tragic. In one year, by the hands of his two brothers, he was deprived of empire and of life, in his capital of Toulouse; and Theodoric II, the elder of the fratricides, was elected in his place.[7] The reign of this prince was diversified by alternate success and disaster. He first turned his arms against the Suevi, whom he vanquished, and made their king, Richiarius, prisoner; but being recalled to France, the army which he left in the peninsula was routed by the natives of Leon, who were indignant at the excess it committed. The whole country was now in the most miserable condition. Goths and Romans and Suevi traversed it in every direction, and everywhere left melancholy vestiges of their barbarous fury. Another fierce tribe, the Herulians, landed on the coast of Catalonia, and zealously prosecuted the same work of desolation. Then the Suevi split into two parties, which pursued each other with the most vindictive feelings, but which were always ready to combine when the natives were to be plundered, or when Goths and Romans were to be opposed.