Burial of Alaric the Goth and Attila the Hun

Alaric, king of the Visigoths, and a famous conqueror, was born about A.D. 376.

He was buried by his soldiers in the bed of the river Busento in Southern Italy: they first turned the water into another channel; and, after burying their chief and his treasures in the middle of the river-bed, they let the water flow back again. The digging was done by prisoners; and after the burial they were all put to death, so that the Romans might never find his grave.

Attila, king of the Huns, the greatest barbarian conqueror of the fifth century, was buried A.D. 453 in a wide plain; his body being enclosed in three coffins, the first of gold, the second of silver, and the third of iron.

With his body was interred much treasure; and, that his grave might be forever unknown, all the prisoners who had been sent to bury him, were, on their return, immediately put to death.

Another secret burial, in later history, was that of Fernando de Soto, the discoverer of the Mississippi, whose coffin was sunk at midnight in the middle of the stream, to conceal his death from the natives, who had been told that he was immortal, and "a child of the sun."