Attila�s Attack

There weren't any legions at Chalons (or Catalunian Fields). There were two "barbarian" armies facing one another.

It was Aetius achievement to manage that. I also agree that Aetius didn't want Attila's army destroyed as he needed him as a counterbalance against the Goths.

Thanks!

250,000 is surely a very high figure, but I guess both armies weren't lower than 40-50,000. Remember that the Romans had Visigoths, Latinised Celts, Franks and Alans (real Roman soldiers were quiet few) whereas the Huns had Huns, Ostrogoths, Gepids, Burgunds, etc...

AFAIK no evidences of Huns using stirrups have been found. They, along with the Xiongnu and Scythians, were the major non-stirrup-user nomadic peoples of Euroasia. The Sarmatians were the first Steppe people to use iron stirrups but it's useage wasn't wide-spread for several more centuries.

Even the S�ss�nids didn't use stirrups

They still managed to defeat the Scythians and end their domination on the Western Steppes. However, the useage of stirrups among the Sarmatians wasn't very wide-spread.

Sometimes in history the things that were found to be advantageous and easy to impliment were not done...

For example, although Turkish armies with muskets were being kicked around by European counterparts with rifles, the senior officials and jannisarries refused to change their weapons because they were "non-islamic". I don't remember the exact reason, but I read this in a book on Turkish Empire.