Attila the Hun
53. As ruler, he was considered one of the most feared leaders of his time.
After coming to power, he killed his brother, Bleda, so that no one in his family could oppose him. He mounted an attack on the Romans, both on their East and West sections, for the purpose of plundering gold and satisfying his psychosadistic mind. One city, Naissus, was utterly destroyed, the corpses of its massacred citizens clogging up the Danube River for years. Many other cities would fall, and the poor citizens would be brutally slaughtered while Attila watched with delight.
He used his fearsome reputation to create a massive extortions racket, gaining ever-increasing amounts of gold from the terrifed Romans for the purpose of keeping him away. He would also impale deserters through the rectum, leaving them to die slowly over a period of two days. He was also a polygamist, and one of his wives fed him two of his sons for dinner out of jealousy for the boys' mother, though Attila, whose one redeeming quality was that he was apparently a loving father, did not know of this.
When he was in a good mood, Attila could be a polite party host, even sophisticated. However, his cruelty and ruthlessness knew no bounds, and after the Romans got fed up with paying him, they forced his army into a retreat at the Battle of Chalons. Undeterred, he attacked Italy, going on a frenzied rampage of catastrophic proportions. The Pope managed to convince him to turn back after paying him a massive bribe, which was good for Attila, because his men were wracked with disease and having to carry the ever-increasing amount of loot over long distances.
Attila returned home, threatening to attack again as soon as he could. Fortunately for his enemies, though, he died in 453 A.D., on the night of his marriage to a new, Germanian princess. He was buried in a grand coffin, and the men who buried him were killed to keep the location of the coffin a secret. Today, Attila is ranked as one of the most evil men in history.