Roman soldier, to pirate, and back to soldier. The Gallo-roman poet Sidonius Apollinaris specifically imagined the Heruli he saw at Euric's court as oceanic sea-farers, but Steinacher argues that this raiding by sea was simply a logical strategy for Visigothic campaigns against the Iberian Suevi, and difficult to use as a proof that the Heruli had a coastal kingdom somewhere in the north. Given the writing style of Sidonius, this reference could also be "nothing more than a bookish reference to 3rd-century accounts of Herules attacking from the sea". Kingdom on the Middle Danube In the early 5th century AD, large groups of peoples left the Middle Danube region, including the groups who crossed the Rhine in 405, many of whom eventually reached Iberia. Others crossed the Danube, like the forces of Radagaisus, who invaded Italy. During this period, the Huns and their allies begin to be found in this same area instead, having crossed the Carpathians from the east. By 450 AD, the Heruli were firmly part of the Hunnic empire of Attila. The Gepids, Rugi, Sciri and many Goths, Alans and Sarmatians were also part of Attila's empire. They were among the peoples who are reported as having fought for Attila at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains. After the death of Attila, his sons lost power over the various peoples of his empire at the Battle of Nedao in 454. The centre of this alliance was now settled upon the Roman border north of the Middle Danube. Heruli who were possibly on the winning side with the Gepids, were subsequently among the several peoples now able to form a kingdom in that area. The Herulian kingdom, was established north of modern Vienna and Bratislava, near the Morava river, and possibly extending as far east as the Little Carpathians. They ruled over a mixed population including Suevi, Huns and Alans. Compared to other Middle Danubian kingdoms in this period, Peter Heather has described this Heruli kingdom as "middle-sized", similar to the Rugian one, but "clearly not as militarily powerful, say, as the Gothic, Lombard, or Gepid confederations which generated much longer-lived political entities, and into which elements of the Rugi and Heruli were eventually absorbed". From this region the life story of Severinus of Noricum reports that the Heruli attacked Ioviaco near Passau in 480. The Heruli do not appear in early lists of Odoacer's allies after Nedao,