TIMUR and Attila dwarf Ivan but not very much. In the fury with which Attila pounced on civilisation there is the impersonality of a cyclone. Timur was a homicidal maniac with unlimited power and a limitless area in which to be homicidal. Where he passed he left pyramids of human heads and towers made of prisoners mixed with mortar. Where Attila passed he left nothing. Ivan turned cities into shambles and provinces into cemeteries. A cholera, corpses...