HUNNI
Eth. HUNNI or CHUNI (Eth. Οὖννοι, Eth. Χοῦνοι). Observe the absence of the aspirate in Οὖννοι.So early a writer as Ptolemy has the following passage:--μεταζὺ Βαστερνῶν καὶ Ῥωζαλάνων Χοῦνοι (3.5.25). The full value of the notice will appear in the sequel.
AUTHORITIES.--The two best authorities are Ammianus Marcellinus and Priscus, each contemporary with the actions he describes, but Priscus the better of the two. Sidonius Apollonaris notices their invasion of Gaul; and that as a contemporary. The other authorities are all of later date, i. e. referable to the sixth century or later, e. g. Jornandes, Procopius, Agathias, Gregory of Tours. Cassiodorus, the best authority of Jornandes, wrote under the reign of Theodoric, 40 years after Attila's death. The whole history of Jornandes is written in a spirit eminently hostile to the Huns; the spirit of a Goth as opposed to his conqueror, the Hun.
HUNS OF AMMIANUS.--The earliest of the two really trustworthy writers who speak with authority concerning the Huns is Ammianus Marcellinus (31.1, et seq.). But his evidence is by no means of equal value throughout. He describes their appearance, partly after what he may have read in older authors respecting the Scythians, and partly after what he may have learned from those who had seen him. At any rate he draws [p. 1.1092]a distinction between them and the closely allied Alani. The Alani were tall and good-looking ( “proceri, pulcri” ) with yellow hair--“Hunnisque per omnia suppares, verum victu mitiores et cult” ( § 21). The Huns were “imberbes” --“spadonibus similes--pandi ut bipedes existimes bestias” (2). When Ammianus wrote, the geographical relations of the Huns to the populations around them seem to have been as follows. The Alans occupied. the present government of Caucasus, and the frontier of Circassia. Due north and west of the Alans came the Huns themselves, concerning whom Ammianus tells us that “monumentis veteribus leviter nota, ultra paludes Maoticas Glacialem Oceanum accolens, omnemn modum feritatis excedit.” He tells us this; but we must remark the loose character of his geography in respect to the Icy Ocean, and also the likelihood of his views concerning their original migrations being mere inferences from the phenomena of their sudden appearance. The western part of the government of Caucasus, Taurida, and Cherson formed the area of the Huns of Ammianus at the time before us, viz. A.D. 375, in the joint reigns of Valens, Gratian, and Valentinian II.
It is just in the midst of these notices that the necessity for criticism upon the text of Ammianus is so necessary. Between his notice of the Huns and his notice of the Alans, in each of which he speaks in his own proper person, as a contemporary inquirer with sufficient means of information, he brings in the account from Herodotus of the Neuri, Geloni, Agathyrsi, Melanchlaeni, Anthropophagi, and Amazones. This archaic and semi-fabulous part must be separated from the rest.
However, next come the Grutungi, conterminous with the Alani of the Don. How near the Grutungi came to the Tanais is uncertain. They spread, at least, to the valley of the Dniester. Here was the “vallis Gruthungorum.” The Thervings lay between the Dniester and the Danube; and besides the Thervings, the Thaifalæ on the R. Gerasus (the Sereth). The ethnological connection seems to have been between the Huns and Alans on the one side, and the Thervings and Grutungs on the other--the Thaifalae being uncertain. The political alliances generally coincided with the ethnological.
The Huns drove the Grutungs and Thervings (the Goths, as they are mostly called) across the Danube--from Dacia into Moesia and Thrace, from the modern Moldavia or Bessarabia into Bulgaria and Rumelia. This is the first great event in their usual history; for the conquests and migrations previous to their appearance on the Dneister are unauthenticated. The quarrels between the Goths of Moesia and the Romans begin, and the Huns and Alans--no longer enemies but allies--side with the former. So at least it appears from the loose and unsatisfactory notices which apply to the period between the history of the Huns of Ammianus and that of the
HUNS OF PRISCUS.--A clear light is thrown over the reign of Attila, the son of Mundzak. He began to reign A.D. 433, and, over and above the notices of his battles, we find in Priscus references to as many as five embassies, viz. in A.D. 433 (just after Ruas' death), 441, 448, 449, 450,--this last being abortive and incomplete. In the one A.D. 448 Priscus took a part. Gibbon has abridged the account of it. A.D. 448 was the time, and the royal camp or court of Attila, between the Theiss and the Danube, the place. In A.D. 453 Attila died.
What were his acts, and what his power? Both have been much exaggerated,--by Gibbon as much as by any one. He overran Italy, Greece, Thrace, the countries on the Lower Danube, and penetrated as far into Gaul as Châlons. He claimed either a subsidy or a tribute from the Romans of the Eastern Empire. He seems to have entertained the plan of an incursion into Persia,--at least, the practicability of making one was one of the topics which Priscus heard discussed during the embassy. He spread his negotiations as far as Africa; and so got the cooperation of Genseric.
In these we have the measure of his operations. They were undoubtedly great; though not greater than those of Alaric, and Genseric, and other conquerors of the time.
His method was that of a politician quite as much as that of a soldier. We hear of more embassies than campaigns during the reign of Attila.
The nations that fought under his banner were numerous; but some (if not several) fought as allies, not as subjects. These allies and subjects--collectively--fall into 2 divisions.
1st. The particular population to which Hun was given as a generic name, i. e. the Huns themselves in detail.
2nd. The populations other than Hun, i. e. Gothic, Alan, &c.
The latter will be noticed first; the former will find a place hereafter.
Sidonius Apollinaris writes:-- “Barbaries toties in te transfuderat Arctos
Gallia, pugnacem Rugum, comitante Gelono;
Gepida trux sequitur, Suevum Burgundio cogit:
Chunus, Bellonotus, Neurus, Basterna, Toringus,
Bructerus ulvosa vel quem Nicer abluit unda
Prorumpit Francus.
”--7.320.
This applies to the invasion of Gaul.
From Jornandes we get the additional names of Sarmatae, “Cemandri, Marcomanni, Suevi, Quadi, Heruli, Turcilingi.”
These lists give Attila an inordinately large, or a moderate-sized kingdom, according to the interpretation we give to each name, and according to the character of the dominion over the populations which bore them, which we attribute to the invader of Gaul. He might have ruled them as an absolute master; he might have availed himself of their arms as simple confederates; he might have taken up some portion of some of them in passing through their country.
Another point may be collected in its full details from Gibbon,--viz. the relations between the Roman general Aëtius and Attila. Aëtius was by blood a Scythian, and it is possible that the language of his childhood was a dialect of the Hun. Until the last year of his life, he was the friend and guest of the Hun kings--Rugelas (Ruas), Bleda and Attila. In the affair of the usurper John, he intrigued with the Huns. He settled a colony of Alans in Gaul; and the Alans and Huns only differed in their politics, not in their language and ethnological affinities. The chief mercenaries of Aëtius were Huns. With these he effected some of his chief conquests, and to these he made over several considerable districts. Hence, when we hear of certain Hun conquests, we hear of the conquests of Aëtius as well; and when we read of such or such areas being occupied, and such or such enemies being reduced, by Aëtius and the Huns, we are in doubt [p. 1.1093]as to the true sovereignty. Was it Roman, or Hun? due to the arms of Aëtius, or due to the arms of Attila? If everything be Hun that was conquered by Aëtius and his Huns, the empire of Attila enlarges: if everything be Roman, it decreases.
Pannonia Was Hun--probably in the very widest sense that can be given to the term.
Dacia was Hun; but not altogether. This we learn from Priscus. When he visited the royal village of Attila, one of the Hun magnates, by name Onegesius, was absent, and had to be waited for. This was because he was settling the affairs of the Acatziri, who had just come under the dominion of Attila.
Now, if the Acatziri be placed (see below) in the more mountainous parts of Transylvania, a certain portion of that province must be subtracted from even the Dacia of Huns. Be it observed, that neither of the authors just quoted mentions these Ἀκάττιροι.
The Neuri.--If these were Hun subjects, rather than confederates, and if, as is probable [NEURI], they lay around the marshes at the head-waters of the Dniester, we must make the northern extension of the Hun area very irregular in outline, since it was narrow in the direction of the Acatziri, but broad in that of the Neuri. Perhaps the boundary of the Hun territory in the present parts of Southern Russia followed the line of the rivers. If so, it comprised Bessarabia, Cherson, Taurida, and something more.
The Alani who fought under their king Sangiban at Châlons were the Alani of the Aëtian settlements in Gaul, rather than those of the Circassian frontier.
Turning westwards, and changing the direction, we come to some important areas, which must not be too lightly and gratuitously given over to the Huns; viz. the lands of the Thuringians, Burgundians, Suevi, Alemanni, with parts of Rhaetia and Vindelicia. The districts are large, the occupants powerful, the reign of Attila short.
For this period we cannot expect to find absolute evidence of the independence of these several countries. We find them, however, generally speaking, independent and powerful, both before and afterwards. When Attila died his kingdom broke up; and one of the measures of the magnitude of Attila's dominion, is the magnitude of the kingdoms that grew out of it. Three of these were more important than the rest; a. that of Theodoric the Ostrogoth; b. that of the Gepidae; c. the Lombards. Suppose these to have been carved out of the Hun monarchy in all their integrity, and we suppose a vast Hun area. But this was not the case. Theodoric's kingdom was large, because Italy was added to it. At Attila's death it was limited to a portion of Pannonia, and that a moderate-sized portion. The Italian addition was subsequent. The Gepidae are the obscurest of all the populations of Daco-Pannonia; the exact ethological relations being unknown, though the evidence of Procopius and Jornandes makes them Goths. It is more important to remember that their empire was by no accounts a large one. In the reign of Justinian it was destroyed by the Lombards. The Lombard power, although generally spoken of as if it grew out of the wreck of Huns, really arose out of that of the Gepidae, and was later in date than the immediate dissolution of Attila's dominion. It only became formidable in the reign of Justinian. Odoacer, like Theodoric, was remarkable for what he effected against Rome, rather than for the magnitude of his kingdom.
But whatever may have been the importance of these kingdoms, it is a matter of history that the area out of which they grew was limited to Pannonia, Western Dacia, Eastern Rhaetia, and Northern Moesia. Hence no inordinate magnitude need be given to the dominion of Attila in order to account for the kingdoms that grew out of its decay.
On the south of the Danube, a belt of country five days' journey across, from the Save to Novi in Thrace was ceded by the Romans to the Huns.
It is submitted that the sovereign sway of Attila was bounded by the eastern frontier of Bohemia on the west, and by the Maeotis (there or there-abouts) on the east. There was also the strip of land to the south of the Danube. The northern boundary was uncertain. It probably reached to Minsk in one part, and no further than the northern part of Transylvania on the other. This is by no means a small area. It is less, however, than the one usually suggested by the name of Attila.
TRADITIONARY VIEW OF ATTILA´S POWER AND CHARACTER.--In thus curtailing the historical dimensions of Attila, the writer has not forgotten his subsequent reputation, and the space he has filled in the minds of his after-comers. He has not forgotten the terrible term, scourge of God. He has recognised the place that Etzel takes in the fictions of Germany, and Atla in those of Scandinavia--sharing the Nibelungen-lied and the Edda with Sigfrid and Theodoric; not less in mythic reputation than Arthur or Charlemagne. And not in prose and verse only. The tumuli of Northern Germany are called the Hünengräbe (==Graves of the Huns); and the Hundsruck Mountain has, erroneously, been looked upon as the Hill of the Huns. More than this--it is admitted that the subsequent reputation is, to some degree, primâ facie evidence of a real historical basis. Why should the Attila of men's imagination be so much greater than the corresponding Alarics and Genserics, if there was not some difference in their original magnitudes? Such a remark is legitimate as criticism. Valeat quantum. There are reasons why Attila and the Huns should become exaggerated--reasons which influenced our early, reasons which have influenced our modern, authorities.
The halo of fiction around Attila is not of Italian origin, nor yet of Greek. It is German, and Germano-Gallic; German, essentially and originally. It has already been stated, that the chief source is Jornandes; in many respects the Geoffroy of Monmouth to Germany and Scandinavia.
Tradition (it is believed), tradition and error have engendered exaggerated notions of Attila's power and distorted ideas of his personal character and actions. Whence come the overstatements? The size of a king's dominions may be magnified without the king being made a monster; and, vice versá, a hideous picture may be drawn of a king without magnifying the size of his dominions. Whence come the overstatements? The historian is a Goth. The more nations the Huns conquered, the less the shame to the Goths. Here lay a bounty upon exaggeration--exaggeration which was easy for two reason: 1. The joint conquests of Aëtius might be credited to the Huns exclusively; 2. Any kingdom of which the king was worsted might be dealt with as absolutely conquered, and reduced in its full integrity Let us apply this to one man's dominion only--Hermanric's, according to Jornandes. The Huns conquer Hermanric. What had Hermanric conquered? First comes a list of names difficult to make out--“habebat” [p. 1.1094](Hermanric) “siquidem quos domuerat Golthes, Etta, Thividos, Inaxungis, Vasinas, Brovoneas, Merens, Mordens, Remniscans, Rogans, Tadgans, Athaul, Navego, Bubegenas, Coldas” (100.23). The little that can be made out of this may be seen in Zeuss (v. Ostfinnen). Mordens is the most satisfactory identification, and then Merens==the Mordwa (Mordiuns) of Nestor, and the Mirri of Adam of Bremen (Merja of Nestor). The Mordiun country is in the governments of Simbirsk and Saratov.
The sequel in Jornandes tells us something more, viz. that the Heruli, Veneti, Antes, Sclavi, and Haesti were reduced; a list that gives Hermanric all the country between the Vistula and the Sea of Azov; since the Haesti are the Aestyii of Tacitus, or the occupants of amber country, East Prussian.
Now, allow all this to Hermanric, and then transfer it to the Huns, and any amount of area will be the result. But was it so transferred? The Huns that conquered the Goths of Hermanric are said to have moved from the Maeotis to the Danube as quickly as they could. Who believes that they consolidated such dependencies as Courland, Livonia, East Prussia, Poland, &c. en route? But our reasonable doubts go further still. The magnitude of Hermanric's empire is problematical. Ammianus (his contemporary), besides giving an account of his death different from that of Jornandes, merely writes that when the Alans and Huns had coalesced, “confidentius Ermenrici, late patentes et uberes pagos repentino impetu perruperunt, bellicosissimi regis, et per multa variaque fortiter facta vicimus nationibus formidati” (31.3.1). It is submitted that the words late patentes by no means denote vast dominions. Take the geography of the countries into consideration, and they mean the wide open plains of the Ukraine. Gibbon clearly saw this discrepancy; but, nevertheless, he preferred Jornandes, whose “concise account of the reign and conquest of Hermanric seems to be one of the valuable fragments which Jornandes borrowed from the Gothic histories of Cassiodorus and Ablavius.” (Chap. 25.5. note j.) The text of Jornandes indicates the contrary of this. Ablavius is quoted specially and by name for one particular fact, viz. the origin of the Heruli; the inference from which is, that the other parts are not from him. We have seen how they differ from Ammianus.
The indefinitude of the term Seythia gave other exaggeration: and the king of the Huns was often called the king of Scythia. So he was--but only of European Scythia.
For further elements of confusion, see SCYTHIA One, in addition, however, still stands over. When the Danes of Denmark took their place in history, they had not long been known under that name, before they were attributed to Attila; and Scandinavia became a part of Hundom. Why? Because the Daci were more or less Hun; and because, as early as the time of Procopius, we find them called Dani, the Dani (in after-times) being called Daci. The Heruli were undoubtedly Hun, in politics if not in blood. Now, both Jornandes and Procopius bring the Heruli and Dani (not Daci) in contact. There was a confusion here. How it arose is a complex question, Its effect was to carry Attila's power beyond all reasonable limits northwards.
Jornandes and Procopius give us the chief elements of those errors in ethnology and geography, which carry the Hun power unduly northwards. How they got carried unduly eastwards may be seen in Gibbon (chap. 26). Gibbon (chap. 20) has thus been tempted to connect an invasion of France with movements in the north of China, the battle of Chalons with the history of the Sienpi; De Guignes having suggested and worked out the connection. Thus--
Many centuries before our era there were Huns on the north-western frontier of China--conquerors. About B.C. 100 one of the more warlike Chinese emperors subdued them. They fled westwards. A tribe of Sibeia or Central Asia, named Sienpi, harassed them. They divided into 3 portions. One amalgamated with the Sienpi; one settled in Charismia, and became the White Huns (see below) of the Persian frontier; the third, pressed forward by the Sienpi, pressed forward the Goths. “Whilst Italy rejoiced in her deliverance from the Goths, a furious tempest was excited amongst the nations of Germany, who yielded to the irresistible impulse that appears to have been gradually communicated from the eastern extremity of Asia. The Chinese annals, as they have been interpreted by the learned industry of the present age, may be usefully applied to reveal the secret and remote causes of the fall of the Roman empire” (chap. 30). The details are, that the Sienpi grew in strength, called themselves Topa (masters of the earth), conquered China, and threw off an offset called Geougen, who were robbers; and the descendants of Moko, a slave of Toulun, one of Moko's descendants, achieved the independence of these Geougen, and effected conquests from the Corea to the Irtish, and beyond. To the north of the Caspian he conquered the Huns. These, of course, moved westwards, but the Huns, who conquered the Alans, and the Thervings, and who are mentioned by Ammianus, had already occupied the parts between the Don and Danube,--“the countries towards the Euxine were already” (A.D. 405 is the date for this migration) “occupied by these kindred tribes; and their hasty flight, which they soon converted into a bold attack, would more naturally be directed towards the rich and level plains through which the Vistula gently flows into the Baltic Sea. The north must again have been alarmed and agitated by the invasion of the Huns,--the inhabitants might embrace the resolution of discharging their superfluous numbers on the provinces of the Roman empire. About 4 years after the victorious Toulen had assumed the title of Khan of the Geougen, the haughty Rhodogast, or Radagaisus, marched from the northern extremity of Germany almost to the gates of Rome,” &c. In a note it is remarked that “Procopius (de Bell. Vand. 1.3) has observed an emigration from the Palus Maeotis to the north of Germany, which he ascribes to famine. But his views of ancient history are strangely darkened by ignorance and error.” The criticism of this extension of the Huh power in the direction of China, will be found in the notice of the Cidante Huns, towards the end of this article.
It is on the authority of Jornandes that the murder of his brother is attributed to Attila: Gibbon follows it; the Comte de Buat demurs to it. Probably it must stand as we find it, subject only to being invalidated by the slightest amount of opposing evidence, in case the care and criticism of future inquirers elicit any.
As a conqueror, Attila seems to have been stronger as the head of a confederation than as a sovereign. He acted, too, more as a political than a warrior. [p. 1.1095]Bloody as is his memory, history gives us but three campaigns,--one in Thrace, Illyricum, and Greece; one in Gaul; one (during which he died) in Italy. With Aetius he intrigued long and steadily; so he did with Genseric (in Africa); so he did with Theodoric, king of the Franks. Add to this, the five embassies from Constantinople,and the one (probably more) from Rome, and we know the so-called Scourge of God better in the council than in the field. The steady object of his enmity was the Gothic name. Rome was only an ordinary and occasional foe. His alliances and intrigues coincide remarkably with the diffusion of the Alani, who, either as allies or mercenaries, had penetrated the western parts of Europe before him. Spain was conquered by Alani (the proposed correction, Alemanni, is gratuitous), Suevi, and Vandali; and when Genseric led his Vandals into Africa, some of the Alani accompanied him. Now Genseric and Attila were mutual coadjutors. There were Alani in France, and the Frank king intrigued with Attila. The Scythian (Alan or Hun) extraction of Aëtius has been mentioned.
POPULATIONS AKIN TO THE HUNS UNDER OTHER NAMES.--When Attila died, his kingdom broke up; but as we are not so much writing the history of a name, but that of a people, we may ask whether the Hun history be not continued under other denominations? The answer is in the affirmative. The erudition and comprehensiveness of the closest investigator of the widest field in all history--the unrivalled historian of the decline and fall of the Roman empire--makes any exception that may be taken to his great work distasteful. Nevertheless, it may truly be said that few pages of Gibbon are more objectionable than those which deal with the ethnology of the Bulgarians. (See chap. lv.) After remarking that “Theodoric, the Ostrogoth, had trampled on the arms of the Bulgarians;” that “after this defeat the name was lost during a century and a half,” --he suggests that “the same or a similar appellation was revived by strange colonies from the Borysthenes, the Tanais, or the Volga.” He further adds, that “the unquestionable evidence of language attests the descent of the Bulgarians from the original stock of the Slavonian race.” He also speaks of “the Servians, Bosnians, Rascians, Croatians, Wallachians, &c.,” being “kindred bands.” The italics are the present writer's, who remarks that, in the case before us the evidence of language, always exceptionable (though strong primâ facie) evidence, is eminently exceptionable here, and also that it is inconsistently applied. The language of the Wallachians is not Slavonic, but Romanyo, i. e. Roman, even as French and Spanish are Roman. In respect to the Bulgarians, the present language is Slavonic,--but Slavonic of a very exceptional character.
But to return to Gibbon. His note states that “Chalcondyles, a competent judge, affirms the identity of the language of the Dalmatians, Bosnians, Servians, Bulgarians” (the italics are Gibbon's), “Poles, and--Bohemians.” Now, granting Chalcondyles to be a competent judge, he is so only for his own times, the 13th century. Between, however, his time and that of the Bulgarian predominance, the Slavonian king Sviatoslav (A.D. 955--973) conquered Bulgaria. This accounts for the change of language. It should be added, that neither the Tanais nor the Volga, in the 7th century, could supply a Slavonic population; and that the evidence in favour of the more distant river of the two having been the home of the Bulgarians is unexceptionable,--unexceptionable, and scarcely excepted to by Gibbon himself. “Theophanes places the old Bulgaria on the banks of the Atel, or Volga; but he deprives himself of all geographical credit by discharging that river into the Euxine” (note).
On the other hand, one of the most valuable articles in Zeuss (Deutsche und seine Nachbarstämme) is the one on Bulgari: wherein he proves, as clearly as matters of the kind can be proved, that the Bulgarians were Huns under another name (or vice versâ); or, at least, that the Bulgarians were part of the Hun confederation. Ennodius is the first author who mentions them, and he does so in his Panegyric on Theodoric, their. conqueror--their conqueror already alluded to. Ennodius writes: “Stat ante oculos meos Bulgarum ductor--dextera tua--prostratus.--Haec est natio cujus ante te fuit omne quod voluit.--His ante mundus pervius esse credebatur.” Zeuss rightly remarks that, though this is the first mention of the Bulgarians, it is not the first mention of a nation very like them, if not the same. They eat horse-flesh, like the Huns and other Scythians,--“Credunt esse satis ad delicias equini pecoris lac potare. Quis ferat adversarium, qui pernicis jumenti beneficio currit et pascitur?”
Again--Procopius mentions no Bulgarians; only Huns; but certain deeds that Jornandes and others attribute to the former he gives to the latter.
A third. passage, that, admitting some distinction to have existed between the Huns and Bulgarians suggests the likelihood of its having. been but slight, is from Fredegarius (100.72): “Eo anno, in Avarorum, cognomenti Chunorum, regno in Pannonia surrexit vehemens intentio, eo quod de regno certarent, cui deberetur ad succedendum, unus ex Avaris et alias ex Bulgaris.”
Fourthly. We must remember that both Hun and Bulgarian are collective names. Having done this we have two divisions. The exact names are difficult to ascertain; but names sufficiently like to pass for denominations of the same tribe are found in one author amongst the Huns, in another amongst the Bulgarians--ἐν τούτῳ τῷ χρόνῳ τὸ τῶν Βουλγάρων ἔθνος ἐπῆλθεν τῇ Θπάκη:ι ἀναγκαῖον δὲ εἰπεῖν καὶ πεὶ τῆς ἀρχαιότητος τῶν Ὀνογουνδούρων Βουλγάρων καὶ Κοτράγων. (Theophan. ed. Par. p. 296.) The place, however, the Huns is more usual; and here the names are Ὀνογοῦροι (Hunigari) and Κουτιγοῦροι (Kutziagiri.）
Such is the evidence of Zeuss as opposed to that of the passage of Gibbon that preceded it. B u Gibbon himself, in another part of his great work (ch. xlii.), identifies the Bulgarians with the Huns. “I adopt the appellation of Bulgarians from Ennodius, Jornandes, Theophanes, and the Chronicles of Cassiodorus and Marcellinus. The name of Huns is too vague: the tribes of the Cutturgurians and Utturgurians are too minute and harsh.” Again: “the same year...was marked by an invasion of the Huns or Bulgarians.” The Cutigurians are the Κυτιάγουροι, or Cutziagiri, of the last extract. Their name will reoccur.
The next population akin to the Huns (the proofs of this will be seen in the sequel and in AVARES) is that of the Avars. The reign of Justinian gives the first, that of Charlemagne the last, of this name. For further details, see AVARES
The fourth great name is that of the Khazars; who are unequivocally mentioned under that designation as early as A.D. 626, though not by a contemporary historian. The evidence, however, of [p. 1.1096]their power is sufficient. The emperor Leo IV., son of Constantine Copronymus, was the son of the Irene, daughter of the Khan of the Khazars. He reigned from A.D. 775 to A.D. 780. Their time ranges from the seventh century to the tenth; the power being at its maximum about A.D. 850. In space they spread from the Caspian to the Dnieper: from the Caspian, inasmuch as the Arab name of that lake was the Sea of the Khazars; to Dnieper, because they are mentioned under the name Chwalisy by the earliest Russian historian--Nestor.
Much in the same way as the name Hun is succeeded by that of Bulgarian, the name Khazar is succeeded by that of Patzinaks, Petshinegues (Pizenace, Pecenatici, Pincenates, Pecinei, Petinei, Postinagi, Πατσινακίται, Peczengezi (Russian name), Besseni, Bessi (Hungarian names). The Kanghar are a section of the Petshinegues. Tine from A.D. 900 (there or thereabouts) to A.D. 1050. Place--the parts between the Lower Danube and the Lower Don==Bessarabia, Cherson, and part of Taurida. Like the Khazars, they attack Russia; pressing northwards and westwards.
The Uzi (Guss, Arabic name) replace--or appear to replace--the Petshenegi; time, the 11th century.
Lastly, come the Cumani, scarcely distinguishable from the Uzi. Of all the tribes akin to the Huns, the Cumani seem to have pressed furthest westwards. Probably, they occupied Volhynia--certainly a part of Hungary. The last individual who spoke a language allied to that of the Huns--a language of Asiatic origin--the last of the Cumanians---Varro, an old man of Karizag--died A.D. 1770. With him closes the history of the populations allied to Hun, who at one and the same time dwelt north of the Balkan, and retained their language. The blood of the population is still abundant--in some cases predominant; in Bulgaria, Hungary, the Danubian Principalities, Volhynia, Podolia, Cherson, Taurida, and the Crimea.
It may be said that the evidence of the Hun succession is deficient; that the Catena Attiliariorum (so to say) is broken. Upon this, the writer remarks that the absolute identity of the preceding populations with the Hun is not predicated. They are only said to belong to the same family with the Huns to Attila, and to illustrate the same general historical phenomenon; viz. the intrusion into Eastern Europe of certain frontier populations from Western Asia, a phenomenon which is seen in its truer light when seen as a whole, than when seen in fragments.
But what are the proofs that these nations are all in reality, though not all in name, Hun? And in what sense are they so? They are not so politically at any rate. They are so ethnologically, and they are so geographically. They are so geographically; inasmuch as they can all be deduced from some portion of the area which lay between the most western occupancies of the Pannonian Huns, and the most northern occupancies of the Avar Huns.
THE HUNS ETHNOLOGICALLY MEMBERS OF THE TURK FAMILY.--They are so ethnologically, as can be shown by the following train of reasoning:--
a. That the Cumani and Petshinegi spoke the same language is expressly stated by Anna Comnena, a contemporary testimony.
b. There is the evidence of the early Arab geographers, that the Khazars and Bulgarians spoke the same language.
c. There are the reasons already given for connecting
α. The Bulgarians and Huns;
β. The Avars and Huns.
d. There is a specimen of the Cumanian, and there are glosses from the Khazar, Avar, Bulgarian, all referable to one and the same language.
c. That language is the Turk of Independent Tartary.
It is submitted that this evidence is sufficient; sufficient when we consider that no material facts traverse it, and that the á priori probabilities are in its favour. What country so likely to have discharged a population upon South-eastern Russia, the Danubian Principalities, Bulgaria, and Hungary, as Independent Tartary and Caucasus (i. e. the government so called)? At the same time, the fact of the evidence of the Huns of Attila being of a more indirect kind than we might á priori expect, is by no means kept back. We only find what they are by what the Avars were.
EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY OF THE POPULATIONS AKIN TO THE HUNS.--1. Details of the name.--Hitherto, the history of the populations akin to the Hun has been the history of certain populations connected with the decline of the Roman empire: indeed, it has been treated as if it began during the reign of Valens, with the attack upon the Goths and the subsequent passage of the Danube. This has been the first. fact recognised--the first fact supported by competent testimony.:At the same time, a great deal of the Asiatic history has been objected to; a small part only admitted. Now, this leaves the early history of the Hun name untouched. If they did not come from the wall of China, whence came they? The name Hun is new; but we have seen that there is a long and late history of the Hun population under other names. May there not also be a long early one as well? May not the line run backwards as well as forwards? This question is best treated after a preliminary notice of what may be called the details of the Hun name. If the name Hun (and indeed the names Bulgarian, Khazari) are general and collective, what are the specific designations? That such details exist has already been suggested by the remark of Gibbon, that the names Kutiguri, &c., were too specific and limited. We have, then, the following names:--
1.
Amilzuri of Priscus; Alpilzuri of Jornandes. 2. Itimari, Priscus and Jornandes. 3. Alcidzuri, Jornandes. 4. Tonosures of Priscus; Tuncarsi of Jornandes. 5. Boisci, Priscus and Jornandes. 6. Sorosgi, Priscus. 7. Kuturguri (Kotriguri in Agathias), Procopius. Cutziagiri, Jornandes. 8. Ut. urguri of Agathias. 9. Ultizuri of Agathias. Ultzinzures of Jornandes. 10. Angisciri, Jornandes. 11. Bitugures, Jornandes. 12. Satages, Jornandes; probably same as Satagarii. 13. Sabiri, Procopius. 14. Urugi. 15. Onoguri, belonging to the country called Onoguria, Geogr. Ravenn. 16. Zali, Menander. 17. Saraguri. The list can probably be increased. It is considered, however, sufficient to show that the statement that the term Hun was a generic and collective name, was based upon a sufficient list of species. The evidence as to the Hun affinities of the preceding tribes is not uniform. It is stronger in some cases than in others. In all, however, it seems sufficient. For further information see Zeuss, vv. Hunni, Alani, Bulgari, Avares.THE ACATZIRI.--One name of greater importance [p. 1.1097]than the rest has been reserved, Acatziri. What Priscus found, on his visit to Attila's court or camp, respecting these Acatziri, has been already noticed. We must remember where they lay, viz. in the mountain districts of the parts about Hungary, (say) in Transylvania. Contrast this locality with that of the Avars, who, in their original locality, seem to have been the most northern of Huns; and who (we must remember) are distinctly designated by that name. So are the Acatziri. Now, between these limits lay the Scythia of Herodotus. That the Scythians of Herodotus belonged to the great Turk family is, in the present article, a postulate; but evidence will be given of this fact in the articles SCYTHAE, SCYTHIA. And the Huns, with their allied populations, were Turk also. Neither, however, were indigenous to Europe: but, on the contrary, each intrusive, each originally Asiatic; each, under an á priori view of their probable origin, from the north-western parts of Independent Tartary. Now, whatever may be the actual facts of the Hun history, there is no need of any migrations later than that of the Scythae (Skoloti) to bring them into Europe, and there is no evidence of such. And, whatever may have been the actual facts in the history of the Scythae, there is no evidence of their having either been ejected from their European occupancies, or extinguished as populations. The only definite fact is a change of the names by which the populations of a certain portion of Europe are known. It is suggested, then, that the history of the populations akin to the Hun, from the 5th century forwards, is, in the main, a continuance of the history of the Scythae of the 4th century B.C. But is there any evidence of such continuity? It is submitted that there is some. The Καρίαποι of Herodotus are, probably, the Cutiguri of later writers. The Huns of Attila are not only called Scythae, but more specifically Royal Scythae. (Priscus, de Legat. 8. 1.) Lastly, comes the notice of the Χοῦνοι (vid. sup.) by Ptolem.
But what if the Acatziri==Agathyrsi? Mr. Newman, in a paper on the Scythia of Herodotus, places them in Transylvania. So much for the coincidence of place and place. What as to name and name? There is a certain amount of difference we must expect á priori. The two words have come to us through different routes, and at different times. Agathyrsi is Greek--early, classical Greek; as (as Greek) Roman also. It was taken by our early Greek authorities at second-hand; perhaps even less directly than that. This means, that it was not taken from the Agathyrsi themselves, but that it passed through an intermediate language, becoming thereby liable to change.
But the Greeks of the time of Priscus got it either first-hand, or through the Goths, and their forms are, Ἀκάτιροι and Ἀκατξ́ιροι, Acatziri (in certain MSS., Acazziri). It would be strange if the words were liker than they are. There has been a difference of medium, and a difference of form is the natural result. The present writer makes no secret of laying great stress on these words, Acatziri and Agathyrsi, even at the risk of being accused of indulging in etymologies. He will, ere long, strengthen it by another; submitting that the two combined are more than twice as strong as one standing alone: they confirm each other. At present he sums up with the inference, that if the Acatziri were Huns, and the Agathyrsi Scythae, and each occupied the same locality at times so distant as the ages of Herodotus and Priscus, some member of the Hun name, at least, was in situ in Transylvania six centuries before Attila's time,--some Scythians coincided with some Huns.
It is now suggested that the history of these parts be read backwards. For the parts between the Aluta and the Dniester, it was the Romans of Trajan who displaced the descendants of the Scythae of Herodotus, fragments of whom remained in Transylvania as Acatziri in the time of Attila. And why not the Huns of Attila be what the Acatziri were? No evidence brings them from any point east of the Aluta. All that evidence does is to say that certain Huns fought against certain Alans on the Maeotis; that certain Huns ejected certain Thervings from Bessarabia; that certain Huns occupied the country between the Aluta and Theiss. All beyond is inference; and the inference of the present writer is, that the Huns of Attila were no new coiners in Hungary. Where was Attila's court or camp? Not in Roman Dacia, nor yet in Roman Pannonia: but just in that part between the two that was never Romanised; a likely spot for the remains of such independence as the Scythian portion of Dacia might preserve, but not a likely spot for a new invader from the Don or Volga. Part, then, of Dacia was Scythian or Turk? Certainly. No man can say how much. And the subjects of Decebalus may have been Scythian or Turk, descendants of the Agathyrsi, ancestors of the Acatziri, close kinsmen of the Huns of Attila. Such is the inference. If soldiers, why not captains? why not Decebalus himself? There are those who may think that the notion of Decebalus being a Turk supplies a reductio ad absurdum. Yet it is only our preconceived notions that are shocked. No facts are against it. Why should not the Agathyrsi of Dacia have supplied a leader as well as any other? Decebalus is a word strange to Gothic, strange to Slavonic, not strange to Turk history. When the proper and specific Turks first appear in the field of history, as they do in the reign of Justinian, the name of the first Turk khan is that of the last Dacian king--Disbul, in Gibbon; Δισαβούλος, in Menander (p. 301).
The true historical character of Attila will, perhaps, never be recognised; but, if we must have extremes, the doctrine that he was the reconstructor of an impaired nationality, and the analogue of Pelagius in Spain rather than of Tamerlane in Asia, is as little removed from the probable truth as the notion that he was the Scourge of God and the symbol of barbarism. The ejection of the Goths seems to have a simple detail in the history of Dacia,--possibly the first great event in the reconstruction of a Scythic (or Scytho-Sarmatian) kingdom as opposed to a Romano-Germanic one. At any rate, it is much more certain that the Goths were the intruders than it is that the Huns were.
WHITE HUNS (Οὔννοι λεύκοι), CIDARITAE, NEPTHALITAE, EPHTHALITAE.--Cidriate is the name in Priscus; white, the epithet of Procopius. Their locality was the south-western part of Turkestan: their affinities, probably Turk; the present Turcomans being their likeliest descendants. They appear in history as being engaged in a war against Pirozes, king of Persia, in the sixth century. (Procop. B. P. 1.3.) They are distinctly stated by Procopius to have agreed with the Huns chiefly in name; to have been designated by the epithet white, because their complexion was fair; to have been comparatively civilised, settled, and agricultural.
CHIONITAE.--Neumann considered that a population [p. 1.1098]named by Ammianus Marcellinus Chionitae, are Huns--name for name. Their king Grumbates, along with the king of the Caucasian Albania, was an ally of Sapor in the war against Julian (18.6.22). Populations akin to the Huns in Northern Armenia, or along the Georgian frontier, are by no means improbable.
RELATIONS OF THE HUNNI TO THE HUN-JO CHINESE HISTORY.--The criticism upon the connection (real or supposed) of the Huns with a population that came in contact with the Chinese, has been deferred until the present occasion. It comes best after a notice of the White Huns. Gibbon's account is that of De Guignes. Neumann has adopted, and in some degree sanctioned, the views of the French and English historians. As Neumann is well versed in Chinese literature, his opinion is important. The criticism of the present writer is based upon no pretence of anything of the sort. He only takes the evidence as he finds it. Let us see what is stated, and then compare it with what is proved. A writer (Sse-ma-tsien) whose date is fixed about B.C. 100, but whose writings have not come down to us, and who is only known from being quoted by Ma-tu-an-lin (a writer of the eighth century A.D.), is said to have stated that, between B.C. 2357 and B.C. 2205, there lived on the Upper Hoangho a tribe called by the Chinese Shan-jang (armed mountaineers). Between B.C. 2205 and B.C. 1766, the name for the population Turk populations of these localities is Hun-jo. That the Shan-jang are the Hun-jo under a Chinese, and the Hun-jo the Shan-jang under a native name, is stated by Neumann; but it is an inference of his own, unsupported (so far as his text goes) by anything Chinese. Hence, admitting the Hun-jo to be Huns, the evidence of their being Shan-jang is incomplete. This subtracts something from their antiquity. The history proceeds with the statement that--about B.C. 300 there was a great Tanjou (sovereign) of the Hun-jo named Teúman, and that he came 1000 years after an individual named Shunwei; nothing being known for the interval. This subtracts again from the historical antiquity of the Hun-jo. About B.C. 207 Maotun conquers great part of China, and about A.D. 90 his descendants are themselves conquered and ejected. This we get from the Chinese. We also get the statement that these broken and ejected Hun-jo moved westwards. They are now getting towards a time and place where European history takes cognisance of them. The Hun-jo are pressed by the Chinese, press upon the Alans, and come out as the Huns of the time of Valens.
It may narrow the question if we criticise this last fact in the history of the Hun-jo only; leaving out the earlier ones, as being but remotely connected with that of the Huns. Can the fugitive from China, A.D. 90, be connected with the invaders of South Russia in the time of Valens? The best attention which the writer of this article has been able to give to the modern writers on this subject, has left him with the conviction that the connection is one of their own making. No western writer carries the Huns east of the Volga; no Chinese one, west of the latitude of Lake Baikal. Neumann's references lead us to believe that the Alans are mentioned by the Chinese historians. The context shows that they are not. The link, then, is hypothetical and unsatisfactory.
It may have struck some that the whole of the Chinese evidence for these early times is unsatisfactory,--unsatisfactory even as a general view. But there are suspicious details as well. Teúman, the first Tanjou of the Huns, reappears some centuries later as the first Khan of the Turks. Neumann himself argues that the word Gan-tsai (or Antsai) in the Chinese books means Asia, word for word; and that it was a name taken from the western world. If this, why not more? Why not the name Hun-jo? The facts that are found in the writers who have dealt with the Hun-jo history, as taken from the Chinese, are suspiciously like the facts of the Byzantine historians. The name Dit-a-pul is given as being a Chinese form for Διξάβουλος, a king certainly connected with Byzantine, not so certainly with Chinese, history. It is by no means certain that the whole history of the Hun-jo is older than the influence of those Syrian Christians in China and Mongolia, who gave the Mongolians their alphabet, and with it (perhaps) a sufficient inkling of the history of Western Asia to be adapted to the antiquities of their own country.
But, granting this view to be untenable, and that the Chinese history is authentic, we must remember that the Huns of Attila were one thing, the White Huns of Turkestan another; and it may be added that, if some Huns or other must be brought in contact with China, the case is the stronger for those of Turkestan. At the present moment, the Turk populations of Yarkend and Khoten belong to what is called Chinese Tartary; whereas, between the Northern Turks (Tartary) and China, the, vast tract of Mongolia intervenes.
Such is a sketch of the reasons for disconnecting the Huns of Attila and the Hun-jo of Chinese authors. (Gibbon, Decline and Fall, &c.; Creasy, Decisive Battles of the World (Chalons); De Guignes, Histoire des Huns; Neumann, Die Völker des Südichen Russlands.) [R.G.L]