A. Sources in Greek and Latin

1. Priscus[1], History[2]

[1] Priscus was born in Panion (located in Thrace) between 410-420 CE. In 448/449 CE, he accompanied Maximinus, the head of the Byzantine embassy representing Emperor Theodosius the Younger [r. 408-450], on a diplomatic mission to the court of Attila the Hun. After an interlude in Rome, Priscus traveled to Alexandria and the Thebaid in Egypt. He last appeared in the East, c. 456, attached to the staff of Euphemios as Emperor Marcian’s [r. 450-457] magister officiorum. He died after 472 CE.

[2] History: Priscus was the author of an eight-volume historical work, written in Greek, titled the History (or “History of Byzantium”, “Gothic History”). History probably covered the period from the accession of Attila the Hun to the accession of Emperor Zeno [r. 474-475], or from 433 up until 474 CE. Priscus’ work currently survives in fragments and was very influential in the Byzantine Empire.

1.1 [Fr. 33.1 (Excerpta de Legationibus, Rom. 8)]

1.1.1 The Romans went to Colchis[3], made war on the Lazi[4], and then the Roman army returned home. The Emperorʼs advisers prepared for a second campaign and deliberated whether in pursuing the war they should travel by the same route or through the part of Armenia close to Persian territory, having first sent an embassy to win over the monarch of the Parthians. For it was considered wholly impracticable to take the sea route along the rugged coast, since Colchis had no harbour, Gobazes[5] himself sent envoys to the Parthians and also to the Romans. Since the monarch of the Parthians[6] was involved in a war with the so-called Kidarite Huns[7], he ejected the Lazi who were fleeing to him.[8]1

[3] Colchis, the name for a region in the Southern Caucasus, was located on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, centered on present-day western Georgia.

[4] Lazi, i.e. Lazica, was the name given to the territory of Colchis during the Roman period, from about the 1st century BCE.

[5] Gobazes was the king of Lazian.

[6] The monarch of the Parthians refers to Yazdgird II, the emperor of the Sassanian Empire and the son of Yazdgird II, who reigned from 438 to 457.

[7] Kidarite Huns: Since Kidara, the king of Kidārite Kushāns, was forced by the “Xiongnu 匈奴” to move west, they would not have used “Huns” in their ethnonym. Thus, the Κιδαρίτας Οὔννους can simply be regarded as “the Huns who came from the regions under the Kidarites”, who were simply the Hephthalites.2

[8] The diplomatic activity between the Romans and the Persians, Vandals, and Huns, respectively, took place in 464-465.3

1.2 [Fr. 41.1 (Excerpta de Legationibus, Gent. 15)]

1.2.1 ... It also said that the Romans, through a contribution of money, should show interest in the fortress of Iouroeipaach, situated at the Caspian Gates[9], or they should at least send soldiers to guard it. It was not right that the Persians alone should be burdened by the expense and the garrisoning of the place, since if they did not make these expenditures, the neighbouring peoples would easily inflict damage not only upon the Persians but upon the Romans also. They further said that the Romans should help with money in the war against the so-called Kidarite Huns, since a Persian victory would be advantageous to the Romans insofar as that people would be prevented from penetrating to the Roman Empire also. The Romans replied that they would send someone to discuss all these issues with the Parthian monarch. They claimed that there were no fugitives amongst them and that the Magi were not harassed on account of their religion, and said that since the Persians had undertaken the guarding of the fortress of Iouroeipaach and the war against the Huns on their own behalf, it was not right that they demand money from the Romans. ...4

[9] Caspian Gates: An ancient toponym identifying a ground-level pass that runs east and west through a southern spur of the Alborz Mountains in north central Iran.

1.3 [Fr. 41.3 (Excerpta de Legationibus, Rom. 12)]

1.3.1 When Constantius[10] the envoy had waited for a while at Edessa[11], as I have said[12], for the sake of his embassy, the Persian monarch gave him admittance to his territory. He asked Constantius to come to him while he was engaged not in the cities but on the borders between his people and the Kidarite Huns. With these a war had begun, the cause of which was that the Huns were not receiving the tribute monies which the former rulers of the Persians and the Parthians[13] had paid. The father of the monarch had refused the payment of the tribute and had undertaken the war, which his son had inherited together with the kingdom. As a result the Persians were being worn down by the fighting and wished to end the dispute with the Huns by guile. So Perozes[14] (for this was the name of the current Persian king) sent to Kunchas (Κούγχαν)[15], the leader of the Huns, saying that he welcomed peace with him and wished to make a treaty of alliance and betroth his sister to him, for he happened to be very young and not yet the father of children. However, when Kunchas had accepted these proposals, he married not the sister of Perozes but another woman dressed as a princess, whom the Persian king had sent, having told her that if she did not reveal the trick she would enjoy royal status and affluence, but if she told of the deceit she would suffer death as the penalty, since the ruler of the Kidarites would not endure to have a maidservant to wite instead of a noblewoman.5

[10] Constantius, the name which appears here and in the following passage, is an error (apparently Priscan) for Constantinus.6

[11] Edessa was an ancient town in upper Mesopotamia.

[12] This suggests that Priscus interrupted his account of Constantiusʼ embassy with other material, perhaps other diplomatic activity or the account of the fire at Constantinople.7

[13] Parthians here refers to the Sassanians.

[14] Perozes (Pērōz I): the emperor of the Sassanian empire and the son of Yazdgird II, who reigned from 459 to 484.

[15] Kunchas (Κούγχς), the Khan of the Huns, the name was also read Κουνχαν. “Κουνχας”, which appears after some lines, is because the ν of Κούνχαν was changed in the accusative case. In the nominative case it should be Κουνχαν. Κουνχας was thus a textual error.8 In my opinion, Κούγχς or Κουνχαν should refer to Qun-Xan (Hun Khan), because the Kushāns did not adopt the title of Khan, so it was misinterpreted and said to have been a result of the Rouran’s influence. This theory is unacceptable. Those who adopted the title of Khan should be the Hephthalites. The Hephthalites originated in the north of China, where the nomadic tribes, such as the Xianbei 鮮卑 and so on, all adopted the title of Khan.

1.3.2 Having made the treaty on these terms, Perozes did not long profit from his treachery towards the ruler of the Huns. For the woman, fearing that at some time the ruler of the people would be told of her status by others and would put her to a cruel death, revealed what had been done. Kunchas praised the woman for her honesty and continued to keep her as his wife. But, wishing to punish Perozes for his trick, he pretended that he was at war with his neighbours and had need, not of fighting men (for he had an enormous number of these), but of generals to direct the war. Perozes sent him three hundred of his leading captains, and of these the ruler of the Kidarites killed some and mutilated the rest, sending them back to Perozes with the message that this was the punishment for his treachery. Thus the war between them was rekindled, and there was heavy fighting. Therefore, Perozes received Constantius in Gorga[16], which was the name of the place at which the Persians were encamped, and having treated him generously for a few days, dismissed him without a satisfactory reply to the embassy.[17]9

[16] Gorga was located in the valley of the present-day Gorgan River, to the south-east of the Caspian Sea.10

[17] It is suggested that Priscus tells how Pērōz, the Persian king, having promised his sister to Kunchas, the ruler of the Kidarites, sent in her stead a maidservant. When the trick was discovered, Kunchas repaid treachery in kind and the war flared up. The story has a kernel of fact, for the war is historical and a proposal of marriage is plausible since the Persians and Kidarites may have had dynastic ties. But the details of the causation are false and drawn from Herodotus (3, 1), where Amasis, the king of Egypt, sends a substitute for his daughter to Cambyses, the Persian king, a deception which also leads to war. In all of these three cases Priscus was dealing with events well beyond the Roman frontier and of which little but the barest outline is likely to have been known to him. As a result, though he was dealing with a historical reality, his lack of information led him to flesh out what he had with details drawn from the Herodotean accounts of equally exotic lands.11

1.4 [Fr. 47 (Excerpta de Legationibus, Gent. 19)]

1.4.1 The Saraguri[18], having attacked the Akatiri[19] and other peoples, invaded Persia. First they came to the Caspian Gates, but when they found that the Persians had established a fort there, they took another route, by which they came to Iberia[20]. They laid waste this country and overran Armenia. As a result the Persians, apprehensive of this inroad on top of their old war with the Kidarites, sent an embassy to the Romans and asked that they give them either money or men for the defence of the fortress of Iouroeipaach. They repeated what had of ten been said by their embassies, that since they were facing the fighting and refusing to allow access to the attacking peoples, the Romansʼ territory remained unravaged. When the Romans replied that each had to fight for his own land and take care of his own defence, they again returned having achieved nothing.12

[18] Saraguri, seems to be a Turkic nomadic tribes, and have been beyond the Danube.

[19] For the attack upon the Akatiri (Huns), cf. Priscus Fr. 40.1 (Exc. de Leg. Gent. 14).13 The Persian embassy noted in the present passage seems to have been another, later one than that remarked in Priscus Fr. 41.1 (Exc. de Leg. Gent. 15).14

[20] Iberia is the present-day Şanlıurfa, Turkey.

1.5 [Fr. 51.1 (Excerpta de Legationibus, Gent. 22)]

1.5.1 When the Romans had replied that they would send help and a man to command it[21], an embassy arrived from the Persians which announced that they had crushed the Kidarite Huns and had taken their city of Balaam[22]. They reported their victory and in barbaric fashion boasted about it, since they wished to advertise the very large force which they had at present.[23]15

[21] The Suani (a nation under suzerainty of the Lazi) had captured some forts from the Sassanians and the Suani sent an embassy to Constantinople to ask the Romans for help but the Suani dismissed the reinforcements sent by the Romans due to the Sassanian force being diverted from the conflict. When the Persians returned again, the Suani again called upon the Romans.

[22] Balaam was located in present-day Türkmenbaşy, to the south-east of the Caspian Sea.

[23] The Persian kings often had difficulty in raising and maintaining strong forces, since they did not have the large centralized military establishment of the Romans. Thus, when they had a large army, they tended to wish to use it.16