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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: HOR-I25 |
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HUNS . This or some similar name is given to at least four peoples, whose identity cannot be regarded as certain. (1) The Huns, who invaded the East Roman empire from about A.D. 372 to 453 and were most formidable under the leadership of Attila. (2) The Hungarians or Magyars. The Magyars crossed the Carpathians into Hungary in A.D. 898 and mingled with the races they found there. The modern Hungarians (excluding Slavonic elements) are probably a mixture of these Magyars with the remnants of older invaders such as Huns, Petchenegs and Kumans. (3) The White Huns (Aemol Oiivvoc or Ephthalites), who troubled the Persian empire from about 420 to 557 and were known to the Byzantines. (4) The Minas, who invaded India during the same period. There is not much doubt that the third and fourth of these tribes are the same, and it is quite likely that the Magyars are descended from the horde which sent forth the Huns in the 4th century, but it is not demonstrable. Neither can it be proved that the Huns and Magyars belonged either physically or linguistically to the same section as the lianas and Ephthalites. But the occurrence of the name in both India and Europe is prima facie evidence in favour of a connexion between those who bore it, for, though civilized races often lumped all their barbarian neighbours together under one general name, it would seem that, when the same name is applied independently to similar invaders in both India and eastern Europe, the only explanation can be that they gave themselves that name, and this fact probably indicates that they were members of the same tribe or group. What we know of the history and distribution of the Huns does not conflict with this idea. They appear in Europe towards the end of the 4th century and the Ephthalites and Hunas in western Asia about fifty years later. It may be supposed that some defeat in China (and the Chinese were successful in driving back the Hiung-nu in the 1st century A.D.) had sent them westwards some time earlier. One body remained in Transoxiana and, after resting for a time, pushed their way through the mountains into Afghanistan and India, exactly as the Yue-Chi had done before them. Another division pressed farther westwards and probably made its head-quarters near the northern end of the Caspian Sea and the southern part of the Ural Mountains. It was from here that the Huns invaded Europe, and when their power collapsed, after the death of Attila, many of them may have returned to their original haunts. Possibly the Bulgarians and Khazars were offshoots of the same horde. The Magyars may very well have gradually spread first to the Don and then beyond it, until in the 9th century they entered Hungary. But this sketch of possible migrations is largely conjectural, and authorities are not even agreed as to the branch of the Turanians to which the Huns should be referred. The physical characteristics of these nomadic armies were very variable, since they continually increased their numbers by slaves, women and soldiers of fortune drawn
development and diffusion seem to postulate a long period (for the history of the Finns shows that they were not mobile like the Turks and Mongols), so that the ancestral language from which spring Finnish and Magyar can hardly have been brought across Asia after the Christian era. The warlike and vigorous temper of the Huns has led many writers to regard them as Turks. The Turks were perhaps not distinguished by name or institutions from other tribes before the 5th century, but the Huns may have been an earlier offshoot of the same stock. Apart from this the Hungarians may have received an infusion of Turkish blood not only from the Osmanlis but from the Kumans and other tribes who settled in the country.History.The authentic history of the Huns in Europe practically begins about the year A.U. 372, when under a leader named Balamir (or, according to some MSS., Balamber) they began a westward movement
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About the year 432 a Hunnic king, Ruas or Rugulas, made himself of such importance that he received from Theodosius II. an annual stipend or tribute of 350 pounds of gold (14,000), along with the rank of Roman general. Quarrels soon arose, partly out of the circumstance that the Romans had sought to make alliances with certain Danubian tribes which Ruas chose to regard as properly subject to himself, partly also because some of the undoubted subjects of the Hun had found refuge
message which he had received about this cause933of dispute, was preparing to send off a special embassy when tidings arrived that Ruas was dead and that he had been succeeded in his kingdom by Attila and Bleda, the two sons of his brother Mundzuk (433) Shortly afterwards the treaty of Margus (not far from the modern Belgrade), where both sides negotiated on horseback, was ratified. By its stipulations the yearly stipendium or tribute payable to Attila by the Romans was doubled; the fugitives were to be surrendered, or a fine of 08 to be paid for each of those who should be missing; free markets, open to Hun and Roman alike, were to be instituted; and any tribe with which Attila might be at any time at war was thereby to be held as excluded from alliance with Rome. For eight years afterwards there was peace so far as the Romans were concerned; and it was probably during this period that the Huns proceeded to the extensive conquests to which the con-temporary historian Priscus so vaguely alludes in the words: " He (Attila) has made the whole of Scythia
In 445 Bleda died, and two years afterwards Attila, now sole ruler, undertook one of his most important expeditions against the Eastern empire; on this occasion he pushed southwards as far as Thermopylae, Gallipoli and the walls of Constantinople; peace was cheaply purchased by tripling the yearly tribute (which accordingly now stood at 2100 pounds of gold, or 84,000 sterling) and by the payment of a heavy indemnity. In 448 again occurred various diplomatic negotiations, and especially the embassy of Maximinus, of which many curious details have been recorded by Priscus his companion. Then followed, in 451, that westward movement
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The chief original authorities are Ammianus Marcellinus, Priscus, Jordanes, Procopius, Sidonius Apollinaris and Menander Protector. See also Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; J. B. Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire (1889); H. H. Howorth, History of the Mongols (18761888) ; J. Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders (1892); and articles in the Revue orientate pour les etudes Ouralaltaiques. For the Chinese sources see E. H. Parker, A Thousand Years of the Tartars (1905), and numerous articles by the same author in the Asiatic Quarterly; also articles by Chavannes, O. Franke, Stein and others in various learned periodicals
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