Although the Huns underwent a transformation during their westward migration, they were the descendants of the Xiongnu of Inner Asia after all. This chapter describes the connections between the Huns in the West and the Xiongnu in the East, emphasizing the continuity in their practices and traditions.
The chapter also explores the sophisticated organizational systems of nomadic societies in Eurasia, highlighting their complex hierarchies and governmental structures. It challenges misconceptions about the Huns by emphasizing their advanced statecraft, which they inherited from predecessors such as the Xiongnu. This suggests that the Huns were not simply a marauding horde, but had complex governmental structures and organizational systems. The narrative extends to the White Huns, Turkic peoples, and the Vars/Avars, exploring their historical connections and influences.
By discussing the political landscape of Inner and Central Asia before and during the Hunnic expansion, the text reveals the power dynamics and interactions with neighboring tribes and empires. This insight helps in understanding the complex geopolitical environment of the time.
The major weakness of this chapter is that the author gives too much credence to Pulleyblank and Vovin’s infamous pure speculation that the original Xiongnu may have had a Yeniseian core tribal elite who spoke Yeniseian, without any credible evidence. He says he is inclined to believe them. Why is that?
Eight years later, in 2021, in a book entitled Rome and China-Points of Contact, he is absolutely certain that they did indeed speak Yenisean:
“The language spoken by the Jie tribe of the Xiongnu confederacy was, it seems, without doubt a Yenseian [sic] language based on the analysis of the transliteration of a Jie Xiongnu song in the Chinese historical source Jin Shu (95.2486).”
This time he also refers to a 2016 article by Vovin, Vajda, and La Vaissière.
This is silly and unscientific to say the least. Some common sense is required. This topic will be covered in another blog in the future.
Another weakness is the transliteration of Hua in Early Middle Chinese. In a private correspondence with the author, La Vaissière suggested an alternative reading to Pulleybank’s Var that would make Hua in Early Middle Chinese correspond to Ghor, a region of Afghanistan inhabited by the Hephtalites. Why? No explanation is given.
Overall, however, the chapter is a very good and detailed explanation of the supposedly missing two centuries of Hun history, “The So-called ‘Two-Hundred Years Interlude’.”
The chapter is like a booklet in itself. The text and 282 endnotes are 48 pages long, with dozens of references cited in full in the extensive bibliography, which itself is 56 pages long and not included here.
Hyun Jin Kim “Chapter 3: The Huns in Central Asia,” in Huns, Rome and the Birth of Europe, 2013.
Inner Asian Empires Before the Fourth Century ad
Introduction
The altering of the strategic balance across Rome’s European borders in the
fourth century ad, which should rightfully be examined in the broader
Eurasian context of Hunnic expansion across the entire landmass of
Eurasia, has until now been analysed with an excessive focus on the
Germanic migrations or Roman internal collapse. The Huns, more barbarous
and primitively organized than the Germanic tribes, so we are told, have
at best been allotted a peripheral role in what was arguably the single most
important event in the formation of Western Europe.[1] They are never
considered as the prime agents of the cataclysmic changes that they brought
about.
It is the argument of this and subsequent chapters that the events of the
fourth and fifth centuries ad in Western Eurasia, from Central Asia to
the Atlantic, can only be accurately understood if we place the Huns at the
centre of the debate and analyse historical developments from a Central
Eurasian perspective. The diminution or neglect of the Hunnic Empire in
modern historiography largely stems from the myths concerning their
society and culture spread through the absurdly literal reading (now often
rejected, it is true, but nonetheless so internalized in our understanding of
the Huns that it prevents a more objective assessment of Hunnic political
organization) of the mythological account on the Huns written by
Ammianus Marcellinus. Famously in Ammianus, our principal source
(sadly) for the early history of the Huns in Europe, the Huns are mythologized
to the extent that they become practically unidentifiable in the real
world. They are the most primitive savages conceivable who, instead of
resorting to ‘normal’ food for their sustenance, eat roots of wild plants and
half-raw meat of any kind of animal, use bone tips instead of iron for their
arrowheads,[2] and most importantly lack any rudimentary form of kingship.
According to Ammianus, they improvise policy on the spot as a common
body under the disorderly leadership of their important men and are,
therefore, at the lowest possible level of social evolution:
Et deliberatione super rebus proposita seriis, hoc habitu omnes in commune consultant. Aguntur autem nulla severitate regali, sed tumultuario primatum ductu contenti, perrumpunt quicquid inciderit.
And when deliberation is called for about weighty matters, they all consult as a common body in that fashion. They are subject to no royal restraint, but they are content with the disorderly government of their important men, and led by them they force their way through every obstacle.[3]
The obvious inadequacy of this distorted representation, that was taken rather
literally many years earlier by Thompson, who envisaged the absurdity of the
Huns conquering the Goths and Alans without sufficient iron weaponry,[4] has
often been pointed out. Maenchen-Helfen has already identified clearly
anachronistic and outright mythical elements in Ammianus’ account.[5] It is
surely amazing that his analysis, though always acknowledged in passing, is
not taken up as seriously as it should be in the latest works that discuss the
Huns. On another level, the lack of enthusiasm among many historians of late
Roman history for comparative research and for Central Asian historical data
already available (concerning what is arguably the single most important shift
in strategic balance across the Eurasian continent, which heralded the millennium
of dominance of steppe empires), has caused immense difficulties in
accurately assessing the real impact of the Huns. A more in-depth comparative
analysis that critically examines both late Roman history and Central
Asian history can shed new light on the much distorted and misunderstood
nature of Hun society and its political and social organization. It will be
argued henceforth that the Huns, contrary to Ammianus’ mythical account,
possessed a highly sophisticated state or ‘early state’ structure originating from
state or ‘early state’ models already available in the steppe region since the
time of imperial entities, such as the Royal Scythians and more importantly
the great, universal steppe empire of the Xiongnu.
Before we progress any further, however, it is necessary to address the
argument that early steppe empires such as the Xiongnu, which, it will be
argued, provided the political models on which the Huns later built their
empire, were super-complex chiefdoms or tribal confederacies with imperial
dimensions rather than supra-tribal state entities.[6] No historian with specialist
knowledge of steppe empires, to my knowledge, now contests the
reality of the existence of political complexity within steppe empires.
However, the need to accurately define what exactly constitutes a ‘state’
has created a slight divergence in opinions as to how exactly steppe polities
before and after the Huns should be defined. Kradin has applied the most
rigorous criteria in his definition of what exactly a state should be and claims
a state should have the following characteristics: (1) access to managerial
positions by a form of merit-based, extra-clan and non-kin-based selection;
(2) regular taxation to pay wages to officials; (3) a special judicial power
separate from political power; (4) a ‘class’ of state functionaries engaged in
running a state machinery consisting of services for the administration of
the whole political community. Kradin argues that the earliest steppe
empire of the Xiongnu only fulfilled these requirements at best at an
embryonic level and, therefore, cannot be defined as a state.[7]
This view is, however, quite erroneous, and, as Di Cosmo points out, the
Xiongnu Empire even by Kradin’s definition was much closer to a state than
to a chiefdom. As we shall see shortly, the Xiongnu state administration
possessed distinct military and civilian apparatuses separate from kin-based
hierarchies (1). Top commanders and functionaries received their wages (in
various forms) from a political centre headed by the Xiongnu emperor
(Shanyu/Chanyu) (2), who was also in charge of ceremonies and rituals
that were meant to include the entire political community. The incredibly
complex organization of Xiongnu armies, its imperial rituals, government
structure and politically centralized functions of trade and diplomacy all bear
witness to a political machinery and supratribal, imperial ideology.[8] Kradin
himself acknowledges that special judicial manpower (i.e., judges) was also
available in the Xiongnu Empire (3), and that there were special state functionaries
(Gu-du marquises) who assisted the emperor in the overall administration
of the empire (4).[9] In short, even on the basis of the scant
information we do have on Xiongnu political organization, it is possible to
argue that the Xiongnu Empire in all likelihood met the definition for a state
or an ‘early state.’[10]
Also, there is absolutely no doubt at all that the Xiongnu constituted an
empire, ‘a political formation that extended far beyond its original territorial
or ethnic confines and embraced, by direct conquest or by the imposition of
its political authority, a variety of peoples and lands that may have had
different types of relations with the imperial centre, constituted by an imperial
clan and by its charismatic leader.’[11] It is difficult to see how without even a
rudimentary state structure and state institutions of some sort the Xiongnu
could have accumulated the political ability and military power to create a vast
empire and maintain it for centuries. The same principle applies also to the
later Huns,[12] who, as I will demonstrate, possessed very similar organization
to the Xiongnu, which they, in all probability, inherited directly from the
Xiongnu. It is logical to assume, therefore, that the Xiongnu Empire was a
state or an ‘early state.’ The comparative analysis which follows will offer an
explanation as to why the Huns alone of all the ‘barbarians’ north of the
Danube managed to provide a political system that integrated all the peoples
in barbaricum and to pose a persistent political as well as a military threat to
the Roman Empire.[13]
The question is, how can one even contemplate governing an empire that
stretches from Gaul to the Volga without sophisticated political structures
even for a single generation (i.e., Attila’s reign, the length of time many
scholars erroneously grant for the life-span of the Hunnic Empire)? This is
obviously impossible. Has any state even tried to govern nearly half of
Europe for nearly eighty years without any advanced apparatus of government?
This is, however, the picture that is created if we accept what many
historians up until now have been suggesting. Yet, the Huns held their
empire together for a substantial length of time in non-Roman Europe,
where, especially in Germania, there was simply no precedent for imperial,
political unity. We will elaborate on the organization of the Hunnic Empire
later, but what is clear is that former models proposed for the nature of the
Hunnic Empire are vastly misleading and wrong.
[1] Heather (1995a) of course argues that the ‘Hunnic revolution’ was the indirect
strategic cause for the fall of the West, but even he attributes only a subsidiary
role to the Huns in the process, and views Hunnic expansion solely from the
perspective of the Goths and other Germanic tribes. In the minds of most
scholars, the Huns were in no way part of the process of the transformation of the
Western world, simply the annoying nuisance that set the process in motion
from a distance. I will argue henceforth that the Hunnic revolution featured not
the Germans as the main actors, but the Huns themselves.
[2] Ammianus Marcellinus 31.2.3; 31.2.9. Not surprisingly, all archaeological discoveries
from Hunnic tombs have yielded arrowheads made of iron, not bone.
See Maenchen-Helfen (1973), 13; Matthews (1989), 338. The use of bone-tipped
arrows occasionally as cheap substitutes for iron-tipped arrows is certainly not
out of the question. However, Ammianus exaggerates their usage to create the
overall impression of primitive barbarism. Although it is not explicitly stated,
Ammianus deliberately creates the false impression that the Huns lack basic
metal tools due to their ‘technological backwardness.’ In fact, earlier Roman
writers compliment the excellent quality of the arms produced by Central
Asian ‘nomads.’ Quintus Curtius Rufus (4.9.3) makes reference to coats of
mail (of course made of iron) and Arrian (3.13.4) was impressed by Central
Asian cataphract horsemen carefully covered with coats of mail and armed with
various iron weaponry.
[3] Ammianus Marcellinus 31.2.7. The translation is from the Loeb Classical
Library edition by J. C. Rolfe.
[4] Thompson (1948), 41–3. The Massagetae who inhabited the Kazakh steppe and
the Sarmatians (among whom the Alans are often included) who inhabited
the Pontic steppe before the Huns, used metal armour including coats of iron
mail and helmets. In fact, iron goods were common throughout the entire
steppe region by the fourth century bc, Christian (1998), 146, 188. To envisage
the Huns even getting out of Central Asia without advanced iron weapons is
absurd.
[5] Maenchen-Helfen (1973), 6–20. See also Alemany (2000), 32–8, Kürsat-Ahlers
(1994), 42, and Kelly (2009), 22, 26.
[6] Kradin (2002).
[7] Kradin (2002), 368–88. See also his 2011 article, in particular p. 82, where he
reiterates his stated position and calls the Xiongnu a centralized imperial
confederation, a stateless empire. See also p. 94. A much looser definition of
the state provided by Krader (1978), 93–108, who argues convincingly that all
steppe empires were state-level polities, is more sensible. However, in order to
avoid any confusion or accusations of inaccurate generalization, I will adhere to
Kradin’s definition.
[8] Di Cosmo (2011), 44–5.
[9] Kradin (2011), 94–5, number of functionaries were limited he argues.
[10] For discussion on what constitutes an ‘early state,’ see Claessen and Skalnik
(1978b), 22–3, and also Scheidel (2011), 114. The majority of Xiongnu experts –
Pritsak (1954c), Dorzhsüren (1961), Taskin (1973), Davydova (1975), Khazanov
(1984), Sükhbaatar (1980), Kürsat-Ahlers (1994), Kychanov (1997), Di Cosmo
(2002, 2011) – are in agreement that a form of early statehood for the Xiongnu
polity is beyond any doubt.
[11] Di Cosmo (2011), 44–5. On this, Kradin is also in agreement (2011).
[12] Kradin (2011), 80, defines the Hunnic Empire in Europe as a quasi-imperial
nomadic statehood formation that was smaller than an empire. It will be argued
later that the Hunnic state was not a quasi-imperial entity, but a full-fledged
empire.
[13] Kelly (2009), 28 and 47, recognizes the possibility that the Huns may have been
better organized and economically more advanced than Ammianus suggests,
but he does not go far enough in his analysis of Central Asian history, and thus
characterizes the Huns as a highly mobile, loose (i.e., politically primitive)
confederation of clans. He characterizes even the later Hunnic Empire under
Attila as a ‘protection racket on a grand scale,’ and sees an administrative void in
the Hunnic realm.
The Xiongnu, the Scythians and the Sarmatians
The mistaken assumptions regarding the organization of steppe societies
have led to the persistence of these many myths concerning the Huns and
their empire. When we observe, however, the level of administrative sophistication
achieved among the Xiongnu and the Scythians[14] long before the
appearance of the Huns in Europe, such myths can be swiftly dispatched.
Many historians and literary critics, who simply ignore Central Asian
history in their analysis of Classical texts that discuss steppe nomads,
typically assume that ‘a nomad power is something inconceivable: if it is a
power, it cannot be nomad.’[15] Such an assumption derives from the mistaken
presupposition that nomadism is an insurmountable obstacle to
sophisticated social organization and centralization of authority.
Yet, many Classical authors, even as early as the historian Herodotus,
had no such presuppositions. Herodotus, in his discourse on the Scythians,
mentions the existence of a nomarch in each province of the Scythian
kingdom (4.66). In Book 4.62.1, he also mentions the nomes. This is all the
more important in that the same word is used to denote administrative
units of Egypt and Persia.[16] To many critics, who refuse to believe that
the Scythians could have developed such a level of organization, this is
simply an example of Herodotus observing the principle of symmetry
between Egypt and Scythia and explaining Scythian practices in Egyptian
terms. However, the level of administrative sophistication achieved
by the Eastern Xiongnu,[17] (Early Middle Chinese (EMC), pronounced
Hun-nu[18]) in Mongolia and Turkestan, whose empire co-existed with that
of the Scythians, should radically alter our interpretation of Herodotus’
early account of Scythian administrative organization.[19]
The Xiongnu (匈奴, as a united imperial entity third century bc – 48
ad [20]), despite their ‘nomadism,’ managed to achieve an astonishing degree
of centralization and pioneered the classic model of imperial rule for later
steppe empires to imitate.[21] Their society was essentially quasi-feudal,[22]
characterized by a complex hierarchy, which is outlined in detail by the
first-century bc Han Chinese historian Sima Qian:
Under the Shan-yü[23] are the Wise Kings of the Left and Right, the left and right Lu-li kings, left and right generals, left and right commandants, left and right household administrators, and left and right Ku-tu marquises. The Hsiung-nu word for ‘wise’ is ‘t’u-ch’i,’ so that the heir of the Shan-yü is customarily called the ‘T’u-ch’i King of the Left.’ Among the other leaders, from the wise kings on down to the household administrators, the more important ones command ten thousand horsemen and the lesser ones several thousand, numbering twenty-four leaders in all, though all are known by the title ‘Ten Thousand Horsemen.’ The high ministerial offices are hereditary, being filled from generation to generation by the members of the Hu-yen and Lan families, and in more recent times by the Hsüpu family. These three families constitute the aristocracy of the nation. The kings and other leaders of the left live in the eastern sector, the region from Shang-ku east to the land of the Hui-mo and the Ch’ao-hsien peoples. The kings and leaders of the right live in the west, the area from Shang province west to the territories of the Yüeh-chi and Ch’iang tribes. The Shan-yü has his court in the region of Tai and Yün-chung. Each group has its own area, within which it moves about from place to place looking for water and pasture. The Left and Right Wise Kings and the Lu-li kings are the most powerful, while the Ku-tu marquises assist the Shan-yü in the administration of the nation. Each of the twenty-four leaders in turn appoint his own ‘chiefs of a thousand,’ ‘chiefs of a hundred,’ and ‘chiefs of ten,’ as well as his subordinate kings, prime ministers, chief commandants, household administrators, chü-ch’ü officials and so forth. (Shiji 110:9b–10b)[24]
From what is known about the Xiongnu, we can deduce the following about
their administrative system. The supreme power rested in the hands of the
Shanyu/Chanyu (單于, meaning ‘emperor,’ likely to have been pronounced
dàn-wà, representing darγwa in EMC[25]) who was assisted in his duties by the
Gu-du (Ku-tu in the Wade–Giles transliteration above) marquises who ran
the central imperial government and co-ordinated the affairs of the empire. As
in the contemporary Parthian–Sassanian system to the West mentioned in the
previous chapter, in the Xiongnu Empire in the East, flanking the central
government there seem to have been four principal, regional governorships in
the East and West (later called in the Hou Hanshu, ‘the four horns’ or
‘angles’[26]): the Worthy King of the Left and the Luli King of the Left in
the East and the Worthy King of the Right and the Luli King of the Right in
the West. Each of these four governorships had its own government bureaucracy[27]
and the kings (sons or brothers of the reigning Shanyu) constituted the
highest ranking aristocrats in the empire.[28] The Xiongnu also possessed (or
perhaps gradually added after 97 bc to the system described in the Shiji
above) six more eminent aristocratic titles (the six horns or angles,[29] perhaps
by coincidence (?) slightly reminiscent (though with obvious differences) of
the system of six great aristocratic families in the Parthian Empire), consisting
of the Rizhu kings of the Left and Right (titles reserved also for the sons and
younger brothers of the Shanyu),[30] Wenyuti kings of the Left and Right, and
the Zhanjiang Kings of the Left and Right.[31]
Below these top-ranking nobles or including them there were the so-called
twenty-four imperial leaders/ministers[32] (each titled Ten Thousand
Horsemen), who acted as imperial governors for the major provinces of the
empire and were (and this will also have important ramifications for the
Hunnic political system later on) usually close relatives of the Shanyu or
members of the Xiongnu aristocracy (probably related to the royal house).[33]
These princes and senior nobles were divided into Eastern and Western groups
(dualism)[34] and the successor to the throne was usually appointed the Wise
King of the Left, i.e., the ruler of the Eastern half of the empire (again we will see
echoes of this in the Hun system later on). All the appointments were made by
the Xiongnu central government under the direction of the Shanyu.
At the bottom of the administrative hierarchy was a large class of
subordinate or vassal tribal leaders (sub-kings, prime ministers, chief commandants,
household administrators, chü-ch’ü officals etc.) who were under
the command of the twenty-four imperial governors, but enjoyed a level of
local autonomy.[35] A non-decimal system of ranks was used for the political
administration of tribes and territory within the empire, which included
groups of many different sizes.[36] However, a more rigid system of decimal
ranks (thousands, hundreds, tens) was used in times of war when large
armies were formed from troops drawn from different parts of the steppe
under a single command structure.[37] A census was also taken to determine
the empire’s reserves of manpower and livestock.[38]
It is highly probable that Herodotus was in fact referring to a similar
organization among the Scythians.[39] The nomarchs are likely to have been
division commanders of the kind found among the Xiongnu. The
Scythian legend of their origin, which divides their nation into three
parts (Hdt. 4.7), may also reflect a similar tripartite division of power
among the leading tribes/clans which characterized the Xiongnu form of
government.[40] Ivantchik notes that the element -xais with which all three
names of the brothers in the Scythian foundation legend end (Lipoxais,
Arpoxais and Colaxais), is etymologically connected to the Iranian word
xsaya (king).[41] He also suggests quite plausible etymologies, which would
connect the names Cola, Arpo and Lipo with the Iranian words for sun,
water, and mountain.[42] The names are probably indicative of the division
of the world into three levels, which is one of the principal ideas of Indo-
Iranian cosmology found in various Vedic and Zoroastrian texts and
traditions.[43] The three levels may correspond to the three castes mentioned
in various Indian and Iranian texts (priest, farmer and warrior).[44]
The Scythians of Herodotus, therefore, probably possessed a highly
stratified, politically organized state[45] and as Bichler puts it ‘sehr festen
herrschaftlichen Institutionen.’[46]
At the pinnacle of the Scythian political structure was the king whose
power, contrary to what critics like Hartog believe, was in all probability
very real and certainly not a mere product of the narrative constraint, which
imposes the need to assign a king to every non-Greek power.[47] Among the
Xiongnu, to use once again the same analogy, the political power wielded by
the Shanyu was truly formidable. Chinese sources report that Modun, the
Shanyu, could boast of having subjugated twenty-six states and reduced
them to obedience as a part of the Xiongnu nation.[48] In war, the Shanyu
could reputedly mobilize an army of 140,000 men from among his subjects.[49]
Herodotus portrays the Scythian king in a similar way. As the head
of the so-called Royal Scythians[50] who held supremacy over all other groups
of Scythians the king, like the Shanyu, was the military leader in times of
war, as is demonstrated by Idanthyrsus’ direction of the war against the
Persians. In times of peace, the king was also apparently the distributor of
justice and presided over duels between relatives (4.65.2). Furthermore, the
taking of the census by King Ariantes (4.81) and the punishment he used to
enforce his decree (4.81.5) reveal the substantive nature of royal power, which
turned Scythia into a real state with the necessary means to impose order
and control.[51] In fact, archaeological excavations from Arzhan in Tuva,
northwest of Mongolia, from the Scythian period (eighth century bc),
have revealed the existence of highly organized steppe polities in Central
Asia that corroborate Herodotus’ observations. A huge Scythian or rather
Saka type tomb that included 70 chambers and 160 saddle horses buried
with the king, who obviously ruled a large and powerful steppe confederacy,
was brought to light. That he ruled over a more or less typical steppe
hierarchical state/quasi-state entity is confirmed by the fact that subordinate
princes or nobles were buried to the north, south and west of the king and
his wife.[52]
One startling difference between the Xiongnu and the Scythians, though,
was the degree to which they absorbed the political institutions of their
sedentary neighbours. The Scythians do not seem to have adopted any
institutional features from either the Greeks (highly disorganized in any
case) or even the Persians (that is, unless their organization mentioned above
in some way can be seen as an imitation of Achaemenid administrative
ideas).[53] The Xiongnu, in contrast, seem to have absorbed some of the
sophistication of their Chinese neighbours when it came to state organization
and administration.[54] The essentially ‘feudal’ character of their empire
with its hierarchy of kings and marquises, the highest ranks of which were
reserved exclusively for members of the royal clan and the lesser ranks for
leaders of other leading clans that intermarried with the royal clan (of
immense significance for our later examination of the Hunnic Empire
and its successor kingdoms in Europe),[55] has obvious analogies with the
kingdoms and marquisates of the Han Empire, but with clear differences in
functions. The Xiongnu territorial divisions which favoured the left, i.e., the
East (when viewed with orientation towards the South in the Chinese
manner or right when viewed with orientation towards the North in the
steppe manner[56]), over the West may also reflect the influence of Chinese
ideas of rulership, which identified the left (East) with the yang (as in yinyang)
forces of generation and growth. The use of colours as symbolism for
territory, blue for East, white for West, black for Nrth and red for South,
correspond to the symbolism of Chinese cosmology (Wuxing, five elements
theory).[57]
In the West, the Scythian political tradition was to some extent continued
by the Sarmatians and Alans (considered a branch of the Sarmatians,[58] who
seem to have been somewhat more fragmented in comparison to other
steppe nomadic peoples further to the east[59]), later conquered by the Huns
upon their entry into Europe.[60] According to Strabo,[61] the Sarmatians at
one stage in their history (possibly from the late second century bc to c. 60
bc), before they fragmented, possessed tighter organization and a ruling
royal tribe who were situated in the centre of the Sarmatian tribal confederacy/
empire and surrounded by a protective ring of vassal tribes (Iazyges to
the South, Urgi to the North and the Roxolani to the East).[62] The Alans
further to the East, like the Scythians and western Sarmatians in the second
century bc, also possessed a royal clan[63] and regiments of professional
warriors in the Scythian manner (presumably in the usual decimal system).[64]
The kings, like the Scythian Ariantes of old, carried out a general
census of male warriors (Martyrdom of Sukuasyants[65]) and even built royal
palaces[66] and city fortifications. An inscription at Olbia also bears witness to
their observance of the steppe custom of collective or joint rule among
brothers who are referred to as the ‘greatest kings of Aorsia’.[67] Furthermore,
the Alans apparently possessed a ranking system, in much the same way as
the Scythians and the Xiongnu. The kings used a royal title similar to the
Scythian ksais, local princes or chiefs were titled ardar (literally ‘holding in a
hand,’ perhaps related to sceptre holders mentioned in Tacitus Annals 6.33)
and were distinguished from the class of slaves called čagar.[68] We also learn
that the Alans used colour to designate segments of their tribal confederation
in the same way as the Xiongnu. Thus, we find Ptolemy making
reference to white (hapax) Alans.[69]
Even if we were to discount the Alans, who may well have possessed
similar though obviously more haphazard political and social institutions in
comparison to the Xiongnu, it is nonetheless clear that in the territory from
which the Huns derived there were already historical precedents for highly
sophisticated organization, both social and military, that facilitated the
emergence time and again in the steppe region of formidable empires.
Han Chinese administrative and political practices, more complex than
even the Roman model,[70] also seem to have had a profound effect on the
early Huns/Xiongnu. If so, then what is the evidence for the possibility of
this organization being transmitted to the Huns in the fourth century ad?
[14] For an in-depth discussion on the name and location of the various Scythian
peoples (Saka) in both Europe and Asia see Szemerényi (1980), 4–46.
[15] Hartog (1988), 202.
[16] Hartog (1988), 19.
[17] A Sogdian source, which we will discuss in detail shortly, from the fourth
century ad suggests that the Xiongnu (modern Chinese reading of the glyphs
representing their name, which in its EMC reading was in all probability the
same as the name Hun, see note below) were actually called Huns. Their
connection with the European Huns has always been a highly contentious
issue, but there are compelling reasons for assuming that this identification is
accurate. See first Torday (1997), 172.
[18] Golden (2009b), 83.
[19] See Melyukova (1990), 101–2, and Torday (1997), 88. See also Golden (1982),
50 ff., for a later example of state formation, social hierarchy and administration
of the Turkish Khaganate.
[20] The empire in that year was divided by civil war into two warring factions, the
Northern Xiongnu and the Southern Xiongnu.
[21] Barfield (1981), 59. As Tapper (1991), 525, in his analysis of nomads in Safavid and
Qajar Iran points out, nomadism by no means implies lack of fixed boundaries
or less organizational capacity. If anything, the existence of well-defined territories
and regular movements under an authoritative leader was essential for the
survival of the nomadic tribal community in a very fragile ecological environment.
For an in-depth study of the agro-pastoral conditions under which
historical steppe polities emerged, the capacity of these states to control large
territories, and the importance and durability of the political tradition that was
initiated by the Xiongnu, see Honeychurch and Amartuvshin (2006a), 255–78,
in particular p. 262.
[22] De Crespigny (1984), 178; Pritsak (1954a), 239.
[23] The supreme ruler and the equivalent of the Turco-Mongol Khagan. For
discussion see Kürsat-Ahlers (1994), 268–70.
[24] Watson (1961), vol. ii, 163–4.
[25] Pulleyblank (2000a), 64, also the origin of the Turkic title Tarkhan and the
Mongol Daruga.
[26] The designation ‘horns’ or ‘angles’ appears only later in the Hou Hanshu
(covering the history of the later Han dynasty (ad 25–220)) and not the Shiji
passage quoted above. The designation and possibly also the six further titles
called the six horns (angles) that do not appear in the Shiji, but, according to
Mori, were only gradually created after 97 bc (the date of the completion of the
Xiongnu liezhuan in the Shiji), may only have been firmly established in the
Xiongnu political system by the time of the Southern Xiongnu. See Mori (1973),
22–3. However, Mori’s view, as he himself points out (p. 34), has not been
proven beyond doubt and has been criticized. Mori acknowledges G. Uchida’s
valid critique of his views and concedes that there are grounds for uncertainty,
since the slight differences in the titles given in the Hou Hanshu and the earlier
Shiji and Hanshu could simply be an indication that the Han Chinese of the
Hou Han period observed Xiongnu government practices more correctly than
their predecessors in the earlier Qian Han period. Thus, the possible differences
in titles may or may not be indicative of reforms in the governmental organization
of the Xiongnu over time. See also Kradin (2011), 89.
[27] Christian (1998), 194.
[28] De Crespigny (1984), 176–7. The concept of four pre-eminent sub-kings is also
found among the later Volga Bulgars (Hunnic descendents in Europe), Pritsak
(1954b), 379, and also among the Göktürks who succeed the Huns and Rouran
as masters of the steppe, Pritsak (1954c), 186.
[29] See note 26 above. See also Kradin (2011), 92.
[30] Hou Hanshu 79. 2944. According to Mori (1973), 30–1, the office was later
passed from the hands of the Chanyu’s family to those of the Huyan clan who
were related to the Chanyu through marriage.
[31] de Crespigny (1984), 177. The hierarchy and political ranks of aristocratic and
royal clans, as mentioned above, may have changed somewhat among the
Southern Xiongnu whose political organization after the Xiongnu civil war
that split the empire in two informed much of the details we find in the Hou
Hanshu. In other words, there may have been regional developments or changes
over time that altered the political fabric of Southern Xiongnu society and
made it slightly different from the former Xiongnu political system. However,
it is clear that even these later developments, if they were of any significance,
derived from the political traditions of the original Xiongnu Empire, see
Brosseder and Miller (2011a), 20.
[32] Pritsak’s(1954c) extended discussion on the twenty-four lords is criticized quite
mercilessly by Daffinà (1982), and should be read with caution. See also Kürsat-
Ahlers (1994), 276.
[33] See Ishjamts (1994), 158, and Kollautz and Miyakawa (1970), 44, though it is also
clear that some former rulers of conquered peoples were allowed to remain kings/chiefs
as well under appropriate Xiongnu overlordship and over-kings. For the
government of the more distant Western regions, the Xiongnu created the office
of the ‘Commandant in charge of Slaves’ (Yü 1990, 127), which under the aegis of
the Xiongnu Ri-zhu king had the power to tax states such as Karashar and
Kalmagan and to conscript corvée labour (pp. 127–8). Also, certain Chinese
defectors were appointed kings, e.g., Wei Lu as king of the Ding Ling and Lu
Wan of the Donghu. However, the upper echelons of power and positions of
political, administrative and military importance close to the Shanyu and key
strategic areas, were almost exclusively reserved for members of the imperial clan
and a few select Xiongnu aristocratic families. See also Golden (2009b), 110. For
the later Mongol system of provincial administration and state organization in
Central Asia, which closely resembles the Xiongnu model, see Biran (2009), 61.
[34] Ishjamts (1994), 158. Kradin (2011), 93, argues that originally there was a
tripartite administrative system within the Xiongnu Empire that gradually by
the time of the civil war that split the Xiongnu into two rival groups had
evolved into a dual system.
[35] Barfield (1981), 48–9.
[36] See Markley (forthcoming), 22, for a discussion on Xiongnu quasi-‘feudalism.’
See also Kollautz and Miyakawa (1970), 44. For the notion of the tribe
functioning as a territorial unit in its allocated place within the confederacy
of a steppe empire, see Cribb (1991), 54–5.
[37] Barfield (1981), 49. For archaeological evidence of a highly sophisticated social
hierarchy among the Xiongnu, see Honeychurch and Amartuvshin (2006a),
264–5. Kürsat-Ahlers (1994), 289–90, argues for a Xiongnu bureaucracy in the
form of a military organization.
[38] Christian (1998), 194.
[39] See Pulleyblank (2000a), 53, for the possible Scythian impact on early Xiongnu
culture.
[40] Khazanov (1984), 178. The Xiongnu would develop three aristocratic clans linked
via family/marriage ties to the Shanyu: the Huyan, Lan and Xubu (the imperial
clan was the Xulianti/Luanti clan which descended from the early Shanyus
Touman and Modun, Kollautz and Miyakawa (1970), 44), which formed the
ruling, upper stratum of Xiongnu society. See also Pulleyblank (2000a), 68.
These ruling clans, along with the royal family, led separate subdivisions of
nomads. See also Kürsat-Ahlers (1996), 138, and Golden (1992), 64–6, for
discussion on the nature of the Xiongnu state.
[41] Ivantchik (1999a), 145.
[42] Ivantchik (1999a), 145–7.
[43] Ivantchik (1999a), 160.
[44] See Ivantchik (1999a), 164–5 where he gives a detailed account of the legend
of the three sons of Zoroaster. The eldest son became the priest, the second
the farmer and the third the warrior. This corresponds perfectly with the
etymologies suggested for the names of the three sons of Targitaus, as in
Indo-Iranian cosmology the sky (soleil) is identified with the warrior caste
(Colaxais, the youngest), the earth (montagne) with the priestly caste
(Lipoxais, the eldest), and the underworld (l’eau) with the productors/farmers
(Arpoxais, the second son), p. 158. See also Corcella (1993), 232; Abetekov and
Yusupov (1994), 28.
[45] Khazanov (1978), 425–40; Kürsat-Ahlers (1996), 139.
[46] Bichler (2000), 97. For an in-depth analysis of the capacity of steppe pastoralists
to rapidly mobilize and organize complex military and political structures
that can influence vast territories see Christian (1998), 85–9.
[47] Hartog (1988), 200. For the depiction of royal power in Scythian art, see Bader,
Gaibov and Koshelenko (1998), 25.
[48] Yü (1990), 123.
[49] Yü (1990), 124.
[50] See Harmatta (1970), 14.
[51] Bichler (2000), 90. See Abetekov and Yusupov (1994), 25–6 for the analysis of
archaeological evidence which supports the existence of an aristocratic elite and
political hierarchy among the Scythians. See also Kürsat-Ahlers (1994), 179–93,
198–227.
[52] Christian (1998), 129–31.
[53] There is some evidence of Persian influence in the Saka steppe of Central Asia.
Persian goods do appear occasionally in areas such as Eastern Kazakhstan in the
Altai region. See Christian (1998), 167.
[54] The putative Chinese influence on the Xiongnu is contested by Di Cosmo
(2011), 47–8, who regards resemblances and similarities in administrative and
cultural practices to be largely the result of a shared set of associations that may
go back to a more ancient cultural stratum.
[55] Kollautz and Miyakawa (1970), 45. For Xiongnu elite governance and feudalism
see McGovern (1939), 118; Yü (1990), 135–6.
[56] For details, see Pritsak (1954b), 377–9; (1955b), 256–9. Amazingly, this north–south
orientation is also evident in the placement of human remains in a
Hunnic grave discovered in the Crimean steppe, see de Vingo (2000), 156.
[57] Pulleyblank (2000a), 70. This will also be of significance for the Huns in
Europe, as we shall see later in the book.
[58] See Melyukova (1990), 110–17, for a short discussion on the Sarmatians. For a
more detailed treatment, see Batty (2007), 225–36.
[59] Wendelken (2000), 202. See also Batty (2007), 368–72.
[60] Though in their heyday, Strabo would report that king Spadinus of the Aorsi
could field an army of 200,000 men (Strabo 11.5.8). An exaggeration no doubt.
[61] Geography 7.3.17. See also Ptolemy 5.9.16.
[62] Harmatta (1970), 12, 14–15. We will see a mirror image of this later in the
Hunnic Empire where the core of the empire is also surrounded by a protective
ring of vassal tribes.
[63] Lucian, Toxaris 51; Moses Khorenatsi, History of the Armenians 2.50, 58; see
Thomson (1978), 191. See also Alemany (2000), 287–9.
[64] P’austos Buzand, History of the Armenians 3. 6–7.
[65] Yatsenko (2003), 93.
[66] Tacitus Ann. 12.17–18.
[67] Yatsenko (2003), 93. For further references to Alan rulers and the special status
of queens in Alan society, see Dio Chrysostom, Or. 36.3.5; Polyaenus, Strat.
8.56.
[68] Yatsenko (2003), 94.
[69] Ptolemy 3.15.3, see Alemany (2000), 8.
[70] Scheidel (2009), 18.
The Hun–Xiongnu connection
To fully understand the nature of our European Huns, it is necessary first of
all to re-examine their possible links to the above-mentioned Xiongnu. The
now almost legendary work of Deguignes, Histoire générale des Huns, des
Turcs, des Mogols et des autres Tartares occidentaux (1756–1824), sparked a
debate that has raged for centuries. Were the European Huns the political
and physical descendants of the imperial Xiongnu? Deguignes with remarkable
intuition asserted that they were, but later scholarship tended to voice
scepticism concerning this link between Huns and Xiongnu. Renowned
and distinguished historians of the Huns and Central Asia openly rejected
any links other than possible cultural affinities between the Huns and the
Xiongnu.[71] For our purposes, cultural links, and in particular the preservation
of political institutions, are obviously of greater importance and
sufficient for the argument that the Huns were politically organized.
However, it is possible to strengthen this cultural link with actual physical,
‘genetic’ links between the later Huns and the earlier Xiongnu.
In 1948, Henning published a remarkable text from the year ad 313, a
letter sent by a Sogdian merchant by the name of Nanaivandak from Gansu
in China concerning the fall of the Chinese capital of Luoyang to the
Southern Xiongnu in ad 311. In the letter, without a shadow of a doubt,
the Xiongnu are called Huns.[72] The response to this amazing discovery has
been equally amazing. Sinor suggests that this only proves that the name
Hun was a general term used by Sogdians for all nomads.[73] Bailey for his
part, believing the Xiongnu to be Iranians, not Turkic like the western
Huns presumably were,[74] argues that the name Hun derives from the term
Hyaona, a designation used in the Avesta to denote a hostile people. This he
assumes was used by the Sogdian merchant to refer to the Xiongnu, as a
generic term for nomads.[75]
However, as La Vaissière points out, both Sinor and Bailey are wrong to
attribute the use of the name Hun as a general designation for all nomads
before the time of the great Hunnic invasions.[76] It was only after the fourth- and
fifth-century exploits of the Huns, which made their name famous, that
historians in the West would start to use their name in a generic sense to
designate nomads. There is no evidence whatsoever that their name was
used as a generic term for nomads before the sixth century ad. It is also
highly problematic to treat the name Hun as a fourth-century pan-Iranian
term for steppe nomads. For starters the ‘h’ in the Avestic initial ‘hy-’ (as in
Hyaona) disappears in Sogdian, and words that derive from Avestic with
the ‘hy-’ initial prefix never commence with ‘X’ in Sogdian, with which
the name Hun begins in the letter of Nanaivandak.[77] In other words, there
are formidable linguistic problems with associating the term Hyaona with
the Huns.
Another problem with the Iranian theory is that the term Hun was
without a doubt the self-designation adopted by the Huns themselves.
Hyaona may possibly be a Zoroastrian term applied to hostile enemies,
but it by no means designated exclusively nomads, who were more often
referred to as the Tuirya.[78] If so, why on earth would the Huns adopt this
name as their own ethnonym, and why would non-Zoroastrian Sarmatians
and Goths refer to the Huns in this manner? And, we must also take note of
the fact that there were plenty of other nomadic tribes in eastern Turkestan
at the time when Nanaivandak travelled through it, who were not called
Huns, but referred to themselves as the Dingling, Var, Xianbei etc. Are we
to assume that Nanaivandak, who was an eye-witness to the events of ad
313, was ignorant of the proper name of the invading horde? This surely
cannot be right, and it is totally unacceptable to dismiss primary evidence like
this in a cavalier manner.
In fact, recently further evidence has come to light, this time from India and
Tibet, which in my view renders the identification of the name Hun with
Xiongnu highly probable, if not certain. Two texts, the Tathagataguhya-sutra
and Lalitavistara, translated into Chinese by Zhu Fahu, a monk from
Dunhuang, by origin of Bactrian descent (translations ad 280 and
ad 308
respectively, i.e., roughly contemporaneous with Nanaivandak’s letter), identify
the Huna (Huns), then a distant people to the Indians, with the Xiongnu,
as a specific political entity adjacent to China.[79] There is no indication at all
that the use of the term Xiongnu for Huna here is generic in any sense. Given
this contemporary evidence, it seems quite natural to agree with La Vaissière
and Pulleyblank that the imperial Xiongnu and the European Huns had the
same name.[80]
Having the same name is a start, but this certainly does not prove that the
Huns and the Xiongnu were culturally linked. Archaeological evidence,
however, in this case supports the link and leaves no doubt as to the cultural
connections between the European Huns and the old territory ruled by the
Xiongnu. Most serious scholars of the Huns and Xiongnu are in agreement
that Hunnic cauldrons, an archaeological marker of Hunnic presence,
derive from Xiongnu cauldrons in the Ordos region in Inner Mongolia.[81]
Remarkably, the placement of the Xiongnu and Hunnic cauldrons are
virtually the same, on the bank of rivers, a fact which proves that the
continuity between the old Xiongnu and the European Huns is not only
artistic or technological, but also cultural.[82] Furthermore, both the Huns
and the Xiongnu practised a very similar sword cult (in Xiongnu the cult of
the kenglu).[83] In other words, even if one were to reject an ethnic/genetic
link between Huns and Xiongnu,[84] it is impossible to deny a cultural
continuity or affinity between the Xiongnu and the Huns. Of course, it
might be possible that the Huns residing in Kazakhstan (from where they
would in the fourth century ad move
into Europe)[85] had no blood links with the Xiongnu of Mongolia, though how this
could be given the history of prolonged Xiongnu presence, migration to and rule of the
very regions occupied by the Huns, is problematic to say the least.[86]
It must, however, be recognized that the Hunnic confederation that
entered Europe, despite having the same name as the Xiongnu and also
very likely a similar mix of ethnic groups (at least initially) and cultural
traditions to those which characterized the latter, was not the exact replica of
the old Xiongnu Empire. During their migration West, the Xiongnu (Huns)
seem to have undergone a transformation. Whereas the original Xiongnu in
Mongolia, according to Pulleyblank and Vovin, may have had a Yeniseian
core tribal elite[87], which ruled over various Iranian and Altaic
(Turco-Mongol) groups,[88] if the names of Hunnic tribes and rulers are a rough
guide to ethnicity[89] (poor indicators at best in the steppe region), the Huns
seem to have had a core Turkic element, ruling over initially a large
Turco-Iranian population (in the East) and then after their conquests in Europe a
largely Germanic population in the western half of their empire.
The heavier concentration of Turkic peoples[90] in the western half of the
old Xiongnu Empire is likely to have contributed to this shift from a
Yeniseian core language group to a Turkic one.[91] A very similar transformation
can be noted in the later history of the steppe in the Golden
Horde and the Chagatai Khanate where the Mongol ruling elite from the
East rapidly adopted the Turkic language, which was the dominant spoken
language of the tribes that made up the bulk of their armies in the West.[92]
The Xiongnu who migrated West are likely to have done the same.
Yet, the fact that the Huns chose to hold on to the name of the imperial
Xiongnu as their own ethnonym or state name, even after the probable
Turkification of the elite, is a clear indication that they regarded this link
with the old steppe tradition of imperial grandeur as valuable and significant,
a sign of their original identity and future ambitions no doubt. The
preservation of Xiongnu cultural identity (as the preservation of Xiongnu-type
cauldrons all the way from the eastern steppe to the Danube shows)
among the western Huns suggests also that a culturally dominant inner core
of Xiongnu/Huns remained intact through their long migration from
Inner Asia to Europe.[93] The old Xiongnu confederation was in any case
highly heterogeneous,[94] a polyglot empire containing Yeniseian, Turkic,
Mongolic, Tungusic, Iranian and even Chinese elements. The name
Xiongnu/Hun could also refer to either a specific ethnic entity or more
frequently to all dwelling within the political entity established under the
name Hun.[95] The later descendant of this imperial confederacy, the Hun
Empire would, following the old traditions of the Xiongnu, be equally
heterogeneous, containing mainly Turkic, Iranian and Germanic elements,
but also Slavic, Baltic, Finno-Ugric and even Greco-Roman minorities.[96]
This heterogeneity of the Hunnic state in Europe has led numerous
scholars (most recently Heather) to make the unverifiable assertion that the
official language of the Hunnic Empire was Gothic due to the rather
disputable assumption that the names of three Attila era kings – Ruga (or
Roga/Rua/Rugila), Bleda and Attila – are Gothic.[97] Naturally, we also have
more probable Turkic etymologies for these names, especially for those of
Attila and Bleda.[98] However, even if they were Germanic or Germanicized
Turkic names,[99] this does not allow us to make any hasty assumptions
about the official language of the empire, if it ever existed. What Heather
ignores is the fact that we have convincing or highly probable Turkic
etymologies for the names of many of the other Hunnic kings and nobles
before and after Attila, e.g. Mundzuk[100] (Attila’s father, from Turkic
Munčuq = ‘pearl/jewel’), Oktar/Uptar (Attila’s uncle, Öktär = ‘brave/powerful’),
Oebarsius (another of Attila’s paternal uncles, Aïbârs = ‘leopard of the
moon’), Karaton (Hunnic supreme king before Ruga, Qarâton = ‘blackcloak’),
Basik (Hunnic noble of royal blood, early fifth century, Bârsiğ =
‘governor’), Kursik (Hunnic noble of royal blood, from either Kürsiğ,
meaning ‘brave or noble,’ or Quršiq meaning ‘belt-bearer’).[101] All three of
Attila’s known sons have probable Turkic names: Ellac, Dengizich, Hernak,
and Attila’s principal wife, the mother of the first son Ellac, has the Turkic
name Herekan, as does another wife named Eskam (Ešqam = ‘companion of
the Shaman’).[102]
It seems highly likely, then, from the names that we do know, most of
which seem to be Turkic, that the Hunnic elite was predominantly Turkic-speaking.
[103] However, in the western half of the empire, where most of their
subjects spoke Germanic languages, the Huns may have used both Hunnic
(Oghuric Turkic[104]) and Gothic. Thus, fief holders and royal family members
in the West who ruled Germanic tribes often bore Germanic or
Germanicized titles (of great significance, as we will discover later on in
the book), e.g., Laudaricus and Ardaric.[105] Priscus, who is our only reliable
source, being an actual eye-witness, tells us that at the Hunnic court
Hunnic, Gothic and Latin were spoken, but with Hunnic always mentioned
before Gothic. All three languages were apparently understood by
the elite to some degree,[106] so much so that Zercon the Moor could provoke
laughter by jumbling all three together at a Hunnic banquet in the presence
of Attila.[107] There is, however, no indication anywhere that any of these
three languages was the lingua franca.
It is highly probable that like the later Ottoman Turkish Empire, in
which Persian was used for administration, Arabic for religion and Turkic
for the army, and as in the contemporary Hunnic Kidarite Empire in
Central Asia, which used Sogdian, Bactrian, Middle Persian and Brahmi
on different occasions for administrative purposes,108] the Hunnic Empire
used three (possibly four: Hunnic, Gothic, Latin, Sarmatian (i.e., Alanic))
languages at various levels in order to govern its vastly polyglot army and
population.[109] All levels of Hunnic society are also likely to have been
heavily mixed through inter-marriage. Some of that mixing would have
taken place as far back as old Xiongnu times.[110] Thus, to refer to
Hun–Xiongnu links in terms of old racial theories or even ethnic affiliations
simply makes a mockery of the actual historical reality of these extensive,
multiethnic, polyglot steppe empires.[111] It is, nonetheless, clear that the
ancestors, if they need to be mentioned at all, of the Hunnic core tribes
(mostly Turkic and Iranian) were part of the Xiongnu Empire and possessed
a strong Xiongnu element, and that the ruling elite of the Huns, as their very
name indicates, claimed to belong to the political tradition of this imperial
entity.
However, as many historians have pointed out, there is a historical gap of
about two centuries between the final defeat of the Northern Xiongnu
confederation at the hands of the Xianbei[112] and the Hunnic invasions of the
mid fourth century ad.[113]
The Hou Han-shu (89.2953–4) records that the last known Shanyu (emperor) of
the Northern Xiongnu in ad 91 either
disappeared in the West or moved to the territory of the Wusun in modern
day eastern Kazakhstan.[114] The Wei Shu (102.2268) indicates that he moved
further West to Kangju (Tashkent region) and that the Yueban (悅般, Weak
Huns, East of the Kangju) who dominated the old territory of the Wusun in
the fifth century ad were
Xiongnu/Hun remnants.[115] The Xianbei under their leader Tian Shi-huai,[116] however,
defeated the remaining Xiongnu feudatories in the Tarim basin c.
ad 153.[117] After this, due to the decline of
Chinese interest in the West, nothing more is heard of the western Huns
until the fourth century. Some might question whether the western Huns,
despite their pretensions to Xiongnu heritage, could still have had the
capacity after this lull to create an imperial structure with the sophisticated
social and military organization that was the distinguishing feature of the
early Xiongnu polity.
[71] Maenchen-Helfen (1944–5); (1961); (1973), 367, and Sinor (1997), 5.
[72] See Henning (1948), 601–45. Altheim (1959), 37, argues that the Huns were a
branch of the Xianbei, and that the Chinese references to them as Xiongnu in
the fourth century ad are anachronistic. This is highly unlikely.
[73] Sinor (1990c), 179.
[74] Maenchen-Helfen (1973), 441.
[75] Bailey (1954), 12–21.
[76] La Vaissière (2005), 7.
[77] La Vaissière (2005), 8.
[78] La Vaissière (2005), 9.
[79] La Vaissière (2005), 11–15.
[80] Pulleyblank (2000a), 60–1, agrees on the basis of phonetic evidence that there
is no alternative but to accept that the European Huns had the same name as
the Xiongnu. So does de Crespigny (1984), 174. See also Wright (1997) and Hill
(2009), 73–4, for further information on phonetic and other evidence in favour
of Xiongnu–Hun identification.
[81] Hambis (1958), 262; Maenchen-Helfen (1973), 330–1; La Vaissière (2005), 17;
Bona (1991), 140; Érdy (1995), 5–94. See Czeglédy (1983), 91, for a more
sceptical approach.
[82] La Vaissière (2005), 17.
[83] See La Vaissière (2007), 129. For evidence of the existence of the same cult also
among the White Huns in Central Asia, which could be another indicator of
the common origins of the European and Central Asian Huns, see the same
reference.
[84] Extremely difficult to reject in fact, given the abundant archaeological evidence
which clearly suggests cultural and religious continuities between the Xiongnu
and the Huns, see Érdy (1995), 7.
[85] Their expansion seems to have been as follows: (1) Altai region to northeastern
Kazakhstan and Southern Siberia (a very gradual absorption of Oghuric
Turkic speaking Dingling/Oghurs and perhaps Ugrian speakers) by the late
third century ad;
(2) conquest of the Kangju and Wusun in Uzbekistan and
the Ili Basin, respectively, by the mid fourth century ad;
(3) conquest of the Alans (Volga Region and the Kuban Steppe) and Bactria (from the Sassanian
Kushanshahs), 460–70s ad.
The Oghurs left behind in western Kazakhstan
after the Hunnic departure into Europe seem to have become the Saraghurs,
Urogs (a Byzantine scribal error for Ugor/Ogur/Uigur says Hamilton (1962),
34) and Onoghurs (Priscus fr. 40) who would later cause trouble for the Huns
in the 460s. The original Hunnic territory stretching from the Altai region to
southwestern Siberia seems to have been occupied by the mid fifth
century ad
at the latest by the Sabirs who were perhaps under pressure from the Rouran
further to the east. This forced the remaining Huns (the Weak Huns: Chuban
Huns) in the area to relocate to the Ili basin (former Wusun lands) and
physically separated the European Huns from the Asian Huns. Then, a further
incursion by the Avars in the mid fifth century
ad triggered the flight of the
Sabirs and the various Oghurs into Europe.
[86] Defeated Xiongnu groups migrated West into Dzungaria and Kazakhstan in
successive waves from the first century ad
onwards following the collapse of Xiongnu power in Mongolia. The first such migration actually took place
even earlier in the first century bc.
Han-shu pu-chu B, 1a, 10–2a, 1, records that supporters of a pretender
to the Xiongnu throne fled in 57–6 bc
to the northwest to an area northeast of Kangju, see Daffinà (1982), 32 (see also
Czeglédy (1983), 55–6; Golden (2009a), 83, for further discussion on early
Xiongnu movements into Kazakhstan and Dzungaria in the late first century
bc). The Wusun (in the Zhetysu region) were also subjected to repeated
Xiongnu attacks during this early migration. In ad 91, the Shanyu of the
Northern Xiongnu fled to the Ili valley and the Altai region where later the
Huns and also the so-called Weak Huns (Yueban/Chuban) would originate.
See Yü (1990), 147. See also Golden (1992), 62–3, and Hambis (1958), 251.
[87] Pulleyblank (1962); (2000a), 62–5; Vovin (2000). This is questioned by Benjamin
(2007), 49, who sees the Xiongnu as either Proto-Turks or Proto-Mongols, who
spoke a language related to the clearly Turkic Dingling further West.
[88] This Yeniseian element seems to have retained a dominant role in the Southern
Xiongnu, who were geographically closer to the heartland of the Chinese
Empire in Shaanxi (Northern China), right into the fourth century ad. That
is if Vovin’s (2000), 92, identification of the language of the Southern Xiongnu
(in particular the Jie tribe which constituted one of the core tribes of the
confederation), preserved in the form of a Xiongnu poem found in the Jin
Shu (95.2486), with Yeniseian, is correct. However, although the Jie tribe is
certainly part of the Xiongnu nation that invaded the Chinese Empire, it is
unclear whether they were part of the original Xiongnu governing elite. So,
whether their language reflects the old Xiongnu language of the elite is
uncertain. A different argument is provided by Pritsak (1976b), 480–2, that
the name of the tribe Jie itself is Hunno-Bulgar in origin, not Yeniseian. I tend
to agree with Pulleyblank and Vovin to the extent that the original Xiongnu
ruling elite do not seem to have spoken either an Iranian or a Turkic language,
but it is equally uncertain whether they spoke a Yeniseian language, and there
is no firm consensus on the matter. The tribe’s name, Jie, also suggests that it
originated in the area around the city of Tashkent in the far West of the
Xiongnu empire (Pritsak (1976b), 479).
[89] Proper names and etymologies are, however, often inaccurate guides to the
genetic affiliation of a people or a historical personality. If they were, anyone
bearing a Hebrew name in Western Europe would become Jewish, thereby
vastly inflating the number of Jews in the world, or the Hungarians with a
national name deriving from the Turkic Onoghurs (see Szádeczky-Kardoss
(1990), 224) would become Turks, not Magyars.
[90] For the presence of the Turkic Dingling within the Northern Xiongnu federation
in the West see Yü (1990), 148, Golden (2009a), 87, and Duan (1988), 111–13. For
the possibility that the Hu-chieh, West of the Wusun in central Kazakhstan,
conquered by Modun in the second century bc, were from the reconstruction
of Early Middle Chinese pronunciation and transliteration Oghur/Oghuz (i.e.,
Turks), see Torday (1997), 220–1.
[91] According to the Weilue = Sanguozhi 30.863–4, some Turkic tribes (Dingling)
were definitely present in the Kazakh steppe, north of the Kangju and west of
the Wusun by the third century ad. See also Golden (2006–7), 27;(2009a), 87.
For their presence among the Southern Xiongnu, see Pulleyblank (1990a), 21.
The Dingling from the fourth century onwards would be known as the Gaoche
(highcarts)/Chile or Tiele (see Czeglédy (1983), 62–4, and Duan (1988), 16–18,
197), enemies of the nascent Rouran Empire in Mongolia. Their political
disunity would make them vulnerable to first Xiongnu/Hun and then Rouran
conquest. See Pulleyblank (1990b), 22–5. Their foundation legend, as it is
preserved in the Wei Shu 103.2307, or the myth regarding their elite, tells of
a union between the daughter of the Xiongnu/Hun Shanyu and a wolf
that produced the Gaoche, indicative of the conquest or influence that the
Huns had over the Dingling in previous centuries. See de Groot (1910), 266,
and Sinor (1990b), 295. The Wei Shu also tells us that the Xiongnu spoke the
same language as the Gaoche/Dingling (Turkish), which is problematic since
the original Xiongnu probably spoke Kettic. It may well be a reference to
the complete Turkification of contemporary Xiongnu/Huns, e.g., the Yueban
Xiongnu (Wei Shu 102.2268) who by the fifth century, when information later
noted down in the Wei Shu was being gathered, had the same customs and
language as the Gaoche. By the fifth century, the Gaoche, too, would centralize
their political system to produce a supreme ruler who bore the title ulug bägräg
(Great Lord/Prince), see Pulleyblank (1990a), 25.
[92] Golden (2006b), 31.
[93] Érdy (1995), 53.
[94] Hambis (1958), 258; Brosseder and Miller (2011a), 30; Di Cosmo (2011), 40–2.
[95] See Brosseder and Miller (2011a), 26–7, 30–1, and de Crespigny (1984), 174.
[96] See also Christian (1998), 227. He suggests not only ethnic, but strong cultural
influences from China, Iran and Central Asia on the Huns while they were
still in Kazakhstan.
[97] Heather (2006), 330. Maenchen-Helfen (1973), 386–9, also thinks that these
names are the Germanic or Germanicized names of Turkic Huns. However,
there is no consensus on the matter among scholars. Golden (1992), 90, citing
Pritsak (1956), 404–19, argues that the name Attila derives from the Turkic
word for the river Volga, which was Atil (referred to as Attilan in Menander
Protector fr. 10.4, Blockley (1985), 124). Shippey (1982), 66–7, has also argued
that the assertion that the name Attila is Gothic is a product of nineteenth-century
Germanic romantic, philological revisionism.
[98] Bona (1991), 35, argues that the name Bleda is Turkic, Bildä/Blidä meaning
‘wise ruler,’ and bears only superficial resemblance to the Gothic Blaedila.
The name of Attila is also likely to be a title deriving from the Turkic name
for the river Volga (Atil), meaning literally ‘great river’ (Pritsak (1956), 415),
implying ‘universal, oceanic ruler’ (p. 419). See also Alemany (2000), 183.
[99] Maenchen-Helfen (1973), 389.
[100] For an in-depth discussion of the Hunnic rather than Germanic origin of this
name in particular, see Schramm (1960), 139–40.
[101] The last two names are likely to be titles of offices held by these two men, not
real names. For all these etymologies see Bona (1991), 33.
[102] Maenchen-Helfen (1973), 392–415. See also Bona (1991), 33–5; Pritsak (1956),
414; La Vaissière (2007), 129. Most known Hunnic tribal names are also
Turkic, Maenchen-Helfen (1973), 427–41, e.g., Ultincur, Akatir etc. The -cur
suffix in many of these names is a well-known Turkic title and as Beckwith
(1987), 209, points out the To-lu or Tardus tribes (Hunnic in origin) of the
western Turkish On Oq were each headed by a Cur (noble). Zieme (2006),
115, adds the fact that the title ‘cur’ belongs to a pre-Turkic Tocharian stratum
of the Turkic language, again highlighting the heterogeneity of Central Asian
peoples and even languages. See also Aalto (1971), 35.
[103] See also Sinor (1990c), 202.
[104] For Oghuric Turkic, see Czeglédy (1983), 113, and Golden (2006/7), 28.
[105] More on this later.
[106] For the frequent bilingualism among steppe peoples, see Golden (2006–7), 19,
and Moravcsik and Jenkins (1967), 172.
[107] Priscus, fr. 13.3, Blockley, (1983), 289. Iranian, though not mentioned by Priscus,
was also certainly spoken in the empire, and was possibly as influential as
Hunnic or Gothic, especially in the East. The name of the Hunnic leader
who in 465/6 raided Dacia Ripensis and Mediterranea, Hormidas, is Iranian,
Maenchen-Helfen (1973), 390.
[108] Zeimal (1996), 132.
[109[ See Pritsak (1976c), 22, for the polyglot, multilingual nature of all nomadic
empires. See also Hdt. 4.24, where Herodotus discusses the use of seven
different languages and a corresponding number of interpreters in Scythia for
mutual comprehension among the various ethnic groups.
[110] Markley (forthcoming), 16.
[111] There were tribes within the Xiongnu federation even in the Far East that
possessed Caucasian facial features, e.g., the Jie soldiers in the Southern Xiongnu
confederation who had high noses and full beards. See Maenchen-Helfen
(1973), 372, n.94.
[112] Kürsat-Ahlers (1994), 305. For a brief summary of the history of the Xianbei
state and its absorption of nearly 100,000 Xiongnu families, see Ishjamts
(1994), 155–6. The name Xianbei in its EMC form Sirbi/Serbi is also probably
connected with the name Sabir (Pritsak 1976a, 22, 28–9), which we shall see
later.
[113] Biswas (1973), 9; Golden (1992), 63.
[114] Czeglédy (1983), 64–5.
[115] The Yueban or Chuban Huns would conclude a military alliance with the
northern Wei (ad 448) against the Rouran, indicating that they were in the mid
fifth century still a military force to be reckoned with in western Turkestan. See
Hambis (1977), 17–18, and Czeglédy (1983), 65. The Wei Shu 102.2268, indicates
that the forebears of the Yueban were a horde of the northern Shanyu of the
Xiongnu. When the northern Xiongnu were defeated by the Han imperial
armies they fled westward, but the weak elements among them were left in the
area North of Qiuci. Afterwards, this weak group of Xiongnu is said to have
moved further and subjected the land of the Wusun to form the state of Yueban.
The stronger group were the Huns who erupted into Central Asia and Europe.
See Yu (2004), 240, 286–7. Yu argues that the Yueban moved into Europe
sometime after ad 448, under pressure from the Rouran (287). This, however,
does not seem likely since the Yueban Huns were separated from Europe by the
dominion of the Sabirs.
[116] See de Crespigny (1984), 329–37, for the career of Tian Shi-huai.
[117] Pulleyblank (2000a), 59–60; Holmgren (1982), 7–9. However, dynasties with
Xiongnu origins would still rule in the Tarim basin. The famous Chü-ch’ü
dynasty of Kocho would survive until their destruction at the hands of the
Rouran in ad 460. See Sinor (1990b), 294.
The Yuezhi (Kushans), Kangju and the Wusun
In order to address this issue, it is first necessary to observe the political
situation in Inner Asia before and at the time of the Hunnic onslaught on
the Alans and Goths. During the so-called two-hundred-year gap in our
records, we find in close proximity to the Xiongnu residing in the Altai (from
where the European Huns would start their long trek West), not immediately
adjacent, but to their southwest from the Tarim basin[118] to Northern
India, the formidable empire of the Kushans founded by the five Da
Yuezhi (大月支) tribes.[119] The Yuezhi[120] were steppe nomads driven out
of Chinese Turkestan by the Xiongnu c. 162 bc.[121] Their migration West,[122]
according to the Han Shu, caused a chain reaction, which drove the Sai
(Saka[123])[124] into the Greco-Bactrian kingdom[125] and then even further West
into Parthia.[126] In the end, the Yuezhi migration resulted in the permanent
conquest of Bactria by the Yuezhi[127] (Tochari[128] led by the Asiani/Asi[129])
and the establishment of Scythian/Saka states all over Afghanistan and
northwestern India. The Parthian kings Phraates II (Justin 42.1.5) and
Artabanus II (Justin 42.2.2, combating the Tochari) were killed by the
invading ‘Scythians’[130], and only in the reign of Mithradates II (beginning c.
124 bc, Justin 42.2.4–5) could the Parthians contain the Saka in Sistan.[131]
The Yuezhi would later in the first and second centuries ad struggle with
other Tocharians, ‘Scythians’ and even the Han Empire in Central Asia. The
Chinese interestingly refer to the five xihou or Lords of the Yuezhi who rule
the five tribes of their imperial confederation.[132] According to Pulleyblank,
this xihou corresponds in the EMC pronunciation to what would later
become the Turkic title yabgu[133], and this originally Yuezhi royal title appears
on the coins of the greatest of the Yuezhi rulers, Kujula Kadphises, as
‘IAPGU/yavuga’.[134] Of the five Yabgus,[135] the Lord of the Guishuang/Kushan
tribe[136] would become the ruling power under the above mentioned
Kujula.[137]
These rulers of steppe origin, who on their coins proudly depicted
themselves wearing the typical Central Asian/Scythian peaked headdress
and long boots,[138] fascinatingly possessed political institutions that closely
resemble the Xiongnu and later Hunnic models. Like the Xiongnu, the
Yuezhi had a political and ceremonial centre even when they were ruled by
the five Yabgus.[139] In ad 90, we learn that a fu-wang (sub-king) called Xie
was sent out by the Kushan king to attack the Han Chinese military
commander in the Tarim basin, Ban Chao.[140] Another Kushan ruler
Vima Kadphises, the father of the famous Kanishka,[141] would appoint a
general to supervise the administration of the Upper Indus Valley,[142] which
is probably a demonstration of the overlapping of military and civilian
administration so typical of the Xiongnu system of government. Kushan
inscriptions also show that officials with titles, such as dandanayaka and
mahadandanayaka, performed both civil and military functions throughout
India.[143]
Even more revealingly, we learn that among the Kushans collateral
succession to the throne and some form of joint rulership and association
of sub-kings in the imperial administration were persistently practised right
up to the end of the empire in the third century ad.[144]
By way of example, Kaniska I was succeeded by Huviska, but Vasiska and Kaniska II appear to
have been associated with them, respectively, as joint rulers and used the
same imperial titles.[145] Thus, as among the Xiongnu and later steppe
empires, the Yuezhi/Kushans may have practised dualism and collective
rule and possessed an elaborate hierarchy of sub-kings and officials. The
Kushans even practised the custom of artificial cranial deformation, which
would later be introduced into Europe by the Huns and Alans and was also
practised by the Hephtalite Huns.[146]
Kushan power in Central Asia (Transoxiana and the Tarim Basin[147])
southwest of the Northern Xiongnu/Huns in the Altai would fade under
Sassanian pressure in the mid third century ad (Shapur I, r.
ad, 240–70,
would dissolve the Kushan Empire), but their remnants would continue to
rule in various capacities as Kushanshahs[148] under Sassanian overlordship until
the Hunnic conquest in the fourth century.[149] The Yuezhi Kushans, however,
were by no means the only Inner Asian steppe people (possibly of Tocharian
origin[150]) to possess an elaborate political structure during the second and third
centuries ad.
We also know that the Dayuan (大宛, perhaps pronounced in
EMC as Taxwār[151]), who were situated in Ferghana,[152] and the Kangju (康居,
in modern Uzbekistan around Tashkent, south of the Dingling (as mentioned
earlier, probably Oghuric Turks in Kazakhstan who were gradually absorbed
by the Huns some time during the so-called two-hundred-year gap[153])), who
may have been ruled by an elite called the Asi[154], also possessed state-level
organization.
The Dayuan would submit to the Han Empire and then later to the
Kushans,[155] but the Kangju would become a power to be reckoned with in
the first century ad[156] and would also subjugate the Yancai (later the Alans[157])
further West and keep them in that state until at least the second century ad
and possibly even the third century ad.[158] The Kangju were also ruled by a
Yabgu like the Kushans with whom they were dynastically related by marriage[159],
and at least during the Early Han Period, they possessed a system of five
‘lesser kings,’[160] indicating that they too had very similar political institutions
to their southern neighbours.[161] In ways reminiscent of the Xiongnu/Huns,
the Kangju would impose their ruling elite upon the conquered Alans. Thus,
we find among the western and Caucasian Alans the ruling clan/tribe of the
Dukhs-As (Asi).[162] These Kangju were in direct contact with the Xiongnu
(Huns) who had moved West, and in the first century bc, we hear of the
migration of a Xiongnu Chanyu called Zhizhi who went West with his people
to the Kangju and borrowed troops from them with which he attacked
the Wusun.[163] Zhizhi would be killed by the Han Chinese in 36 bc, but
the Xiongnu of the Altai (the later Huns of Central Asia and Europe) in the
second–fourth centuries ad, as they gradually absorbed the Dingling
(Oghuric Turks) in northern and central Kazakhstan, came to share a common
boundary with the Kangju and continuously interacted with them.[164]
The Wusun (direct neighbours of the Huns to the southwest in the Ili
basin),[165] who had earlier in the second century bc expelled the Yuezhi/
Kushans from the Ili basin[166] and whose territory the Xiognu/Huns would
later absorb in their expansion West and South in the fourth century ad, also
possessed a highly developed political structure. Their political structure
was apparently modelled after that of the Xiongnu.[167] There was a hereditary
king who was assisted by a council of elders, which could also act as a
restraint on the powers of the sovereign. There was likewise a fairly developed
administrative apparatus consisting of sixteen graded officials, who
were recruited from the ruling nobility. Social stratification and the concentration
of wealth in the hands of a small elite class, some of whom
possessed as many as 4,000–5,000 horses in a pastoral economy, evidently
caused social tensions among the Wusun,[168] noted by Chinese visitors. The
officials and nobles of the realm maintained themselves by taxes/tribute
collected from subordinate tribes, war booty and profits from trading
activities (much the same as the Hunnic elite, as we shall see later). The
Kunmo or the Great king[169] and his two sons, the rulers of the left and right
domains (again in exactly the same way as the Xiongnu), each commanded a
personal force of 10,000 horsemen.[170] The remnants of the Wusun seem to
have survived until ad 436 (that is, unless this is an anachronistic reference
to the Yueban (Weak Huns), who occupied their former lands[171]). Most of
the Wusun, however, seem to have been either absorbed or assimilated by
the Xiongnu/Huns.
It is unclear as to exactly when the Kangju disintegrated,[172] but they too
like the remnants of the Kushans and the Wusun were caught up in the
Hunnic expansion West and South. Until then, the Kangju for several
centuries ruled over a large political entity stretching from the steppes of
western Kazakhstan to the borders of the Huns and Wusun in eastern
Kazakhstan with its core situated around Tashkent in modern Uzbekistan.
The sophisticated inhabitants of this empire, many of whom were actually
urban dwellers or only semi-nomadic[173] like the later Yueban (Weak Huns
to the East, who were surprisingly enough deemed to be the most civilized
people among the barbarians by the Chinese in the fifth century ad), were
under heavy Xiongnu/Hun influence.[174] Is it possible, then, to defend the
illogical idea of a primitive Hun society with no political organization
whatsoever, when in fact the peoples and states conquered or vassalized
by the Huns while they were still in Central Asia possessed high levels of
civilization and sophisticated political structures?
In the first and second centuries ad, the Xiongnu/Huns were indeed at
the nadir of their political and military fortunes. They were practically
under siege in the Altai region. To the West and South, the Dingling,
Kangju and Wusun exerted pressure. To the East, the powerful Xianbei
and the Han Empire had expelled them from their eastern domains.
However, remarkably after the third century ad, these menaces disappeared
one after the other. To the East, the Han Empire descended into civil war
following the Yellow Turban revolt. The Xianbei who had earlier exerted
such pressure on the Huns during the second century ad were divided into
feuding tribes, and their confederacy would completely disintegrate by ad
350.[175] To the West and Southwest, the Kangju state was slowly disintegrating.[176]
Is it, then, an accident that we find the Huns up in arms and
expanding West and South in the fourth century? In fact, archaeological
evidence from the Ural region seems to point to the expansion of the Huns
into that area by the early fourth century ad,[177] suggesting that the nations
between the Altai and the Urals had succumbed to Hunnic conquest by the
early fourth century. This was then followed by Hunnic thrusts in two
directions, one into Kangju and Wusun territories to the South and the
other into Alan territory to the West. What is clear from all this is that during
the so-called gap between references to the Huns in our sources (of c. 200
years), the Xiongnu/Huns were in constant contact with imperial and state-level
(or early-state-level) entities (in particular, the Kangju and the Wusun),
all of whom possessed elaborate political structures.
[118] For possible Kushan expansion into the Tarim basin during the second
century ad and heavy cultural influence on the area as a whole, see Hitch
(1988), 190–1.
[119] For an overview of the Yuezhi conquest of Daxia (Bactria), see Yu (2004),
12–14.
[120] Enoki, Koshelenko and Haidary (1994), 172, argue that Yuezhi in EMC
should be read zguja i.e., Scythians. However, in private correspondences
with the author, Professor Sam Lieu pointed out that this reading, though
on the surface highly attractive, is unlikely. I agree with his opinion.
[121] Shiji 123.3162, tells us that the Xiongnu Shanyu had the skull of the defeated
Yuezhi king turned into a drinking cup; Benjamin (2007), 72–3; Narain
(1990), 155; Hill (2009), 312–18.
[122] See Liu (2001), 261–92.
[123] For discussion on this identification, see Benjamin (2007), 97–100, and Hill
(2009), 537. For a good discussion on the Saka in Eastern Turkestan, see
Debaine-Francfort (1990), 81–95.
[124] Han Shu 61 4b. Pulleyblank (1970), 158–60, thinks that these descriptions of
Yuezhi collisions with the Sai and also the Wusun are ‘arbitrary embellishments.’
However, this is probably excessive, given the fact that the Saka invasions are also
corroborated by our Greek sources. See also Rapin (2007), 50–1.
[125] Strabo 11.8.4.
[126] Benjamin (2007), 181–4.
[127] Han Shu 61 5A.
[128] Bivar (1983a), 192, identifies the Yuezhi of the Chinese sources with the
Tochari of our Greek sources. This seems to be confirmed by the fact that
Pompeius Trogus Prologue 41 talks about the conquest of Bactria and Sogdia
(i.e., the region conquered by the Yuezhi in our Chinese sources) by the Asiani
with whom the Tochari are closely associated. See, however, Benjamin (2007),
185–7, for an alternative reading of Trogus and the argument that the Asiani
were none other than the Wusun who raided Bactria (Han Shu 61 5A) and
should not be identified with the Tochari (Yuezhi), who came later.
[129] Pompeius Trogus Prologue 42 states ‘Reges Tocharorum Asiani.’
[130] The Scythians who killed Phraates were likely to have been the Saka who
had overrun Bactria. Those that killed Artabanus were possibly the Yuezhi or
included the Yuezhi. See Czeglédy (1983), 28, and VanWickevoort Crommelin
(1998), 270.
[131] For the later collisions between the Parthians and the ‘Scythians,’ see Strabo
(11.9.2). See also Enoki et al. (1994), 181–2.
[132] Hill (2009), 29. See also Frye (1996), 134.
[133] For the Turkic appropriation of Iranian and Tocharian titles, see Golden (2006b),
21. Iranian, Sogdian and Tocharian titles, such as Sad (Middle Iranian/Sogdian/Saka
for ‘prince’), Beg (Iranian and Sogdian for ‘Lord’), Isbara (Sanskrit and
Tocharian for ‘prince’ or ‘lord’) were used by the Göktürks who also employed a
large number of Sogdians in their imperial bureaucracy (p. 19). In fact, the
multicultural nature of all steppe empires allowed such heterogeneity to flourish.
Of the fifty or so names of Turkish rulers in Chinese sources, only a few have
genuinely Turkic names. See Sinor (1990b), 290, and Beckwith (2009), 411. The
Huns also undoubtedly included a strong Iranian element, given the appearance
of Iranian names and cultural practices in their ruling elite, as we shall see later.
[134] Pulleyblank (1995), 425; (1966), 28; Hill (2009), 587–90; Benjamin (1998),
37–8.
[135] On the five yabgus, see Grenet (2006).
[136] Bivar (1983a), 192–3, argues that the Kushans were none other than the Asiani
mentioned earlier who became kings of the Tochari.
[137] See Grenet (2006), 339–40, Puri (1994a), 248–9, and Hill (2009), 29, 329–32.
[138] See Narain (1990), 165, and Pugachenkova, Dar, Sharma, Joyenda, and Siddiqi
(1994), 372. See also Wink (2001), 221, and Cribb (2007), 366, who notes the
link between imperial Kushan coinage and nomad/Inner Asian identity.
[139] Christian (1998), 211.
[140] Yu (2004), 165–6.
[141] See Sims-Williams (2008), 56–7.
[142] Hill (2009), 31.
[143] Puri (1994a), 263. See also Tapper (1991), 507, for an excellent discussion on the
proclivity of tribal groups in Iran in later contexts to develop into powerful
militaristic confederacies and restructure themselves into a community with
what he calls a ‘feudalistic’ class structure. Conditions in the steppe were
obviously more conducive to the formation of military leagues and confederacies
that gave rise time and again to steppe empires. The Kushan case is,
however, closer to the later Iranian models of state formation in that, like the
later Afshars, Zands and Qajars, there is a dominant steppe/pastoral aristocracy
(military tribal confederation) that imposes a form of centralized quasi-feudal
order upon the conquered sedentary population. See also Frye (1996), 141–4.
[144] A very similar system of government is also found among the contemporary
Sakas (also from Inner Asia) and the Pahlavas (Indo-Parthians) in India.
Among the Saka rulers of Mathura in western India, a senior king was assisted
in his duties by a junior king in a highly developed system of joint rule, and
this is made manifest in the concept of dvairajya (double kingship) among
them. The Saka and Parthian rulers of India also inherited the system of
governing major districts through satraps from the Achaemenids, the ksatrapas
(satraps) and mahaksatrapas. See Puri (1994b), 199–200.
[145] Narain (1990), 167.
[146] Czeglédy (1983), 91; Sinor (1990c), 202–3; Kollautz and Miyakawa (1970),
210–12; Narain (1990), 172–3.
[147] For information on Kushan expansion into the Tarim Basin in the second
century ad, see Hitch (1988) and Bivar (1983a), 208–9.
[148] See Litvinsky et al., (1994), 479–80. See also Hill (2009), xxi, and Bivar (1983a),
203, 209.
[149] Narain (1990), 169.
[150] For the debate, see Hill (2009), 311–12. See also Benjamin (1998), 33, Wood
(2002), 64, and Abdullaev (2007), 75, who identifies the Asiani as the rulers of
the Tochari mentioned in Justin’s Prologue to Pompeius Trogus and then
links them to the Kushans.
[151] Pritsak (1976c), 6.
[152] Pulleyblank (1995), 425, argues for a different location for Dayuan, but most
scholars now accept the identification of Ferghana with Dayuan, see Benjamin
(2007), 137.
[153] The Kangju also later controlled much of Sogdia, Benjamin (2007), 137; Hill
(2009), 373. See also Daffinà (1982), 323–4, for a discussion on the location of
the Kangju.
[154] Czeglédy (1983), 32. Trogus (Prol. 41, 7). See also Alemany (2000), 17. Hill
(2009), 149, 152, suggests the possibility of linking the Asi with the Wusun,
due to phonetic similarity in their names. The identification is also made by
Tolstov (1961), 83. Sims-Williams (2002a), 240, argues that the Kushans were
the royal family of the Asi.
[155] Yu (2004), 1–6, and Czeglédy (1983), 46; the Kangju would also intermittently
control areas north of the Oxus, Yu (2004), 6.
[156] Hill (2009), 173.
[157] See Hill (2009), 33, 175, 381. Alemany (2000), 400–2, is more cautious about
the identification. The fact that the Kangju subdued or merged with the Alans
seems, however, to be substantiated by the Old Turkic runic inscriptions of
Kül Tigin (ad 732), where we find the name Kängäräs (Kängär (Kangju) + As
(Alans)), Pritsak (1976c), 7–8.
[158] Pulleyblank (1995), 427; Czeglédy (1983), 50; Zadneprovskiy (1994), 463,
466–7; Alemany (2000), 398; Kyzlasov (1996), 316. Professor La Vaissière in
private correspondence with the author confirmed that it is entirely plausible
that the Kangju exercised a degree of control over the Alans. To what extent
is not entirely clear. On the possibility of Kangju domination over neighbouring
Khwarezm, he also expressed a carefully guarded affirmative opinion.
However, he also pointed out that there is as yet insufficient evidence to
prove any Kangju domination over Khwarezm.
[159] Benjamin (2007), 155–6; Hill (2009), 182.
[160] Grenet, Podushkin and Sims-Williams (2007), 1026; Benjamin (2007), 150–1;
Hill (2009), 175; Hulsewé and Loewe (1979), 130–1; Daffinà (1982), 324.
[161] Rapin (2007), 53, calls the Kangju a broadly ‘nomad’ empire with a system of
fortified cities and capitals.
[162] Czeglédy (1983), 52; Sims-Williams (2002a), 240. Rapin (2007), 59–62, argues
for the deep Central Asian origins of the Alans and notes that Chinese mirrors
were used by the Alans. He also identifies the Asi and Asiani as Alans who
formed a part of the Kangju Empire or a subdivision of it in southwestern
Kazakhstan. See also Grenet and La Vassière (2005), 79–81. If Bivar’s (1983a),
192–3, identification of the Asiani/Asi with the Kushans is also correct, then we
have the same or a related ruling clan or tribe ruling the Kushan Empire,
Kangju Empire and the Alans. See also Vernadsky (1951), 345.
[163] Hill (2009), 173; Hulsewé and Loewe (1979), 47.
[164] Signs of Kangju–Xiongnu contacts can be seen in the discovery of a Xiongnu
(Hunnic) style silver belt plaque at Kultobe in Kazakhstan, a site identified as
belonging to the Kangju. See Grenet et al. (2007), 1019.
[165] For a discussion on the location of the Wusun, see Daffinà (1982), 326. For a
general introduction on the Wusun, see Yu (2004), 25–32. See also Gardiner-Garden (1986).
[166] Han Shu 96b 1B; Benjamin (2007), 115. As a consequence, part of the
population ruled by the Wusun kings were Yuezhi (p. 120).
[167] For the often-strained relationship between the Xiongnu Huns and the
Wusun, originally vassals of the Xiongnu, see Benjamin (2007), 114–19.
[168] This type of pastoral economy and social stratification has been termed
correctly by Cribb (1991), 42, as pastoral ‘feudalism,’ where a small, powerful
elite own vast numbers of animals that they farm out to ‘tenant’ households.
Somewhat reminiscent of the structure of medieval European feudal
society.
[169] There also seems to have been at various stages a dual kingship of the Greater
Kunmo and Lesser Kunmo, a typical feature of Inner Asian kingship. See Yu
(2004), 40–1, 47–8, and Giele (2011), 60.
[170] Zadneprovskiy (1994), 460. See also Yu (2004), 33.
[171] Zadneprovskiy (1994), 461. The presence of the Yueban/Chuban kingdom,
which is without a doubt Xiongnu in origin in eastern Kazakhstan in the fifth
century, is further proof that the Huns were indeed Xiongnu in origin. See also
Kyzlasov (1996), 320, and McGovern (1939), 364–5. See Sinor (1990b), 294, for
further information on the Chuban alliance with the Toba Wei against the
Rouran between ad 444 and 450.
[172] c. ad 350 suggests Czeglédy (1983), 62.
Around ad 300 at the hands of the
Kidarite Huns suggests Zeimal (1996), 120. Grenet et al. (2007), 1030, suggest
that the fragmentation of the Kangju state may have begun as early as the late
second or early third century ad.
[173] More on this shortly.
[174] Zadneprovskiy (1994), 463, 470. The Kangju were at various times vassals of
the Yuezhi to the South and the Xiongnu to the East. See Zeimal (1983), 243,
and Hill (2009), 177.
[175] Czeglédy (1983), 99.
[176] Grenet et al. (2007), 1030.
[177] Érdy (1995), 22.
Contemporary Inner Asian Empires (Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Centuries ad)
The White Huns (Chionites, Kidarites and Hephtalites)
The eventful fourth century ad, as already pointed out towards the beginning
of this book, opened with the Southern Xiongnu/Hun sack of the
capital of the Chinese Jin Empire in ad 311. The Southern Xiongnu power
in China (Earlier/Later Zhao Empire[178]) quickly collapsed as other ethnic
groups (The Murong Xianbei, Chiang etc.) and Chinese resistance drove
them from their domains.[179] In the meantime, in the steppe further North
and Northwest, new nomadic confederations called the Rouran (situated
later firmly in Mongolia, possibly the Avars[180]) and Hua (EMC either Var
or Ghor[181]), originally vassals of the Rouran,[182] were gradually taking shape.
The Liangshu (54.812) provides evidence that would link the latter confederation
(Hua) to the Hephtalites[183] of the fifth century ad who ruled the
White Hun Empire. If the name Hua was transliterated as Var and not Ghor
in EMC, the Hua may also be considered as the forerunners of the later
Eurasian Avars.[184]
Czeglédy, regarding the Hua to be Vars (Avars), argued that a migration
wave of Vars/Avars may have reached western Turkestan in the middle of
the fourth century ad, and this may have had some kind of an impact on
the Hun migration West.[185] More recently, it has been proposed that the
Huns started moving West out of the Altai in the fourth century ad, not
because of renewed military pressure from the East, but because of radical
climate deterioration in the Altai region in that century.[186] Neither
explanation is satisfactory, since the Hunnic expansion West may have
commenced well before the fourth century. Érdy, on the basis of archaeological
evidence provided by Hunnic cauldrons, has argued for a Hunnic
presence in the Tobol, Irtish, Middle Ob region already in the third
century ad.[187] However, the drastic change in climate in the fourth
century may have had something to do with the sudden thrust of the
Huns remaining in the Altai region in an opposite direction into Central
Asia. As La Vaissière shows in his excellent analysis of the Chinese sources
on the early migration of the Hephtalites, the Huns from the Altai
suddenly moved South in the 350s ad.[188] The invasion of these Huns
would have dire consequences for the Kangju (based in Tashkent and
Sogdia), the Sassanians and Kushan remnants in Central Asia.
The Kidarite[189] Huns[190] appear on the scene sometime in the middle of the
fourth century and are in firm possession of Bactria by ad 360.[191] According
to an embassy from Sogdia that visited the Toba Wei court in ad 457, the
Huns (called Xiongnu in the Wei Shu, proving without a shadow of a doubt
that the White Huns (Central Asian Huns) at least were Xiongnu, and that the
people whom our sources call Huns and Hunas in Central Asia and India are
Xiongnu in origin[192]) conquered Transoxiana in the mid fourth century ad
(three generations before the embassy).[193] These Huns, whom the Persians
would call collectively Chionites,[194] at a later stage in the fifth century ad,[195]
under the name White Huns (or Western Huns), were all ruled by a new
royal clan named the Yeda/Yanda (嚈噠)[196] or Hephtalites[197] (sometimes also
identified with the Eurasian Avars[198]).
There is general consensus among historians that the Chionites and the
Huns were one and the same.[199] In ad 350, the Sassanian King Shapur II had
to call off the siege of Nisibis to deal with a grim threat developing to the
East. In fact, this was an eight-year-long conflict (ad 350–8) that brought the
Persian Empire to the brink of destruction.[200] After somehow managing to
forge an uneasy alliance with them, Shapur used Hunnic allies to augment
his army in the siege of Amida in ad 360. There, Grumbates, the king
(probably a sub-king) of the Chionites (his name being possibly Kurumpat:
Turkish, ‘ruling prince’),[201] lost his son.[202] The subsequent reign of
Bahram IV saw the Sassanids losing almost all of their East Iranian lands
taken earlier from the Kushans[203] to the western Huns. Later incursions,
especially those during the reigns of Bahram V (421–38), Yazdegard (438–57)
and Peroz (457–84)[204], in other words at exactly the same time when the
European Huns were menacing the Romans under Rua, Bleda and Attila,
reduced the mighty Persians to tributary status to the Huns.[205]
In ad 454, a year after the death of the European Hunnic King, the
Hephtalites (by now having more or less displaced the previous reigning
dynasty, the Kidarites,[206] except in Gandhara and India[207]) won a decisive
victory over the Sassanians. The next Sassanian King to reign, Peroz, was
placed on the Persian throne by a Hephtalite army.[208] Later, Peroz bravely
tried to free himself of Hephtalite dominance and tried his luck against
them. He was defeated by a Hephtalite king called Akhshunwar by Tabari
and Khushnavaz by Firdausi.[209] He escaped death on that occasion
(ad 469), but according to Procopius, he was afterwards slain with most
of his army in another encounter with the Huns (ad 484),[210] who placed his
only surviving son Kubad on the throne as a vassal king.[211] In ad 487, Kubad
was temporarily dethroned, and again with Hephtalite support he was able
to regain his kingship.[212] However, the price was high, and in order to pay
the required annual tribute to the Huns, he asked the Romans, with whom
Persia had good relations for about half a century (largely due to Hunnic
pressure, which prevented the Persians from upsetting the Romans and vice
versa the Romans the Persians due to the European Hunnic threat), for
loans. The Roman refusal would later, in ad 502, lead to renewal of ancient
hostilities between the two empires.[213]
The Chinese historical records mention the vast extent of the Hephtalite
Hunnic Empire. The Liangshu 54 lists among their domains Persia,
Kashmir, Karashahr, Kucha, Kashgar and Khotan, and the Bei Shi 97:
Kangju (Sogdia), Khotan, Kashgar and Persia.[214] More than thirty lands
of the west are seen as being subject to the White Huns in our sources.[215]
The Hephtalites by the yearad500 would also deal the death blow to the
Indian Gupta Empire.[216]
In India, the terrified Indians identified two branches of the Hunnic
nation: the Sveta Huna (White Huns, i.e, the Hephtalite Huns) and the
Hara Huna (possibly Black Huns), the word Hara, according to some
scholars, being a corruption of the Turkic word Kara (black).[217] Although
it is far from certain, it has been speculated that the Hara Huna is a reference
to Attila’s Huns in Europe.[218] All sorts of bizarre ideas have been put
forward by historians from Procopius onwards about this identification:
white and black. Procopius notes that the Hephtalites were ruled by a king
and were guided by a lawful constitution,[219] i.e., that they had a sophisticated
state structure comparable to those of the Sassanians whom they had
vassalized. But, he, then, misinterprets the appellation ‘white’ to mean that
the Hephtalites were white and not swarthy like the European Huns
supposedly were.[220] As Pulleyblank[221] points out, white was symbolic of
West among the steppe nomads. Black signified North and red the South,
hence the existence also of Red Huns (Kermichiones).[222]
As Pritsak points out, in steppe societies the colour black signifying North
and the colour Blue signifying east, both of which carried connotations of
greatness and supremacy,[223] always had precedence over white (West) and
red (South). Thus, whoever the Hara Huna were, they are likely to have had
precedence over their formidable cousins the White Huns, at least initially.
The fact that the term kara suggested elevated status among the European
Huns too, as it did among other Inner Asian Turkic peoples, seems to be
confirmed by the report in Olympiodorus that the supreme king of the
Huns was called Karaton.[224]
The examination of the Chionite and later Hephtalite conquests also shows
clearly that these White Hunnic conquerors (claiming Hunnic heritage like
Attila’s Hun), who according to the Wei Shu[225] (103. 2290; 102.2278–9[226])
originated from exactly the same area as the European Huns (from the Altai
region[227]) in the same time period c. ad 360,[228] possessed a military and social
structure that matched those of the Xiongnu in the past. Without them, it is
impossible to explain how they managed to defeat formidable opponents such
as the Sassanians and the Guptas. The Wei Shu, as mentioned above, even
specifically states that the fifth-century rulers of Sogdia,[229] i.e., the White
Huns, are Xiongnu in origin (102.2270), thereby confirming the link between
Central Asian Huns and the Xiongnu of old, and calls the country wen-na-sha,
pronounced ‘Huna sha’ in EMC, i.e., King of the Huns.[230]
A fifth-century Chinese geographical work, called the Shi-san zhou ji by a
certain Gan Yin preserved in Sung Shu 98, furthermore insists, on the basis
of information derived probably from Sogdian merchants,[231] that the Alans
of Europe and the Sogdians (whom the Chinese had just learned had been
conquered by the Huns three generations earlier) were under different
rulers. As Pulleyblank notes, the need to clarify this implies the misapprehension
that both peoples were ruled by the same ruler. In fact, this is only
natural given the fact that both had been conquered within the space of
some ten years by the same people called Huns.[232] Also, in ways remarkably
similar to the European Huns, the succession to the Hephtalite throne
could pass from uncle to nephew[233], and artificial cranial deformation was
practised among their elite, as among the European Huns and Alans.[234]
They also practised the Xiongnu system of appointing vassal kings, e.g., the
king of Zabulistan who held an autonomous fief within the empire and was
instrumental in spearheading the Hephtalite thrust into India,[235] and
collective governance of the empire was practised by several high-ranking
yabgus and tegins.[236] In India, the Kidarites and then the Hephtalite Huns
also introduced the rule of multiple rajas and rajputs who held territories in
‘fief’ to their overlord the Hunnic supreme king. Thus, a form of quasi-feudalism
was introduced to India, and a transformation in the administration
of revenues took place.[237] In subsequent chapters, we will see very
similar transformations occurring in Europe after the Hunnic arrival.
[178] Golzio (1984), 22–3.
[179] See Holmgren (1982), 65–9.
[180] More on this later.
[181] Pulleyblank (1983), 453, has argued that in EMC Hua was pronounced Var,
and he further suggests that these Var are identical with the Wuhuan, a branch
of the Donghu confederation (including also the Xianbei (Serbi or Sirvi
in EMC) conquered by the Xiongnu. Wuhuan in EMC, he suggests, was
Agwan, which due to the absence of the sound r in EMC was the contemporary
rendering of Agwar or Avar. See also Czeglédy (1983), 95. However,
Professor La Vaissière, in private correspondence with the author, has suggested
an alternative reading, which would make Hua EMC for Ghor, a region of
Afghanistan inhabited by the Hephtalites, rather than Var. As of today, there is
no consensus on the transliteration of Hua in EMC.
[182] See Sinor (1990b), 298.
[183] See La Vaissière (2007), 125. Sinor (1990b), 298, argues that the Hephtalites
were the ruling dynasty of the Hua. The Hua were originally under Rouran
overlordship, but later seem to have broken free from Rouran control according
to the Liangshu cited above.
[184] See Theophylact Simocatta, Historiae 7.7–8, ed. C. de Boor, 256.23–262.17,full
text and translation in German in Haussig (1953), 281–90. Theophylact identifies
the two leading tribes of the Oghurs (either the Hephtalite-controlled
Turkic tribes in Kazakhstan or members of the Tiele (Chile) tribal confederacy
in the same region) as Var and Khunni (i.e., Huns, see Haussig (1953), 347).
[185] Czeglédy (1983), 34–5. The Rouran, probably in origin the Wuhuan (Avars?)
from further East in Inner Mongolia, were found in the vicinity of Dunhuang,
in close proximity to Turpan when they began their extraordinary rise under
Shelun Khagan in the late fourth century, Christian (1998), 237. There is
yet no evidence whatsoever that the Rouran expanded further West before
Shelun’s rise in the late fourth century ad, i.e., they appear too late on the
scene to have been responsible for putting pressure on the Huns in the mid
fourth century ad. The Hua or the Hephtalites, as noted above, became their
vassals presumably some time in the late fourth century ad, but the
Hua-Hephtalites are taken by La Vaissière (2007), 121, to be Oghuric Turkic Huns
who were part of the Hunnic migration wave, not the Avars or Vars. The first
Avar movement into what is now modern Kazakhstan (the original territory of
the European Huns in the fourth century ad) should perhaps be dated to the
time of the Toba Wei alliance with the Chuban Huns in the fifth century,
which will be discussed further shortly.
[186] Schlütz and Lehmkuhl (2007), 114.
[187] Érdy (1995), 45. The presence of a group identified as Khunnoi by Ptolemy
(3.5.10) already in the second century ad in the vicinity of the Sarmatian
Bastarnae and Roxolani (situated in the Nogai steppe), also suggests strongly
that the Hunnic expansion West commenced much earlier than their famous
fourth-century eruption into the Pontic steppe recorded by Ammianus. The
absorption of the Dingling or Oghuric Turkic tribes in Kazakhstan is likely to
have been a long drawn-out process.
[188] See La Vaissière (2007), 121. See also p. 124 for the text and translation of the
crucial passages in the Tongdian, 5259, which provide the definite date for the
southward migration of the Huns from the Altai. The passages are based on
the much earlier Wei Shu.
[189] Could just be a reference to western Huns, see Kononov (1977), 62, 75, for the
old Turkic runic term kidirti meaning West.
[190] Whether the Kidarite dynasty was originally Hunnic or Iranian is disputed.
Tremblay (2001), 188, thinks that they and the later Hephtalites, who overthrew
them, are Iranians. Grenet (2002), 203–24, thinks likewise. However, it
does seem more likely that they were part of the initial Hunnic wave into
eastern Iran who became Iranian in culture after their conquest and claimed to
be the heirs to the Kushan legacy (see Zeimal (1996), 120, 127, Frye (1996), 175,
and La Vaissière (2007), 123). Priscus, fr. 33 and fr. 41, Blockley (1983), 336, 346,
and 348, calls them Huns and mentions the Kidarite king Khunkas. Tremblay
notes that the etymology for this name has to be X(y)on-qan, i.e., Hun Khan
(Khan of the Huns), (2001), 188; Grenet (2002), 209. See also Biswas (1973), 15,
Bivar (1983a), 212, and Frye (1975b), 38, who agree that they are Huns, though
Frye is of the opinion that the Hephtalites had a powerful Iranian element in
their ruling elite, which is likely to be true. Altheim (1959), 32–3, suggests
probably correctly that the name Kidarite is an old Turkish designation for
West (i.e., the western wing of the Hunnic polity, thus meaning exactly the same
thing as White Huns (white being the colour designation for West in the
steppe)). The Kidarites were pushed out of Sogdia in the fifth century and
then destroyed in the Gandhara region by the Hephtalites towards the end
of the fifth century, sometime between ad 477 (the date of their last embassy to
the Toba Wei) and ad 520 (when Gandhara is definitely under Hephtalite
control according to a Chinese pilgrim). See Enoki (1959), 27.
[191] Bivar (1983a), 212. An Armenian source, P’austos Buzand, tells us that the Hon
(Huns) under the Kidarite dynasty conquered the region before ad 367. See
also Czeglédy (1983), 71, 84.
[192] Wei Shu 102.2270. See Pritsak (1954a), 239. See also Érdy (1995), 21, for
archaeological evidence (Hunnic–Xiongnu type cauldron found near the
Amu Darya valley in the Khiva area and two Hunnic funerary cauldrons
made of clay in the delta of the Syr Darya) that points to the Xiongnu identity
of the White Huns. Related artefacts have also been found in the areas
controlled by the European Huns which all point to the same conclusion
that both the European and Central Asian Huns were Xiongnu in origin.
[193] Czeglédy (1983), 73–4.
[194] See Bivar (1983a), 211, and also Pritsak (1954a), 243.
[195] After ad 437 at the earliest suggests Sinor (1990b), 299.
[196] Chinese rendition of their name in the Liangzhigongtu. The Liangshu 54 calls
them Yandaiyilituo/Hephtalite.
[197] The Hunnic origin or self-identification of the Hephtalite dynasty is reflected
in the form OIONO or HIONO, which appears in their coinage. See Golden
(1992), 81. The Liangshu, as noted above, calls them or their country Hua
(Var or Ghor). The most reliable analysis of the Hephtalite dynasty and its
origins is that of La Vaissière (2007), 119–124. La Vaissière refutes much of the
erroneous views on the Hephtalites held by Enoki (1959); (1963), 12–32. See
also Kollautz and Miyakawa (1970), 95. The Iranian origin of the Hephtalites
vouched for by many scholars (most prominently Enoki), has now been
largely discredited due to the discovery that the so-called Hephtalite language
with Iranian affinities, used to justify the Iranian theory, was not introduced
by the Hephtalites themselves, but was the indigenous language of the region
conquered by the Hephtalites. See Sims-Williams (2002a), 234.
[198] The Hephtalites are one of the two peoples sometimes identified with the
Eurasian Avars (Vars) mentioned in our Byzantine sources. Theophylact 7.7
(Whitby and Whitby 1986, 189) would name the Var (Avars?) and Huns as
Lords of the Oghurs. If the Hua-Hephtalites were Var (uncertain), this
could possibly be a reference to the Hephtalite/Var conquest of the Oghurs
(meaning ‘tribes’ in Oghuric Turkic) in what is now Kazakhstan, who had
earlier been dominated by the Huns, hence the reference to the overlordship
of the Vars and Huns over the Oghurs. Menander Protector refers to the
Varkunites (Var-Huns, Menander fr. 19.1, Blockley (1985), 174), as does
Pseudo-Moses of Chorene who calls them Walxon (again Var and Hun),
Szádeczky-Kardoss (1990), 207. See also Czeglédy (1983), 92 ff. The Rouran
Khaganate, however, which we will meet shortly, could also have been the
Vars/Avars mentioned by our Byzantine sources. See Golden (2000), 284.In
any case, the Vars and the Huns seem to have been closely related, if not
ethnically then at least culturally. We can note for instance the fact that one of
the last Khagans of the Rouran, Anagui (ad 520–52) had the same name as a
sixth-century Utigur Hun prince who lived around the same time, Anagaios
(Menander Protector fr. 43, Alemany (2000), 187), Kollautz and Miyakawa
(1970), 57.
[199] Enoki (1959), 24, probably correctly connects them to the Hun-na-sha (king
of the Huns) state/dynasty, who, according to Chinese sources, controlled
Sogdia in the late fourth and early fifth centuries ad. See also Frye (1975b), 38
and Bivar (1983a), 211 on the Chionites.
[200] Bivar (1983a), 211; Czeglédy (1983), 79.
[201] Tremblay (2001), 188, thinks that the name is Iranian. It is also similar to the
name of the later Bulgar Khan Krum. Haussig (2000), 273.
[202] Ammianus Marcellinus 16.9.3–4; 19.1.7.
[203] Altheim (1959), vol. 4, 28.
[204] For details, see Altheim (1959), vol. 2, 258–9.
[205] Procopius 1. 4.35. See also Kollautz and Miyakawa (1970), 102.
[206] The change from the Kidarites to the Hephtalites was a political upheaval
among the White Hunnic migrants already in western Central Asia, not
another invasion wave arriving from Inner Asia, see La Vaissière (2007), 123–4.
[207] Kidarite expansion South into Gandhara and India occurred probably prior to
ad 410, Zeimal (1996), 122. By the middle of the fifth century, they were
invading the territories of the Indian Gupta Empire, and despite the triumphant
rhetoric of victory found in Gupta records, the Kidarite Huns wrested
control of the Punjab away from the Guptas (p. 124). Similar empty rhetoric
of non-existent victories will also be encountered later on in the Romans’
records of their interactions with the European Huns.
[208] Kollautz and Miyakawa (1970), 102, and Christian (1998), 220.
[209] Bivar (1983a), 214; Litvinsky (1996b), 139–40.
[210] Procopius 1.3.1–22; 1.4.1–14. See also Frye (1984), 148, and Rubin (2000), 642.
Agathias 4.27.3–4, Frendo (1975), 130, provides much the same information
and emphasizes that the Hephtalites are a Hunnic people.
[211] Frye (1984), 149.
[212] Procopius 1.6.10; Theophanes,am 5968, Mango and Scott (1997), 189–91.
[213] Procopius 1.7.1–3.
[214] See La Vaissière (2007), 125, and also discussion on the extent of the
Hephtalite state in Biswas (1973), 25.
[215] Kollautz and Miyakawa (1970), 98. See also Miller (1959), 11–12.
[216] Litvinsky (1996b), 142; Chakrabarti, K. (1996), 188; Wiet et al. (1975), 35–6.
[217] Marquart (1901); Biswas (1973), 26; Pulleyblank (2000b), 93.
[218] See Czeglédy (1983), 77. Considered dubious by some.
[219] Procopius 1.3.2–7.
[220] Procopius 1.3.4. There is endless, fruitless debate on whether the Hephtalites
were mainly Turco-Mongol (Mongoloid) or Iranian (Caucasoid) in ethnic
composition. Marquart (1901) and Grousset (1939) think they were Mongols.
McGovern (1939) and La Vaissière (2007) argue for the Turks, which is likely
to be correct, and Enoki (1959) for an Iranian origin. Humbach (1966–7), 30
and (1969), 33–52, esp. 34–6, argues that they were a combination of Alans
and Huns. See Alemany (2000), 345–6 for further details. Alemany himself
is cautious. As mentioned earlier, they claimed to be Huns themselves. The
confusion results largely from the multiple and conflicting origin theories
provided by our Chinese sources (Wei Shu 102.2278–9, for instance, suggests
both an Iranian origin via the Yuezhi and a Turkish alternative via Gaoche).
Even if we were to just dismiss the reference to the Yuezhi as an anachronism,
the confusion in the Chinese sources is in all likelihood actually indicative of
the real ethnic heterogeneity of the Hephtalite state and even its elite. All the
steppe empires of Eurasia were, in fact, made up of numerous ethnic groups.
It is likely that the Hephtalite Empire included all three linguistic groups
with perhaps a Turkic military elite. Hephtalite personal names, however, as
Tremblay (2001) argues, for the most part seem to be Iranian, indicating a
high degree of cultural and probably ethnic fusion. The same heterogeneity ism
of course, a characteristic feature of the Xiongnu and also our European Huns.
[221] Pulleyblank (1983), 452–3, also speculates that the Var (Hua) tribes, which
along with the Huns may have constituted the ruling core of the Hephtalite
state (Golden (1992), 80; Czeglédy (1983) 117–20), were connected to the
Wuhuan confederacy of Inner Mongolia. For similarities in headdress and
hairstyles between the Wuhuan and the Hephtalites, see Pulleyblank (2000b),
92. If his observations and transliterations are true, this would make the
Hephtalites, at least in part, Mongol speakers. Bivar (1983a), 213, on the other
hand, argues for an aristocracy that spoke Turkish, pointing out that the last
Hephtalite ruler to be recorded in history, a certain Nezak who ruled in the
region of Badghis (Northeast of Herat), bore the Turkic title of Tarkhan, Bivar
(1983a), 215 (but Tarkhan was originally a Xiongnu (possibly non-Turkic)
title, Golden (2006–7), 30; Grenet (2002), 214). The fact that the Hephtalites
referred to themselves as Huns argues against an Iranian, sedentary origin in
Badakhstan. However, the Iranization of the Hephtalites and the presence
of an Iranian element in their confederacy from very early on are certainly
possible. See also Bona (1991), 30, who argues that most European Huns were
actually Caucasoid and that less than 20–25 per cent were Mongoloid.
[222] Pulleyblank (2000b), 92. See Theophanes 446.21, Moravcsik (1958), vol. ii,
158–9. Dani, Litvinsky, and Zamir Safi (1996), 169, identify the Hara (Kara)
Huns with the red Huns (Kermichiones). Golden (1992), 81, and Sinor (1990b),
300–1, also agree that the designation white and black are common to nomadic
confederations. It is, as mentioned above, indicative of the territorial divisions
of the steppe polity and has nothing to do with skin complexion. Procopius
was relying on hearsay like most Classical authors, and his information on the
Hephtalites ‘expresses an antiquarian, somewhat Herodotean spirit’ that is not
always reliable, Matthews (1989), 62.
[223] Pritsak (1954b), 382; (1955b), 259.
[224] Olympiodorus fr. 19 (80, 173). See also Moravcsik (1958), vol. 2, 341.
[225] See Holmgren (1982), 14–18, for a good, critical discussion on the Wei Shu.
[226] The Wei Shu 103.2290, tells us that towards the beginning of the fifth century
to the northwest of the Rouran there were in the vicinity of the Altai the
remaining descendents of the Xiongnu. In 102.2278–9, as mentioned above,
it gives details about the Yeda (i.e., Hephtalites, who are described as being
either of the race of the Yuezhi or a branch of the Gaoche (Dingling Turks))
migration from the Altai mountains to the southwest into Central Asia. The
Hephtalites became the ruling dynasty of the White Huns.
[227] Hunnic archaeological remains have been found in this region from the first
century ad onwards. See Pritsak (1954a), 243. Pritsak also argues that the core
territory of these western Xiongnu/Huns before their great push further West
into Iran and Europe in the fourth century was the Talas river and the area
around the Issyk-kul. He also argues that a Hunnic Kurgan, dating to the first
or second century ad, was discovered in the Volga region, seemingly confirming
the presence of some Huns this far West already in the second century ad.
More on this question in Chapter 4. Whether or not the Huns had really
advanced this far West in the second century ad is still uncertain, but the
Hunnic domination of the Zhetysu region (the territory usually assigned to the
Wusun) before the fourth century vouched for by Pritsak needs some further
consideration. The Weilue (Sanguozhi 30.863–4) seems to allocate this region
in the third century ad to the Wusun, and the area to the West of this area and
North of the Kangju to the Dingling. The Wusun and the Kangju are said to
have neither expanded nor shrunk since Han times. Daffinà (1982), 327, notes
that according to the Wei Shu 102, 9b, 5–6 = Bei Shi 97, 14b, 7–8, the remnants
of the Wusun were forced to relocate to the Pamirs by ad 437/8. See also
Zadneprovskiy (1994), 461. By then, the Zhetysu region was firmly in the hands
of the Weak Huns (Yueban/Chuban). This would seem to suggest that the
Huns only managed to conquer the Wusun and also the Kangju some time in
the mid fourth century shortly before their expansion into Alan and Kushan/Sassanian
territories to the West and South. Earlier Hunnic presence in neighbouring
Dzungaria and continued presence in the region is confirmed by the
discovery of a Hunnic cauldron (dated to the second century ad) in that area,
see Érdy (1995), 45–6. The bulk of the Hunnic nation, however, seems to have
been situated in the Altai region and certain elements also in areas further West
corresponding to modern northern/northeastern Kazakhstan, Irtysh and
Middle Ob region in the third century ad, Érdy(1995), 45, so bordering the
Alans and Kangju to the West and Southwest and the Wusun to the South.
[228] La Vaissière (2005), 21.
[229] For discussion, see Hirth (1901), 91 (now certainly outdated); Shiratori (1923),
100–1; Enoki (1955), 43–62; Wright (1997), 96; Pulleyblank (2000b), 93.
[230] See Pulleyblank (2000b), 91–2; Maenchen-Helfen (1944–5), 225–31; Miller
(1959), 12.
[231] Pulleyblank (2000b), 93–4.
[232] Pulleyblank (2000b), 94. Pseudo-Styliten also identifies the European Huns
as the same people as the western Huns who invaded Persia (Hephtalites),
which suggests at the very least a close affinity between the two groups and
most likely the common origins of both from the former Hunnic empire in
Central Asia, Altheim (1959), 39.
[233] Kollautz and Miyakawa (1970), 98.
[234] Frye (1996), 176, and Grenet (2002), 210.
[235] Czeglédy (1983), 78.
[236] Grenet (2002), 212. The title tegin is likely to be Mongolic (i.e., Wuhuan/
Xianbei) in origin, which would make perfect sense if we considered the Var
element in the Hephtalite ruling elite to be Wuhuan. See Sims-Williams
(2002a), 234, his discussion on Pulleyblank’s early observations.
[237] Dani et al.(1996), 172–3; Chakrabarti (1996), 189. Possible Kushan (also Inner
Asian in origin) precedents for this quasi-feudal structure that the Huns
probably built on cannot be denied (p. 194).
The Rouran Khaganate
However, this is not yet the whole story. Some forty years before Attila
ascended the throne of the Huns in Europe, in the East in Mongolia and
Turkestan another mightier and even more formidable empire was being
created by a Chinggis Khan-like figure, Shelun Khagan of the Rouran.[238]
The Rouran like the Hephtalites and the European Huns contained a
strong element of Huns (Xiongnu remnants[239]) who collaborated with
certain Xianbei tribes to form the Khaganate under Shelun.[240] In ad 394,
Shelun broke free from vassalage under the Toba Xianbei Empire (also
steppe nomads) whose centre of power had begun to shift South away from
Mongolia after the Toba conquest of Northern China.[241] In just six to eight
years, Shelun subdued almost twelve powerful, nomadic tribal confederacies
or states in the vast region stretching from the borders of Koguryo (Korea)
in the East to Dzungaria in the West (the original homeland of the White
Huns and the European Huns). Even the great Hephtalites were for a while
vassals of the Rouran Empire.[242]
As Kradin points out, the Rouran Empire was very much a typical steppe
empire. Its organization and hierarchical structure was almost a complete
replica of former Xiongnu practices. The empire, like that of the Xiongnu,
was divided into two wings in a dual system with the ruler of the East
holding greater prestige and overall authority,[243] though later the western
ruler seems to have reversed the equation, thus mirroring a similar process
among the Huns under Attila, who overthrew his Eastern overlord Bleda.[244]
The empire had a core Rouran tribe leading ethnically related tribes as
vassals and holding in servitude conquered tribes like the Uighurs under
Zhi-paye-zhi.[245] Shelun enforced in the Xiongnu manner a compulsory
registration of all warriors, who were instructed to follow strict rules of
conduct in battle. Disobedience was punished with severe penalties which
mirror the policies of the Great Xiongnu Shanyu Modun.[246]
The entire nation was organized in a decimal system, again exactly like
the Xiongnu. The 1,000 formed the detachment (run/military head) and
100 the banner (Zhuang commanded by the Shawu/leader or commander).
In all in times of full mobilization, between 100,000 and 300,000 horsemen
could be raised for military service (again approximating the size of earlier
Xiongnu armies).[247] Political power was concentrated in the hands of a
charismatic, ruling clan. The ruler, Khagan, was chosen usually from among
the direct male heirs of the previous ruler or from a collateral line within the
royal family. The closest relatives of the Khagan were given fiefs, usually in
the form of large military units with the title of Xielifa.[248] Under them were
the leader of the 1,000 and 100, usually tribal chiefs and clan elders of
different levels. Among them were chosen the dachen, the grandees of the
empire, classed as high and low ranking with titles distributed at the will of
the Khagan. ‘It was a complex hierarchical multi-level system.’[249]
The succession to the Rouran throne also shows the features that we
discover in Hunnic contexts. The ruling Khagan would always try to pass
on his throne to his sons. However, if a close relative had greater prestige, this
could lead to a succession struggle, which in most cases ended without
bloodshed,[250] though there were notable exceptions. Thus, out of sixteen
Khagans, eight were collateral members of the royal family, nephews who,
like Attila and Bleda, inherited the throne from an uncle. Under the rule of
Doulun Khagan, however, the system could not prevent bloodshed. The
Uighurs under a Rouran ruler Abuzhiluo (we see here the typical steppe
practice, also found among the Xiongnu and later the Huns and Göktürks as
well, of appointing a member of the royal clan or a close subordinate from the
ruling tribe, Rouran, Hun or Turk, as the ruler of a vassal horde[251]), 100,000
tents in all, revolted and had to be suppressed (the constant Hun demands to
the Romans for the return of fugitives comes to mind and also the destruction
of the horde of fugitive Goths under Radagaisus by Uldin in ad 406).[252] In
the process, two armies were raised to suppress the rebellion. One was led by
the Khagan, the other by his uncle Nagai. The Khagan suffered defeat, but
Nagai had success. This was interpreted by Rouran troops to be a sign that
heaven’s favour had left the Khagan and passed to Nagai. Nagai murdered the
Khagan and ascended the throne in a coup,[253] demonstrating the extraordinary
importance attached to military success in steppe politics, which as we
shall see later, explains a lot of the behaviour of Hunnic kings in Europe.[254]
We also hear that a Rouran Khagan Anagui[255] later built a capital city,
Mumocheng, encircled with two walls (Liangshu 54), and hired Chinese
defectors as clerks to maintain written records (Song Shu 95). We are no
doubt reminded of Attila’s Roman secretaries Orestes (the father of the last
Roman emperor Romulus Augustulus) and possibly also Onegesius.[256] The
Khagan was also guarded by a staff of bodyguards (which mirror the
institution of intimates (epitēdeioi) among the Huns of which the Hun
king of the Sciri, Edeco, was a member) who watched over the person of the
ruler in shifts.[257] This Rouran institution would be inherited by the Turks
who overthrew them in the sixth century. Curiously, these guards would be
referred to as the böri (wolves), the wolf being the traditional sacred totemic
symbol of the Turco-Mongol peoples.[258] The Ashina ruler of the Göktürks
and the later Mongols all held the wolf in reverence.[259] What is intriguing is
that the son of Attila’s bodyguard, Edeco, was called Hunoulphus (‘the
Hun wolf’). It is to be wondered whether this name is suggestive of his
father’s association with the imperial bodyguard.[260]
[238] See Kyzlasov (1996), 321, for the career of this remarkable figure.
[239] Duan (1988), 118–20, the Xiongnu survived in Mongolia as the Bayeqi until
the early fifth century when they were fully incorporated into the Rouran
Khaganate. See also Kyzlasov (1996), 322.
[240] Golden (1992), 77. See also Pulleyblank (2000b), 84.
[241] Pulleyblank (2000b), 79–82.
[242] McGovern (1939), 407; Enoki (1959), 1; Biswas (1973), 34; Golden (1992),
79–80.
[243] Kradin (2005), 154. This dualism would surface again and again in states ruled
by steppe peoples. For the political division and organization of the Göktürk
Khaganate into eastern and western halves in the sixth century and its
maintenance until the eighth century, after the collapse of the Rouran in
the sixth, see Golden (1992), 127 ff., and Sinor (1990b), 304–5. The Turkish
empires of the Karakhanids of Central Asia in the ninth to twelfth centuries
(Golden (1992), 125, and Soucek (2000), 84) and the contemporaneous Seljuk
Sultanate in the Middle East before its sedentarization under Malik Shah,
would also practise dualism and clan rule (Golden 1992, 219), as would the
Pecheneg tribes of the western steppe in the ninth to twelfth centuries in
the same region inhabited previously by the Huns (p. 266). The Pechenegs,
according to Constantine Porphyrogenitus, consisted of eight tribes/themata
(provinces), four tribes situated on each side of the Dnieper river. Three of the
eight tribes called the Kangar (Chabouxingyla, Iabdiertim and Kouartzitzour)
ranked higher than the rest and the Iabdiertim reigned supreme. The eight
tribes were in turn subdivided into forty districts. Each tribe would be
associated with a colour (usually that of a horse) and their rulers would bear
different titles indicating rank. Much the same as the Huns and the Turks
before them (p. 266). See also Curta (2006), 182–3.
[244] Kradin (2005), 155.
[245] Exactly the same structure is found also in the Göktürk Khaganate that replaced
the Rouran Khaganate in the mid sixth century and also among the later
Khazars who controlled southern Russia and the Ukraine from the seventh to
the tenth centuries as successors of the Western Turks, see Findley (2005),
43, 50. The Rouran and Göktürks also taxed tributary sedentary populations,
and the same system is also found among the western Huns.
[246] See the anecdotes concerning Modun’s punishment of the slightest infringements
among his followers in Shiji 110.2888.
[247] See Kradin (2005), 162, and also Kollautz and Miyakawa (1970), 63 and 89.
[248] Kollautz and Miyakawa (1970), 89. Imperial governors in the succeeding
Göktürk Ashina dynasty that replaced the Rouran also consisted entirely
of members of the ruling dynasty. These governors were allocated ‘fiefs’ in
the familiar appanage system, which we find in the preceding Xiongnu and
Rouran Empires. See Findley (2005), 44–5.
[249] Kradin (2005), 162.
[250] A similar system of succession is also noted among the later Turkic Pechenegs
in the Pontic steppe. According to Constantine Porphyrogenitus, the Pecheneg
kings had no right to determine the succession, which usually resulted in
collateral succession within the same royal clan. No one, however, could
succeed to the throne from outside the royal family. See Khazanov (1984),
179, and Golden (1992), 11. The Mongol Kuriltai (a diet of royals, nobles and
worthies) would later in the thirteenth century elect a new Khan in a similar
way to the Pechenegs, but with greater authority being given to the reigning
Khagan depending on his prestige in a manner identical to earlier Rouran
practice. For the Mongol law of succession, see Bacon (1958), 56–7.
[251] The Göktürks who replaced the Rouran as masters of their former empire
would also adopt exactly the same policy towards their subjects and appointed
members of the ruling Ashina clan as rulers or governors of important tribes,
e.g., the Basmils. See Golden (1992), 142–3, 146, and Tekin (1968), Bilga Kagan
Inscription, p. 275 for Basmils and p. 278 for governors. See also Kürsat-Ahlers
(1994), 352–3, who notes that the Turks imposed Ashina (royal clan) members
as rulers on Karluks, Basmils, On Ok, Khazars and the Pechenegs (in their
case a son-in-law, reminiscent of Aradaric, related by marriage to Attila, and
vassal king of the Gepids in the Hunnic Empire, as we shall see later). The
Göktürk Empire, which stretched from the Black Sea to the borders of Korea,
possibly at one point even as far as the Pacific, created a Pax Turcica that
allowed for the free trade of goods between East and West, a forerunner to
the grander empire of the Mongols in the thirteenth century. The Uighurs
who supplanted the Göktürks also imposed governors on conquered tribes,
the Basmils and Qarluks, Golden (2006–7), 33.
[252] Kradin (2003), 80, points out correctly that the political structure of the
nomadic steppe empire and the militarization of the entire population, which
was its distinctive feature, could frequently lead to insurrection and desertion
among disaffected tribes who enjoyed a degree of internal autonomy under the
hegemony of the ruling tribe. Proximity to an agrarian, sedentary civilization,
which could finance such revolts or desertions and accommodate runaway
fugitives from the steppe empire, could exacerbate tensions within it. In the
earlier Xiongnu Empire, there were also cases of desertions of tribes who fled
West to escape Xiongnu rule, e.g., the Yuezhi who fled into Bactria (Han Shu
96a: 14b–15a) and the Wusun into Kazakhstan (Shiji 123:9a–10a). Political
dissidents also fled to Han China like the Hun-yeh king who defected with
his entire tribe in 121 bc (Shiji 123: 9b–10a). See Barfield (1981), 49–50. It is also
in such a context that we should interpret the saga of Radagaisus and also
probably the Alans of ad 405–6 who departed the Danubian plains for Roman
territory, away from Hunnic domination.
[253] Kwanten (1979), 19–20.
[254] The overriding importance of military success among steppe nomads as the
instrument of legitimization is clearly brought to light in the steppe notion
of charisma deriving from heavenly ordained good fortune – Iranian farnah
and Turkic kut. See Frye (1989), 135–40, and Khazanov (2003), 43, for more
details. This notion of charisma (i.e., the right to rule) deriving from good
fortune (military success) was intimately linked to the ideology of divine
kingship and the theory of the mandate of heaven. Ruling clans like the
Xiongnu ruling house, the Turkic Ashina clan and the Mongol Chinggisids
(Di Cosmo, Frank and Golden (2009), 1) all claimed the divine mandate to
rule the earth bestowed by heaven on their chosen clan. The Ashina clan
would even claim divine origin (see Golden 1982, 37–76, for an excellent
discussion on imperial ideology among pre-Mongol steppe peoples), and a
similar claim to a heavenly mandate can even be seen in the much earlier case
of the Scythian royal horde, which in its foundation legend claimed for its
ancestor the heavenly gift of burning gold objects that fell from the sky, which
he alone could access due to divine favour (Hdt. 4.5). Attila would, of course,
also lay claims to divine favour by the discovery of the sword of Mars (God
of war), Jordanes, Getica 35.183.
[255] His name, as mentioned earlier, is the same as that of the sixth-century near
contemporary Utigur Hunnic king Anagai in the Pontic steppe, Menander
Protector, fr. 19.1, Blockley (1985), 172.
[256] More on the origins of Onegesius and Orestes later.
[257] Kradin (2005), 163.
[258] For the importance of the wolf in early southern Siberian art, especially Altaian
art and iconography in the first and second centuries ad (the region fromw which
the Huns would later begin their long trek West), see Rice (1965a), 37–8.
[259] Golden (2001a), 39.
[260] More on this in the next chapter.
Sedentarism among steppe peoples
Another important aspect of steppe empires contemporaneous with and
prior to the Huns is the presence of a sedentary, agrarian element in their
polities.[261] The early Iranian-speaking ‘nomads’ collectively named the
Scythians/Saka in our sources were often by no means pure nomads.[262] In
the fifth century bc, Herodotus claimed that certain Scythians had become
settled farmers (4.17–18), and this observation has been proved correct by
archaeology.[263] Herodotus relates that the Budinians, who are part Greek
and part Scythian, had established a town called Gelonus (4.108.1), which
was later burned down by Darius (4.123.1). According to Rolle, archaeologists
have discovered ‘more than a hundred – fortified settlements – in
the forest steppe region’[264], which closely resemble the wooden town
described by Herodotus.[265] Some scholars even believe that they have
found in the large ancient settlement of Bel’sk the town of Gelonus.[266]
There is evidence of craft industry, agriculture and even horticultural
activity in this town.[267] The Xiongnu, who are often viewed as quintessential
nomads,[268] also possessed a strong sedentary element. Modern
archaeology has shown that, like the Scythians, part of the Xiongnu had
become settled or was from the very beginning sedentary and engaged in
agriculture and craft production.[269]
The steppe confederations and empires originating from Central Asia were
particularly hybrid in the sense that their economy had always been sustained
from very early on by a combination of pastoralism and irrigated agriculture,[270]
which was introduced into southern Central Asia as early as the
middle of the first millennium bc. The combination of nomadic conquerors
and agriculturalists triggered the rise of the first political federations or
empires in Central Asia around the seventh century bc.[271] Following in
their footsteps, the steppe empires of the Yuezhi (Kushans) and the Kangju
(overlord of the Alans), in fact, presided over the highest level of development
in Central Asian irrigation systems.[272] The Kangju (which intermittently
controlled Sogdia) and also the neighbouring state of Khwarezm,[273] were
hybrid polities that contained both pastoral elements and long-established
communities (some dating back to the fifth century bc) with irrigation
systems, agriculture, mining and manufacturing centers.[274]
Although their military power was dependent upon the nomadic population
in the steppe, the elite of the Kangju spent their winters in a capital city
and their culture shows a considerable level of sophistication.[275] The neighbouring Wusun,
whose territory would be seized by the Xiongnu/Huns, also
possessed a walled capital city, which functioned as the political and administrative
centre of their state. They also practised agriculture to supplement
their semi-nomadic pastoral economy.[276] This symbiosis of pastoralism[277]
and sedentary agriculture would continue to be a regular feature of steppe
polities in the Middle Ages.[278] The European Avars, who displaced the
Hunnic Empire in the sixth century in the western steppe, were noted by
the Romans for their grain-producing capacity, which distinguished them
from Germanic federates of earlier centuries. The Avars on several occasions
supplied defeated Roman armies and populace with food and deported
Roman civilians (270,000 (!) in c. 619 alone, so we are told[279]) to areas
North of the Danube in order to augment their agricultural base.[280]
Mahmud al-Kashgari, a member of the Karakhanid Turkish dynasty that
ruled Transoxiana (centred around modern Uzbekistan) in the eleventh
century,[281] who wrote the famous Diwan Lugat at-Turk (written c. ad
1075), in his overview of medieval Turkish tribes, also alerts us to the fact
that of the twenty Turkic tribes, ten were sedentary.[282] Thus, the domination
of a core of steppe pastoralists was by no means a hindrance to co-existence/symbiosis
with a subject sedentary population, and the steppe political system
was structurally not incompatible with stable tributary administration. The
longevity and essential stability of steppe-based empires like the Xiongnu and
steppe-derived entities, such as the Parthian Empire, are a telling reminder that
the myth of political anarchy and rampant disorder that dominates our
perception of Central Asian steppe societies requires a radical re-evaluation.
[261] Di Cosmo (1994), 1092–1126; Markley (forthcoming), 15; Beckwith (2009),
341–2; Soucek (2000), 43; Christian (1998), 91, 128. See also Czeglédy (1983),
119, for the co-existence of urbanized and nomadic Hephtalites.
[262] The strict dichotomy of nomads and sedentary peoples leads to all kinds of
misunderstandings and confusions. The divide is not as clear-cut as is often
believed. For a good definition of nomadic pastoralism see Cribb (1991), 15–20.
Cribb also provides good examples of later Turkic and Kurdish tribal confederacies
that possessed both nomadic and sedentary elements integrated into a
single entity (26–7). See also Batty (2007), 31, and Gorbunova (1992), 33.
[263] Archibald (2002), 56 ff. and Sulimirsky (1985), 152, 182–3.
[264] Rolle (1989), 117, and Christian (1998), 140.
[265] See also Minyaev (1996), 81.
[266] Rolle (1989), 119.
[267] Rolle (1989), 119, and Tsetskhladze (2007), 48. The Apasiakoi Saka of the Syr
Darya delta, closer to the original home of the European Huns, were also
sedentarizing pastoralists who engaged in agriculture and may even have built
large towns and fortified settlements. The Saka may also have been instrumental
in introducing urban culture to the Tarim basin further East in the first
millennium bc. See Christian (1998), 132 and 139. See also Abetekov and
Yusupov (1994), 30, for evidence of ceramic production in the steppe region.
[268] In fact, as Golden (2009a), 91, points out, pastoral nomadism itself probably
‘evolved in agricultural communities in which animal husbandry became the
dominant economic activity.’
[269] See Lubo-Lesnichenko (1989), 47, and also Minyaev (2001), 3, who provide
a description of the Ivolga complex near Ulan Ude which shows signs of
agriculture and fortifications. See also Ishjamts (1994), 156–8, Honeychurch
and Amartuvshin (2006a), 266–7, Brosseder and Miller (2011b), 27, and
Batsaikhan (2011), 122–3.
[270] For this symbiosis between farmers and pastoralists, see Tapper (1991), 528.
[271] See Dandamaev (1994), 41 and Diakonoff (1985), 129–31.
[272] Mukhamedjanov (1994), 270. For urban development under the Kushans, see
Litvinsky (1994), 299 ff.
[273] For the astonishing sophistication of the sedentary, Khwarezmian civilization
with which the Huns were geographically adjacent before their irruption into
Europe, see Helms (1998), 77–96. See also Rapoport (1996), 161–185.
[274] See Negmatov (1994), 444–451. See also Abdullaev (2007), 83–6, for evidence
on ‘nomad’ city sites in Central Asia, such as Kala-i Zakhoki Maron in the
neighbourhood of Karshi in Uzbekistan, an area later absorbed by the Huns.
[275] For the increasing importance of the sedentary element in the Kangju state, see
Grenet et al. (2007), 1027. See also Zadneprovskiy (1994), 464.
[276] Zadneprovskiy (1994), 460.
[277] For the surprising ‘immobility’ of many steppe pastoralists and so-called
‘nomads’ and their presence in a fixed locality over long, extended periods
of time, a phenomenon which for centuries coincided with massive migrations
across the Eurasian steppe, see Frachetti (2008), 8.
[278] For the difficulty involved in defining what is urban, sedentary and what is
pastoral, nomad in Central Asia, given the frequent existence of pastoral activity
in the same area with agriculture and farming, e.g., in the Chaganian region, see
Stride (2007), 115.
[279] Fine (1983), 44–5.
[280] Curta (2006), 65. John of Ephesus, Ecclesiastical History 5.32.256.
[281] Kashgari would write his famous work in Arabic for the benefit of his Arab
audience in Baghdad. The Diwan is dedicated to the Abbasid Caliph al-
Muqtadi (1075–94) whose reign coincided with the Seljuk (Oghuz)
Turkish takeover of Iraq and Iran from the Shiite Persian Buwayid dynasty.
The Arabs were eager to learn about their new masters and Kashgari obliged
their curiosity. See Dankoff (1972), 23.
[282] Dankoff (1972), 30–1.
