ClioMania

Osman Karatay

Hunno-Bulgars in Georgia: A Proposal of Correction in the Georgian Chronicle History of King Vaxt’ang Gorgasali

Bulgarian Historical Review, 51, № 3-4, 2023, 3-34.

According to an early medieval Georgian manuscript attributed to a certain Juansher and devoted to the life of the Georgian king Vaxt’ang (446–522), the Ossetes attacked the Georgian lands in 450:

“When Vakht’ang was ten years old, armies of the Ossetians, without number, came and captured Kartli from the head of the Mt’k’vari down to Xunan; they ravaged the valleys but ignored the fortress towns, with the exception of K’asp’i. They captured K’asp’i and devastated it; they took away Vakht’ang’s sister Miranduxt’, a three-year-old girl. Seizing the valleys of Kartli, and K’akheti, K’larjeti and Egrisi, they invaded Rani and Movak’an; after capturing these places, they passed through the Darubandi Gates, for the Darubandians themselves showed them the way, and then they returned victorious to Ossetia.”[1]

The 12th century Armenian translation of the same text tells briefly, as usual, about the same events:

“The Ossetes came through the gates of Darband, and ravaged all K’art’li, from the source of the river Kur as far as Xunan. They entered Movkan and Ran, devastated them, and led away Vaxt’ang’s sister Mihranduxt.”[2]

The Georgian king was born likely in 439 and ascended to the throne in 446.[3] Debates on the exact chronology is not our focus here. Nor a description of the invaded regions are the topic of this paper. I want to draw attentions to the route of the so-called Ossete invaders, who came through the Caspian/Darband gates, instead of the nearby and expected Darial/Alan pass of the Central Caucasus. Thus, we need to ask whether Georgia was the primary target of that attack and/or whether the attackers were the Ossetes. The third question is even more troublesome: If they were really Ossetes, say the Alans, how could they acted so independently under the Hun domination, when the famous Attila was still alive and at the height of his power. The Georgian account is not free of several doubtful points within itself, and we should not take those accounts as they are. The fact that the related content was written down likely several centuries after the mentioned events, albeit surely being based on some written or oral traditions ambiguous to us, makes it more problematic to rely on the authenticity of the news. Therefore, this paper indeed proposes a hypothetical reconstruction or correction.

Vaxt’ang organized a counter-attack about six years later, c. 456, when he was 16, and passed to the north through the Central Caucasus, via the Darial/Alan gates. The Georgians were very successful on that expedition and the enemy, both the Ossetes and their allies ‘Khazars’, were severely punished.[4] A Khazar champion slayed by the Georgian king was called Tarhan[5]; and the Ossete champion killed likewise on the battlefield by the king Vaxt’ang had also a Turkic name, Baqatar.[6] The Georgian expedition was sponsored and supported by the Sassanians, whose governor of Albania, the modern North Azerbaijan, Varaz-Bak’ar was the maternal uncle of the Georgian king.[7] Rulers of the neighbouring Caucasian princelings also contributed to the making of Vaxt’ang’s great army. It is not an extraordinary case that the Ossetes had Turkic names and titles; nevertheless, I need to draw attentions to it to come back later.

The Georgian chronicle History of the King Vaxt’ang Gorgasali has clearly an updated cast of actors. Both the ethnic names Khazar and Ossete are anachronistic for the 450s. Although I favour the ideas for an early arrival of the Khazars to the Caucasus within the Suvar/Sabir union, that idea does not include making them a prominent force in those days, but only a component or member of the mentioned tribal union. And the 450s are too early even for an early arrival of the Suvars having the Khazar component within themselves. Besides, we would like to see the term Alan instead of Ossete in those days.

Furthermore, the text goes on by mentioning the Turkic tribes Pechenegs and Kipchaks. Of them the former is a case of the 10th century in the region, and the latter came to the region from Central Asia only in the 11th century. Curiously, such ethnic names expectable to occur in a 5th century context as Hun, Bulgar, Suvar and Alan, and even Massaget are totally absent from the Georgian text. Vaxt’ang was invited to Iran, according to the same source, and went to ‘Bagdad’ in 485 in company of the Sassanian shah Xosrov I (who was borne indeed c. 514 and enthroned in 531), while Bagdad did not exist at all then and was founded in the 760s by the Arabs. The Armenian translation of the same parts says ‘Babylon’ instead of it.[8] Likewise, the Georgian chronicle says the Byzantine emperor Heraclius captured ‘Bagdad’ from his rival Xosrov II (in 629). The Armenian translation uses only the word ‘citadel’ instead.[9] Indeed, Heraclius and his Turkic allies did not need to go to the Persian capital city in that year, after totally defeating the Sassanian forces, since the son of the shah killed his father and came to the emperor to make a peace with plausible terms, and that happened.[10]

This shows that the updater of the Georgian chronicle(s) interfered the text too much, in so much as to replace some ethnic or place names unknown in the 11th century with the known or intelligible names. According to Rapp, the chronicle of Vaxt’ang and its continuation were “originally composed around the year 800, and more precisely, between the establishment of the kingdom of Apxazeti ca. 790–ca. 800 and the ascendancy of the Bagratid house to the Kartvelian princeling in 813.”[11] He follows Toumanoff, who suggests that Juansher wrote ca. 800 the continuation of the Vaxt’ang chronicle, while the latter chronicle was written by an anonymous writer from the city Ujarma.[12] Maybe Juansher or the anonymous of Ujarma started to change the chronicle then by likely introducing the Khazars and by deleting those ‘expected’ ethnic names, and Leonti Mroveli, the 11th century compiler, added further changes to the text, keeping however some commonalities.[13]

Even the question when the Georgians started to call the Alans ‘Ossete’ is not very problematic in our survey. The Alans themselves as historical actors in those days in the Caucasus pose a greater problem. They had been defeated by the Huns as the first victims of their westward advance in the 360s. Part of them were exiled further westward, onto the Goths, and the remaining population was taken under Hun domination: “The Huns after invading the regions of the Alans – who are the neighbours of the Greuthungi and whom custom has named Tanaites – and killing many of them and plundering their possessions, incorporated the survivors in their forces and formed an alliance.”[14] This is mostly for the Don banks.

It might be assumed that the Alans under the Huns, ruled then by the famous Attila, were commissioned in 450 for an expedition to the south in the name of the Hunnic overlords. Alans and Huns were allies by the year 394 but no Hunno-Alanic alliance is attested in the 5th century.[15] This is of course for the developments in Western Europe. We are not sure whether the remaining Alans in the Caucasus, living under the direct Hun rule, were of such a capacity as to invade the Albanian and Georgian territories protected by the supreme Sassanian administration, and whether they acted independently or by the order of the Attila regime.[16]

A detailed early history of the Alans in the Caucasus is out of the scope of this paper, however we need to check the earliest records and geographical locations about them. The first Alanic incursions are mentioned by Flavius Josephus, who says that the Emperor Tiberius in 35 AD tried to persuade the kings of the Iberians and of the Albanians to fight against the shah Artabanus of Persia. “They refused, but brought in the Alans against Artabanus, allowing them to cross their own lands after opening the Caspian Gates.”[17] Consequently, the Persians were defeated by the Romans and their allies and ‘Media’ was ravaged.[18]

Alemany suggests to replace “Caspian gates” with that of the Darial.[19] It is not certain, however, that the Alans settled in those days in the immediate north of the Central Caucasus. According to the same Josephus in his another work, “the Alans, who were a Scythian people inhabiting the banks of the Tanais and the Maeotic Lake, when planning at that time a pillaging incursion into Media and even further, entered into negotiations with the king of the Hyrcanians, for he is the lord of the pass which king Alexander closed with iron gates”.[20] It seems to be a complicated incursion of the allies into Iran from both sides of the Caspian Sea. Those were the golden age of the Alans with an empire located between Don and Aral and with military adventures jumping over the Carpathians in the west and the Caucasus in the south. The dynamic groups of the Alans seem to have settled in the north of the Azov and organized their expeditions from there. They were on the scene of Eastern Europe in the 1^st century AD, approving the account of Josephus, and even appeared in Rome individually, as reflected in an erotic poem of Valerius Martialis, and made Trans-Danubian attacks on Roman soil as mentioned by Seneca. Valerius Flaccus, who wrote almost in the same days as the famous Plinius Secundus, also mentions them.[21] The latter approves all of these accounts by locating the Alans, together with their relatives Rhoxalans, just to the east of the Carpathians.[22] There are numerous references to them also in Greek sources regarding the Roman affairs.

The Alans came from Central Asia, likely from the southwest of the lake Aral[23], however, it is doubtful that a formidable mass of them settled in the plains to the north of the Caucasus in the first wave. Ptolemeus, confirming the mentioned Latin sources written before him, says that to the west of Don were the Alans, to their east, between Don and Volga were the Asi, and to the east of Volga were again the Alans.[24] The divided character of the Alanic spread is underlined also by Ammianus Marcellinus, writing 250 years later than Ptolemeus: “The Alani are divided between the two parts of the earth.”[25]

What happened in those days to the ‘steppe’ people between the two Alans, that is, why do they call them Alans, is again explained by A. Marcellinus:

“Alans inhabit the measureless wastelands of Scythia and, like the Persians, have incorporated bordering peoples, gradually weakened by their repeated victories, under their own national name… Although they are separated by great distances and live a wandering life like nomads over immense areas, have however become united, as time has gone by, under a single name… because of the similarity of their customs, savage lifestyle and weapons.”[26]

In another place he says:

“Thus, the Alani whose various peoples it is unnecessary now to enumerate are divided between the two parts of the earth, but although widely separated from each other and roaming over vast tracts, as nomads do, yet in the course of time they have united under one name and are, for short, all called Alani…”[27]

Thus, there were Alans on the scene who were not Alans, and we have reasons to wonder about whether those Alans raiding the south of the Caucasus in 450 were really and properly that people, and, if not, whether they carried out those raids by their own will or by the order of their hegemons, the Huns, and whether by their own forces or together with the Hunnic troops. The Asi mentioned by Ptolemeus between the two Alanic groups were not the only people associated with the Alans; they did not surely belong to the Alans proper.[28] Those Asi are one of the candidates to be the “Ossetes” invading Georgia and Albania in 450, according to the Vaxt’ang chronicle.

Another good candidate for the acts of the year 450 were the Massagetae, living just to the north of Darband, who likewise came from the south of Central Asia. Their name is first mentioned by A. Marcellinus in the Caucasus, and later occurs abundantly in Procopius and in some early Islamic records. The former author says once “the Massagetae whom we now call the Alani”, although in another place he mentions them separately: “Near them are the Massagetae, Halani, and Sargetae, as well as several other obscure peoples…”[29] His contemporary Claudian also depicts them as two separate but comradely peoples: “There comes down a mixed horde of Sarmatians and Dacians, and the brave Massagetae who wound their horses in order to fill cups, and the Alans who drink, after breaking the ice, the waters of Maeotis…”[30]

The association of these Massagetae with the Alans by Novosel’cev is by no means true.[31] Marcellinus clearly implies that the Massagetae experienced the same fate as those peoples subdued by the Alans. Furthermore, Prokopius of the mid-6^th century, who often tells about Massaget mercenaries during the Byzantino-Persian wars in which the author personally participated, once says “…Massagetae whom they now call Huns.”[32] The Massagets were called Huns for they had been in/under the Hunnic league in the Caucasus then, and the Massagets and Alans had passed into Europe during the Sarmatian migrations, as suggested by Novosel’cev.[33]

Indeed, Cassius Dio explains both the sociological case debated here and the chronology of the Massaget migration: For the year 135, “the war against the Jews came to an end, but a new one, waged by the Alans (who are the Massagetae), was instigated by Pharasmanes and violently devastated Albania and Media, reaching Armenia and Cappadocia.”[34] So, could we apply the same identification for the earlier accounts, too? That is, were the aggressors named Alans by Josephus as cited above really Massagets?

To turn to the 135 war, if Armenia was influenced, at least, we should expect to find some records in the Armenian books. The Armenian History of Movses Khorenac’i, the primary source to look for the early developments, written in the mid-5^th century, has nothing for the Alans at all, except for the above-mentioned anachronistic copy-paste of the Josephus account. The more troublesome case for Movses is that he never mentions also the Massagets as actors of those incursions from the north. Instead, he focuses on the Bulgars just to the north of the Central Caucasus to explain the source of the troubles in the northern borders of the Parthian Empire, to which Armenia belonged in those days. Thus, we have a third or fourth candidate to identify the so-called Alans of the year 450: The Bulgars.

In the days of the Armenian king Arshak, son of Vałarshak, “there was a great tumult in the zone of the Great Caucasus Mountain in the country of the Bulgars. Many of them split off and came to our land and settled for a long time below Koł in the fertile regions rich in wheat.”[35] The text mentions “a country of the Bulgars”, which means they were there for a plausible time in order not to be labelled as new-comers. It is difficult to extract the exact location of the Bulgars from these sentences, namely, to understand whether they were closer to the Darial or the Caspian pass. However, another sentence of him is more helpful:

“…the barbarous foreign race that inhabited the northern plain and the foothills of the great Caucasus Mountain and the vales or long and deep valleys that descend from the mountain on the south to the great plain.”[36]

A group of these Vłendur Bulgars called ‘Vund’ came and took refuge to the Armenian ruler Vałarshak, and was settled in the region Upper Basean, which was called from then on ‘Vanand’ after the name of the Bulgars.[37] The text gives almost the entire northern plain to the Bulgars, who are not mentioned as one of the few or several peoples living there, but simply as “the barbarous foreign race”. In any case, they were not in the coastal Dagestan, at least, but in the interior regions. As a matter of fact, archaeological studies are to show that a significant Bulgar population lived within the borders of modern Dagestan[38], although it is difficult to distinguish between the relics of various ‘Hunnic’ peoples. Perhaps the Č’dar Bulgars of the Armenian Geography written in the late 7^th century refers to those Bulgars living in the northwest parts of Dagestan.[39]

The account of Khorenac’i is about the early ages of the Arsacids of Iran, but seems indeed to be concerned with the events in the 2^nd century AD. Gjuzelev believes those events took place in the second half of the 4^th century[40], but the Bulgars mentioned here are clearly new-comers in the days of Vałarshak, and their migration should be within a volkerwanderung initiated by the longrun troubles in western Central Asia that ended in the rise of the Alans in its westernmost marches. The account of Khorenac’i is not credited by the majority of historians, although he clearly gives his source, the Syriac scholar Mar Abas Catina.[41] My view is that not the nature of the text of Khorenac’i, but a retrospective study of the later accounts on the Bulgars would confirm the Armenian author. The Liber Generationis part of the Roman Almanac for the year 334 has the Bulgars (‘Vulgares’) associated with the Ziezi, forefathers of the Circassians.[42] This association would carry the Bulgars towards the west. The Armenian Geography agrees with this location with the sentence “between the Bulgars and the Pontic Sea live the Garšk, K’ut’k, and Swank nations.”[43]

According to the Syriac author Zacharias (early 6^th century), “bzgwn is a country with its own language that extends and reaches to the Caspian Gates and the Sea, (that is) those (Gates and sea) of the territory of the Huns… Beyond these same gates are the Burgar, a pagan and barbarian people with their own language, and they have cities.”[44] After that live the Alans having five cities. I agree with Alemany, who rejects the identification of bzgwn with Abkhazia[45], on the ground of its location. The land of the bzgwn is in the northeast quarter of the modern Azerbaijan, between the Ak river and Apsheron peninsular; their name occurs mostly in the form Bazkan.[46] But we do not know a country of the Huns to the south of the Caspian Gates. Thus, regarding the contemporary and later records about the Caucasian Huns, it would be better to locate the Huns of Zacharias just to the north of the Gates, as given in the Armenian records. Then, the Bulgars would be in inner Dagestan and in its west. This would agree with the record of Khorenac’i. On the other hand, the suggestion *blzgn or *blsgn, to find Balâsagân[47], of Alemany is good, but may not be necessary.[48] If bzgwn is to the south of Darband, then, my suggestion is true, as we need some territories to locate the Dagestani Huns, mentioned separately from the Bulgars.

The crucial problem here is that the Alans are also mentioned in the same lands as the Bulgars by almost all contemporary sources. For instance, according to Procopius, “beyond the borders of the Abasgoi along the Caucasus range live the Brouchoi, between the Abasgoi and the Alans, while the Zechoi are established along the coast of the Black Sea. Beyond these live the Saginai… above the Saginai are established numerous Hunnic tribes.”[49] Those Hunnic tribes are on the lower Kuban basin and Azov coast, according to the author, and the Alans are clearly in a westerly position in the north of the Caucasus. In another place, he affirms that he is sure of the location, by saying “…Persarmenians and Sounitai, who are neighbours of the Alans.[50] The Suans were just to the north of the heartland Georgia. This takes the Alans to the west plains.

As for Procopius, however, I must underline my suspect about his total neglect of mentioning the Bulgars. With the Huns he usually means the Sabiroi (the Huns above the Sagiani cited just above are seemingly the Utigurs, about which Prokopius provides the most information locating them exactly in the same land), and he mentions about the Alans with a great care in every case. For instance, “many barbarian allies from the tribe of the Alans” were included in a Persian contingent against the Romans.[51] Sabirs and Alans were mercenaries on the side of the Persians, and the emperor Tiberius offered to their envoys to pay for double to get them in the Roman side.[52]

Some other authors also continue mentioning Alans in that location. According to Agathias of the same days, the Alans were near Lazica.[53] The proximity of the Alans to Abkhazia and Suania is the best told by Menandros in his description of the return way of the Byzantine ambassador Zemarchos.[54] He was sent to the Kök Türks in 576. Interestingly, nor the Kök Türks in the second half of the 6^th century remember or need to mention the name of the Bulgars: “Turxanthus said: Consider wretches, the Alan nation and also the tribe of the Unigurs. Full of confidence and trusting in their own strength they faced the invincible might of the Turks.”[55] The conquest of the northern half of the Caucasus by the Kök Türks between 572 and 576 was briefly attributed to the destruction of the Alan power there[56], while the Onogurs were far from the scene, on the lower Don basin. Just as, the Avars fleeing from the Kök Türks “came to the Alans and begged Sarosius, the leader of the Alans, that he bring them to the attention of the Romans.”[57] So, the Alans were then the hegemon power in the North Caucasus in the mid-6^th century.

We are not sure whether the Byzantine authors oversimplified the accounts, but the same view as the Kök Türks of briefing the North Caucasus around the name of the Alans is seen also in Procopius, who wrote just before the Kök Türk invasion. He says “the country that extends from the Caucasus range to the Caspian Gates is held by the Alans, an autonomous nation, who are the most part allied with the Persians and march against the Romans and their other enemies.”[58] So, if we believe Procopius, all the plains to the north of the Caucasus from the borders of the Circassian tribes in the west to the Caspian coasts in the east were held and populated by the Alans, in contrast to Khorenac’i, giving the same territories only to the Bulgars.[59]

Something is wrong with these accounts. There should be some space for non-Alanic peoples. Not only Huns and Alans, but also other ‘barbarians’ were considered dangerous for the common interests of the Romans and Persians in those days, as stated in the first item of an agreement between them likely in 562: “Through the pass at the place called Tzon and through the Caspian Gates Persians shall not allow the Huns or Alans or other barbarians access to the Roman Empire.”[60]

We have an account for the year 460 that may be referring to the case under our scrutiny. According to the History of the Albanians,

“The king of Albania, however had no desire to submit to him (Peroz the Sassanian) as a vassal, but threw open the gate of Čołay and led in the forces of the Mask’ut’k’; he allied himself to the eleven mountain kings, opposed the Aryan army in battle and inflicted great losses upon the royal forces… When they knew that neither force nor persuasion could win him over, they sent a mighty amount of treasure to the land of the Xaylandurk’, opened the Alan Gates, and bringing in a large force of Huns, battled for a whole year against the king of Albania.”[61]

The Xaylandur Huns invited by the Persians against the Albanian-Massaget alliance came from the Alan Gates. So, they were likely different from the Dagestani Huns and were likely Bulgars or Bulgaro-Huns.

Well, although the earliest records do not locate the Alans proper to the north of the Caucasus, and although we are informed that some other peoples conquered by the Alans assumed their names during the first three centuries AD, we cannot reject the presence of ethnic or proper Alans in the region at all. At least, some parts or a bulk of the Alans living in the east of Volga, whose country was invaded by the Huns ca. 360, might have migrated or exiled to the lands of their subjects in the Caucasus, while the avant-garde (western) Alans encountered the Huns on the Don basin. The former group likely represent the line connecting the current Ossetes to the Iranic-speaking peoples of Western Central Asia. And before their migration to the region, the Bulgars were prominent and significant in the Caucasus as reflected in the accounts of Moses Khorenac’i and of Liber Generationis.

To what degree the Alanisation process mentioned by A. Marcellinus, which does not necessarily include a linguistic assimilation of the subjected peoples, influenced the Caucasian Bulgar population is not certain; however, we can extract from the later Alano-Bulgaric association, which was reflected even upon the Hungarian annals of the 13^th century[62], that they cohabited the North Caucasian plains together, and likely acted also together in many operations, thus causing some misidentifications in the sources. If a settlement of the Alans proper in the Caucasus during the early centuries AD is doubtful, then we can identify the actors of some events attributed to them with the other peoples in the region, who were closer to the South Caucasus, like the Massagets, Bulgars and the Huns proper, if not they were not the White Huns, as claimed by some authors.[63]

After that period, in the post-Hunnic days during the 5^th and 6^th centuries, the Massagets, Huns proper, Alans and Bulgars continued occupying the North Caucasian plains. The new-coming Sabirs were seemingly in the north of the Huns, in the Northwest Caspian coastal region. We may presume periodical strengthening of the Alans and Bulgars, but it is very difficult to suggest a chronology. For a while, the Alans might have got stronger during the second half of the 6^th century[64], for the Bulgars are invisible during the Kök Türk epoch, while the 7^th century was the time of the Bulgars by the 670s, until they lost all before the Khazars. In the same way, we may presume a periodical rise of the Bulgar might during the late 5^th and early 6^th centuries, because they continuously appeared in more westerly affairs connected with Byzantium and the Goths in the Balkans, beginning in the year 482.

To return back to the Georgian record about the ‘Ossetic’ wars in 450 and 456, an Alanic power does not seem to have existed in those years capable of carrying out the expedition in 450 independently, and for a ‘dependent’ expedition, carried out by the orders of the Hunnic hegemons, the Bulgars seem to be a better nominee, since they continued similar acts in the succeeding years.

Indeed, we have the accounts of an expedition of the Hun troops to the Sassanian Iran through the Darband Gates, in the same time as the “Ossetes” attacked Georgia. Repressions of the Persian authorities over Christianity in Armenia and Albania provoked a number of insurrections, the most notable of which was that of 449–451, led by Vardan II, the prince of the Mamikonids.[65] He is described in the old Armenian books as the victor of 42 battles until his death, mostly under the Sassanid service.[66] Making use of the occasion of the Central Asia expeditions of the Persians containing bloody wars with the Ephthalites/ White Huns[67], the Armenians rebelled against the Sassanian administration mostly on religious grounds, and appealed for the Hunnic assistance.

An Alban record implies that it was not the Armenians alone that started the events as a reaction to the Persians: “In the days of the impious Yazkert (Yazdgard II, 438–459), Satan incited and urged him to destroy the Christian religion, and Albania received the strict command to abandon the Faith and submit to the Magian sect of fire-worshippers.” The Albanians rejected it and called for the help of the Armenians, by saying “The Persian force which was in the land of the Honk’ has returned and has penetrated into our country with many other cavalrymen from the court.”[68] The second sentence should indicate, in my view, that the Persian army started to crush the rebellion firstly in Albania. If the Persian court launched an anti-Christian campaign, Albania naturally would not be exempted from the pressure, since it had also no particular relations with the Sassanians as did the Armenians, in contrast to the Georgians, to whom the Sassanian court was relatively tolerant as for Christianity.

The uprising lasted for about two years and has several steps. The Armenians were mostly successful and victorious, but the Persian mind solved the question to a great degree thanks to the betrayal of Vasak Syuni, a pro-Persian Armenian prince, and consequently those Armenian victories came to almost nothing.[69] The rebel Armenians were too late to call the Huns[70], who came only after the calamitous defeat of the Armenians headed by Vardan Mamikonian by the Persian forces in Avarair (May 26, 451). The Huns came to take their revenge in a sense. According to Ajvazjan, the rebel Armenians did not lose their hopes and order after the Avarair defeat, and continued their struggle, especially from the Karabagh region, where they based themselves after the defeat.[71]

Thus, the Huns to the north of the Caucasus replied them positively and the Armeno-Hun alliance defeated the Persians (451):

“[The Armenians] sent into the land of the Huns, and stirred up the troops of the latter country, reminding them of their treaty entered into with the Armenians, and of the inviolable oath which they had sword. This speech they all rejoiced to hear; and they were even displeased that the Christians had not come to them before the battle, in order that, as formerly, they might have undertaken some enterprise together. They then assembled a large army and broke into the Persian kingdom, where they laid waste various provinces, and made very many prisoners, whom they carried over into their country.”[72]

The Hunnic assistance was late, but not in vain. The Persians had to shift their troops to counter them, and the Armenians were relaxed to some degree.[73] According to the History of the Albanians, the Armenians went to the Huns after their preliminary victory:

“Many of the Albanian nobles and peasants, who for the sake of God’s name had been scattered and driven into the mountain strongholds of the Caucasus, saw the great victory won by the Armenian army and came and joined them, mixed with the soldiers and allied themselves to their struggle. Then they set off to the Gate of the Honk’ which the Persians held by force, captured and destroyed the fortress, annihilated the soldiers stationed inside, and entrusted the Gate to a certain Vardan who was of the family of the Albanian kings… They sent the same man who had been entrusted with the gate as an ambassador to the land of the Honk’ in order to speak with them and establish an inviolable treaty of alliance. When the Honk’ heard what had happened, they made haste thither and witnessed their success with their own eyes; and they swore by the laws of the heavens and accepted the oath of the Christians to maintain a firm alliance, thus fulfilling all their desires… Vasak heard of the triumphant arrival of the brave Vardan and of the alliance between the Honk’ and the Albanians, and fleeing before his countenance and suffering ill fortune on account of his evil conduct, he found no mercy from God.”[74]

The Armenian account above reveals that the Huns had at least one common case with the Armenians against the Persians before the year 450, just before the Armenian rebellion. We are informed about it by Priscus, who tells about the intention of Attila to make an expedition onto Persia, which was learned by the Roman envoys in 448: “He was aiming at more than his present achievements and, in order to increase his empire further, he wanted to attack Persia.”[75] His plans should not be explained with a simple passion of conquering more and more lands, especially when he was so busy in Europe. Priscus narrates, concerning the plans of Attila to invade Persia, that the Huns “were not ignorant of the route (to Persia)”, since they came once to the Persian lands under their leaders Basich and Kursich.[76] Sozomenus mentions about the same event with similar figures (i.e. crossing Tanais, invading the Greater Armenia etc.), in the time of the emperor Arcadius (395–408).[77] So, the reference of Priscus should normally be related to the famous 395 expedition mentioned widely by the Armenian and Syriac sources, but the Huns or any other people of the north did not need, of course, to keep the memories of an expedition organized some 50 years ago, in order to have the route information. Just as, according to Egishe, the last Persian expedition to the east (441–449), just before the rebellion was organized because the Romans seemed to be voluntary to keep the peace and the Huns (Xailandur) ceased to cross the Darband Pass.[78] This means that the Huns did the same in a few cases at least, if not annual and habitual, at least by the year 441, and little skirmishes continued during the 440s, making Attila enraged and letting the Huns contact the Armenians.

Therefore, it seems there was a continuous tension and prolonged warfare between the Persians and Huns before 450 that irritated Attila insofar as to organize a great campaign. Who started it, apart from the half a century old enmity, we do not know[79], as we do not know also to what degree we should connect and unify the deeds of the White Huns with those of the European Huns. It would be a great fantasy to presume that the former were at least nominally vassals of the latter, and that Attila of Central Europe was enraged by the Persian expeditions in Central Asia.[80] However, it is certain that the Persians were waging war simultaneously with both Huns in the (southern) Caucasus and Central Asia, and in one of them the Huns attacked Persia in the east of the Caspian Sea in 445–446.[81]

Attila was so serious in his anti-Persian plans that, despite he was preparing a great campaign to Gallia, he ordered likely his eastern troops to march onto Persia through the Caspian gates. Such a great campaign of the Caucasian Huns should not have been organized without informing the supreme ruler. Perhaps, the very eagerness to help of the Hun authorities reflected upon the words recorded by Egishe that “they were even displeased that the Christians had not come to them before the battle” shows they took the orders of Attila earlier, and the Armenian rebellion became an opportunity for them to make the decided expedition in a better ambiance, however, without presence of Attila. Otherwise, as shown by the account of Egishe that the Huns ceased raids through the Darband Pass likely as for the year 449, by freeing the Persians in their eastern front, Attila and his Huns would continue to delay the Persian expedition until they solve the West European affairs in a satisfactory mean.

Under these conditions, it is very hard to credit the account of the Georgian chronicle about the Ossete attack onto Georgia. It seems it was indeed a Hun onslaught on Persia, which then controlled both modern Georgia and Azerbaijan, the historical Albania. The succeeding events in the same chronicle can also be explained within the Hunnic framework and would confirm our idea. A parallel account to the 456 counterattack of Vaxt’ang to the north does not seem to exist in the Armenian or other records, thus it should be a local case. Those were difficult days for the Huns, who had started to dismember and melt in a fast process. Attila died in 453 and his son and successor Ellak[82] lived only one year after him, being killed by a Germanic coalition on a battlefield. The second son of Attila, Dengizik[83] took the initiative and tried to refresh the Hun might in Central Europe. In his efforts, his small brother Ernek[84] did not support him with the pretext of ongoing wars in his own territory.[85] This account seems to be connected with the developments in the late 460s. Apparently, Ernek was distant from his elder brother, who acted in the mid and lower Danube basin; so Ernek cannot be in a westerly point, but in the east of at least the Danube delta. It is not difficult to guess that the Ogurs coming to the Don basin c.463 to hit the Huns from behind were the source of mentioned trouble for the Ernek horde.[86]

We luckily have the name of the Hunnic leader on the front: Herhan/Heran:

“Heran had slaughtered the Persian troops in Albania and had raided the land of the Greeks, carrying off many prisoners and much plunder from the Greeks, Armenians, Georgians, and Albanians.”[87]

Thomson reads it as ‘Heran’. Association of this name with that of Ernek through a metathesis in the second syllable may be encouraging, however, a better idea might be to accept the Armenian form as the bare form of the name and to suggest a diminutive -Vk at its end to get (H)erän-ak > (H)ernäk > Ernäk.[88] Egishe does not mention his rank, but it is clear that he was the highest authority of the nearby Huns to contact in international affairs, as the pro-Persian and hypocrite Armenian ruler Vasak did. Both as the ultimate authority at home and commander-in-chief at the field, he seems to be a good candidate to be a son of Attila reigning over the eastern dominions of the empire. It seems he did not omit the Roman lands, besides the South Caucasian provinces of the Persians, to inflict harms in his capacity, in accordance with his father’s anti-Roman military activities in those days.

Now, we know well about the turmoil in which the European Huns fell after the successive deaths of Attila and Ellak respectively in 453 and 454. Being informed about those distant developments and waiting for a while to be sure, the Persians might have launched a counter-attack to the Caucasian realms of the Huns, and the Georgian vassal king might have been commissioned, in his part, to go on the Darial Gates in 456, while the main Persian army was to use the Darband Pass. This is what exactly the Georgian chronicle tells about. It is greatly probable that the Georgians were successful to some degree, as recited in the chronicle, for the Huns were busy in the east to counter the Persians. We do not know about consequences of those punitive expeditions of the Sassanians and their allies, indeed we know nothing about the Persian expedition; however, if happened, it was surely not very efficacious. The Huns were standing and looking for ways out to overcome the Sassanian threat. A few years later, in 460, “a prince from the Attila descent, Bel by name, went to the eastern (White) Huns to provoke them against Persia”.[89] If the prince was of the Attila sibling, then the ruler who charged him to the eastern mission was also of the same lineage. That ruler was likely Herhan/Heran, and we have only Ernek to match him. Since Ernek was seemingly a teenager during the visit of Priscus to the court of Attila, he should be born c. 430. In 460, he was to be at his 30s at most. Because of it, Bel is difficult to be of his sibling, but was likely another son of Attila from another -secondary rank- wife.

Thompson thinks that the fate of Ernek remains unknown, and he died likely “an obscure mercenary in the service of the Eastern Empire” in the borderlands.[90] He represents the mainstream of the current scholarship, which seems to be bounded by the account of Jordanes, who says that the remaining Huns under the rule of Ernek, the third and youngest son of Attila, retreated to “a home in the most distant part of Lesser Scythia”.[91] We cannot understand here a restricted Dobrugea (Scythia Minor in the ancient geography), but somewhere in the distant east of it. Just as, an alliance under the Sciri had conquered those lands just after the Nedao Battle in 454, when Ellak died, according to the same Jordanes.[92] Thus, the Huns of Ernek came back to the eastern parts of the Black Sea steppes and even perhaps to the Kuban basin, as their olden abodes. In another place, the same author defines their borders: “The remnant (of the Huns) turned in flight and sought the parts of Scythia which border on the stream of the river Danaper (Dnieper), which the Huns call in their own tongue the Var.”[93]

Those parts were not borders of Rome. Thus, Ernek seems to have retreated to the Dnieper banks, as the westernmost point, and perhaps to further east. Perhaps, the withdrawal was not even connected with the defeats, but with the partition of the Hunnic empire among the sons of Attila just after his death. Ernek clearly took the eastern half.[94] If we think in terms of the military defeats, retreating to the east, namely to the Caucasus was almost the only preferable option for the Ernek horde.[95] For his luck, the hostile Germanic tribes never tried to pass beyond the river Prut, and when the Sassanians and Georgians attacked to his easternmost domains in the Caucasus in 456, he had to focus on that front at least between 456 and 460. And when the Ogurs came from Central Asia and conquered the Don basin in 463, Ernek simply lost the western half of his country, thus also the possibility to respond the call of his elder brother Dengizik.

Therefore, the events in the Caucasus between 450 and 460 can be explained within the Hunnic framework and this in retro would be a proof for how Ernek the Hun became the first ruler of the Bulgars, just after the legendary Avitoxol[96], who clearly represents Attila, according to the Nominalia of the Bulgar Khans.[97] I’m aware of the rejections to the identification of Avitoxol with Attila,[98] however, not only the chronology of the events, but also the form ‘Avitoxol’ itself supports the Nominalia. Simply, if the Bulgars adopted a Hunnic dynastic tradition based on legends, as did the medieval Hungarian intellectuals and politicians, then the Nominalia would have a form of the name closer to the early Greek or Latin forms, preferably to the Greek occurrences. Thus the Hungarian Latin annals copied the name of Attila from European sources, while the compilers of the Nominalia referred only to their own knowledge likely based on oral traditions.

So, the Georgian chronicle seems to mention about a certain case, sufficiently told by the contemporary Armenian sources. We need, however, only to change the names of the actors to fit the scenario. In accordance with the plans of Attila to invade Persia, the Huns should have started their - mostly secret- activities from at least mid-440s, seen the Armenian question within the Sassanid realm and looked for ways to make use of it. It is not baseless to suppose that the long-during trouble of the Armenians started to turn to a wish for rebellion, being encouraged by the Hun missions, who had agreed to act together, although it was not applied well and timely on the ground during the 449–451 rebellion.

The accounts of the next generation in the same scene would cement this judgement of us on the identification of the actors of the 451 expedition, who were likely the “ruling Huns and subject Bulgars”, and would enlighten the transition process to the making of the “Hunno-Bulgars”, who eventually evolved to the “Bulgars”.

Most of the mainstream historians are of the idea that the word Bulgar in its clearest sense occurs first time in 482[99], on the occasion of the appeal of Byzantium against the Goths:

“And the united forces of the two Theoderics devastated Roman territory again and pillages the cities in Thrace so that Zeno was forced for the first time to form an alliance with the so-called Bulgars. When Theoderic, the son of Triarius, was successful in waging war against the Huns, he advanced against Constantinople and would easily have taken it if Illus had not occupied the gates first and guarded them.”[100]

What is “the first time” is not a contact with the Bulgars, but the alliance. The Bulgars are depicted here as a familiar and known people. The succeeding reference to the Huns may let us formulise such an identity as “the Huns known as Bulgars in those days”. Whatever their dominant name then was, forces of this North Caucasian people were busy and active in the Balkans in 482, when the Armenians and Albanians, now backed by the Georgians, decided once again to revolt against the Sassanians.

According to Łazar P‘arpec‘i, it was the rebellion of the Georgian king Vaxt’ang against his eternal lords Persians that encouraged “pious” Armenians to start a simultaneous uprising. Vaxt’ang was not alone and had invited the Huns to help him. Those were the days for Vahan Mamikonian, son of the prince Vardan killed that was 31 years ago. Vahan had just visited the Sasanian court and presented and evidenced his allegiance, but was in distress in a position between the Sassanid pressures and Christianity. Vahan reminded those wanting to revolt that many Armenians had betrayed their own nation and belief in the time of Vardan, and that the Romans were lazy and the Huns were not certain to come to help the Armenians, while Georgia was an insignificant country. The rebels replied they trusted only in God, and not the Romans or Huns.[101] The context is very interesting. While the majority of the modern historians think only about a Hun polity that does not exist at all in 480s, the Armenian policy-makers of those days count the Hun power in balance with the Romans, and well above the Georgians.

It seems the Armenian rebels were not well aware of the international situation, when they requested Vaxt’ang to send them some Huns as he once promised. The Georgian king assembled some 300 Hunnic troops and sent to Armenia, however, called back them soon.[102] When the Armenian and Georgian armies came together on the banks of the Kura basin to counter the Persian army, Vaht’ang continued to embroider the Armenians with false news about the coming of the Huns, who were indeed not to come and the Armenians were deceived by Vaht’ang.[103] So the battle ended in the full defeat of the tiny alliance. [104] Thus, the Caucasian Hunnic assistance was only a rumour and trigger of the Georgians, or maybe insufficient as Toumanoff claims[105], but indeed the other Huns, i.e. the White Huns helped the Armenians by making the major forces of the Persians busy in the east. Those wars marked eventually the salvation of the South Caucasus from the Persian yoke, when the shah Peroz was killed by the White Huns in 484.[106]

Briefly, the Huns did not participate – effectively – in the 482 wars in the South Caucasus, but it is significant and meaningful to read them as a potential and prominent actor of those days in the words of Łazar P‘arpec‘i, who wrote under the auspices of Vahan Mamikonean, thus surely better reflecting not only the concerning events, but also the backstage. There is no any difference between the Huns of 451 and 482 in the texts; the same people in the same lands. They would come to help, likely promised Vaxt’ang to do it, but could or did not come. Was it because they went to another front?

At this point, I dare to match the Huns of 482 mentioned in Georgia with the Hunno-Bulgars of 482 mentioned in the Balkans. Those entities were indeed one and same formation. It was almost impossible for Byzantium to deal with the eastern affairs at that moment, because the empire was busy in the Balkans with the Goths of two Theoderics and was itself in need of assistance, even from the distant Hunno-Bulgars as “the first time”.

Such a reconstruction of the events as they seem to me as for our current knowledge is plausible: Bulgars just to the north of the Central Caucasus had been lived under the Hun Empire, together with many other native or steppe origin peoples. When the great empire collapsed in a few years, Ernek, the youngest son of Attila withdrew to the eastern half of the remaining parts of the empire, likely given to him as a heritage. When the northern parts of his share were occupied by the Ogurs c. 463, Ernek remained as throttled in the plains to the north of the Caucassian ranges. The Bulgars were a prominent, perhaps the most prominent tribe under his rule, and perhaps and likely he lost control over the other peoples around in the course of time, and the Bulgars were the only people remaining in his hands and under his sway. Whatever the details of the ethno-politic process are, the Hun state continued under Ernek and his successors, relying upon the population composed of the Bulgars and the remnants of the Huns proper. The Bulgars constituted the majority, and the Huns proper mixed with them in a few generations. The rise of the Bulgar ethnie continued in the later generations, by annexing also some other Hunnic or Eurasiansteppe peoples and tribes, like the Utigurs and Ultinzurs. Therefore, we should be more careful of the Byzantine literary usage of the generic term ‘Hun’; many accounts about the Huns from those ages, after the collapse of the Attila state, may not contain such generic meanings as we perceive, and may point to a real Hunnic presence.

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[1] Kartlis Tskhovreba. A History of Georgia. Eds.: D. Gamq’relidze, R. Met’reveli, S. Jones. Tbilisi: Artanuji Publishing, 2014, p. 80.

[2] Robert W. Thomson. Rewriting Caucasian History: The Medieval Armenian Adaptation of the Georgian Chronicles. Oxford: OUP, 1996, p. 161.

[3] Cyrill Toumanoff. Studies in Christian Caucasian History. Washington: Georgetown University Press, 1963, p. 362.

[4] Kartlis Tskhovreba. Op. cit., p. 84; Robert W. Thomson. Op. cit., p. 169; Agustí Alemany. Sources on the Alans. A Critical Compilation. Leiden–Boston–Köln: Brill, 2000, 316–317.

[5] Heroic imagery reminiscent of The Life of Vaxtang is applied to the 4^th century Babik of Siwnik‛ in Movsēs Dasxuranci’s History of the Caucasian Albanians. Ed. C. J. F. Dowsett. London: Oxford University Press, 1961, p. 113. The Christian Babik engaged in single combat on horseback against the Hun “giant” (hskay) Honagur on behalf of Šāpūr II (309–379). A record in Agathias of the late 6^th century may imply the same event: “The Romans, at the instance of Martin, started immediatery to make hasty preparations with a view to mounting a full-scale attack against the Persians at Onoguris. Onoguris was the ancient name of the place and may have arisen as the result of an encounter at some time in the past between a branch of the Huns called the Onoguri and the Colchians in which the latter were victorious, the local inhabitants then commemorating the success by naming the spot after it. Nowadays, however, most people do not use this name.” (Agathias. The Histories. Trans. J. D. Frendo. Berlin–New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1975, p. 72). The event seems to be historical, however, Agathias is not likely true in his identification of the name as a proper one. The Onogurs, together with the Saragurs, both composing the Ogur union, came to the Don banks p. 463 and sent envoys to Constantinopolis. After that, Priscus informs us about the aggressions of the Saragurs onto the Akatziri in the Pontic forest-steppe lands, on the one hand, and Persia on the other hand. It is not very intelligible that the two Oguric branch sent to Constantinopolis a common ambassador, implying a common or superior authority or will above them, but the same Priscus mentions only about the activities of the Saragurs (R. C. Blockley. The Fragmentary Classicising Historians of the Later Roman Empire: Eunapius, Olympiodorus, Priscus and Malchus -II-. Liverpool: Francis Cairns, 1983, p. 345, 353). There is nothing to prevent us from thinking that the Onogurs, their brother tribesmen, were also included in that incursion into Persia, and their name remained in the local/Georgian memories to reach ultimately to Agathias.

[6] ΠAKAΘAP is attested in an Old Ossetic inscription – written in Greek characters – of the 10^th/11^th century found along the Zelenčuk River. Ladislav Zgusta. The Old Ossetic Inscription from the River Zelenčuk. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1987, p. 58.

[7] According to Stephen H. Jr. Rapp, as late as the 9^th century, Georgians openly admired Iran as “the land of heroes and giants.” (Stephen H. Jr. Rapp. The Iranian Heritage of Georgia: Breathing New Life into The Pre-Bagratid Historiographical Tradition. – Iranica Antiqua, vol. XLIV, 2009, p. 683). The text itself seems to have formed under a strong Iranian influence, especially referring to Bahrām V Gōr, Vaxt’ang’s contemporary (Stephen H. Jr. Stephen H. Jr. Rapp. The Sasanian World through Georgian Eyes. Caucasia and the Iranian Commonwealth in Late Antique Georgian Literature, London–New York: Routledge, 2016, p. 271). Pre- Bagratid historians describe Kartvelian social structures and kingship in Iranian-like terms, an image consistent with ancient and early medieval eastern Georgia’s actual association with the Iranian Commonwealth (Stephen H. Jr. Rapp. The Iranian Heritage of Georgia…, 681–682). Just as, the captivated sister of Vaxt’ang would later be a wife of the Iranian shah Xosrov (Kartlis Tskhovreba. A History of Georgia…, p. 97; Robert W. Thomson. Rewriting Caucasian History…, p. 201).

[8] Kartlis Tskhovreba. A History of Georgia…, p. 98; Robert W. Thomson. Rewriting Caucasian History…, p. 203.

[9] Kartlis Tskhovreba. A History of Georgia…, p. 109; Robert W. Thomson. Rewriting Caucasian History…, p. 235.

[10] George Ostrogorsky. History of the Byzantine State. Trans. J. Hussey. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1968, p. 103.

[11] Stephen H. Jr. Rapp. The Iranian Heritage of Georgia…, p. 651.

[12] Cyrill Toumanoff. Studies in Christian Caucasian History…, p. 25, 258.

[13] Stephen H. Jr. Rapp. The Sasanian World through Georgian Eyes…, p. 271.

[14] Ammianus Marcellinus. Trans. John C. Rolfe. Vol III. London: William Heinemann, 1986, p. 395 (XXXI/3/1); Agustí Alemany. Sources on the Alans…, p. 39; Otto J., Maenchen-Helfen. The World of the Huns. Studies in Their History and Culture, Berkeley–Los Angeles–London: University of California Press, 1973, p. 18–20.

[15] Otto J., Maenchen-Helfen. The World of the Huns…, p. 19, 22, 42–43, 71.

[16] Despite Васил Златарски. История на българската държава през средните векове. I/1. Sofia: Izd. Nauka i Izkustvo, 1970, p. 59, who asserts his doubts about that the borders of Attila rule extended to the east of Don, and who believes that the Huns remaining in the Don-Volga-Caucasus triangle shaped likely another polity. As will be seen below, Attila had the great passion of invading Iran, and his domain was likely adjacent to Persia on the Caucasus and perhaps also in the east of the Caspian Sea.

[17] Agustí Alemany. Sources on the Alans…, p. 90. The accounts in Khorenac’i about the Alanic incursions onto Armenia (191–195) seems to be anachronic, regarding the chronology of Artashes I, who ruled ca. 188–159 BC. (Op. cit., p. 289). They might represent false quotations from Josephus.

[18] The ‘Alanic’ incursions were repeated for many times after that, and turned, it seems, to be a process. According to Suetonius, Vologeses, king of the Parthians asked for reinforcements against the Alans from the Romans under Vespasian (Op. cit., p. 22). It was probably for the 72/3 AD incursions.

[19] Ibid., p. 91.

[20] Ibid., 91–92; Josephus. The Jewish War. Books IV–VII. Trans. H. St. J. Thackeray. Vol III. London: William Heinemann, 1961, p. 575 (VII/vii/4). Ammianus Marcellinus seems to have copied Josephus by saying “They pillage and hunt as far as the Maeotic marches and the Cimmerian Bosporus, and they also roam all around as far as Armenia and Media.” (Ammianus Marcellinus. Ed. Rolfe, III, p. 393 (31/2/21); Agustí Alemany. Sources on the Alans…, p. 36).

[21] Agustí Alemany. Sources on the Alans…, p. 14, 21, 29.

[22] The Natural History of Pliny. Tr. John Bostock and Henry Thomas Riley. Vol I. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1855, p. 329 (IV/25).

[23] János Harmatta. Studies in the History and Language of the Sarmatians. Szeged: Szeged University Press, 1970, 64–65.

[24] Claudius Ptolemy. The Geography. Trans. E. L. Stevenson. Toronto: Dover, 1991, p. 80 (II/5), 121 (V/8), 144 (V/14).

[25] Ammianus Marcellinus. Ed. Rolfe, III, p. 391 (XXX/2/17).

[26] Ibid., p. 389 (XXXI/2/13), 391 (XXXI/2/17). This process of Alanisation is, however, not to include the more antique nations of the East European steppe and forest-steppe lands such as Nervii, Vidini, Geloni, Agathyrsi, Melanchlaenae and Anthropophagi, as suggested by Burgersdijk, Diederik, Creating the Enemy: Ammianus Marcellinus’ Double Digression on Huns and Alans (“Res Gestae” 31.2). – Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, LIX/1 (2016), p. 117, but some parts of the adjacent peoples of Turkic or Iranian origin migrating from Western Turkistan to the north of the Caspian and Caucasus became Alans willy-nilly.

[27] Ammianus Marcellinus. Ed. Rolfe, III, p. 391 (XXXI/2/17).

[28] In contrast to the popular belief, made by some overall suggestions of earlier scholars, the concerning sources always differentiate between them and mention the Alans and Asi in neighbourhood, and not in an ethnic association. See the monograph of Üren for a comparative scrutiny of the Alan and as question: Umut Üren. Avrasya’nın Bozkır Halkları Alanlar ve Aslar. Ankara: Akçağ, 2018.

[29] Ammianus Marcellinus. Ed. Rolfe, II, respectively p. 343 (XXVIII/5/16) and 235 (XXVII/ 8/38).

[30] Agustí Alemany. Sources on the Alans…, p. 45.

[31] Анатолий П. Новосельцев. Хазарское государство и его роль в истории Восточной Европы и Кавказа. Москва: Наука, 1990, p. 92.

[32] Prokopios. The Wars of Justinian. Trans. H. B. Dewing and A. Kaldellis. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2014, p. 169.

[33] Анатолий Новосельцев. Хазарское государство…, p. 92.

[34] Dio’s Roman History -IX-. Trans. Earnest Cary. London: William Heinemann, 1925, p. 451, 453; Agustí Alemany. Sources on the Alans…, p. 84.

[35] Moses Khorenats’i, History of the Armenians. Trans. R. W. Thomson. Cambridge–London: Harvard University Press, 1978, p. 145.

[36] Ibid., p. 135.

[37] The Vanands were among the rebels in 449–451 against Persia (The History of Łazar P‘arpec‘i. Trans. Robert W. Thomson. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991, p. 119). A throne deed of the early Armenian nakharars places the Vanands in the 17^th rank among 70 families, and it is a witness of the honourable place of them among the Armenians (Цветелин Степанов. Българите от най-древни времена до втората половина на VII век. – In: История на българите. Т. 1. Ed. Г. Бакалов. София: Знание, 2003, p. 75). Stepanov believes that the regions Balk and Bulgar occur in the History of the Albanians (Op. cit., p. 77). The former region is, however, in the province Siwnik/Sisakan in the South of modern Armenia, and the latter is even to the east of it, in modern Karabagh (Robert H. Hewsen. The Geography of Ananias of Širak (Ašxarhac‘oyc‘). The Long and Short Recensions. Introduction, Translation and Commentary. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1992, p. 65A, 190–192).

[38] Цветелин Степанов. Българите от най-древни…, p. 28, 54. Having come there before the Huns, and likely under the pressure of the Huns, as systematised by Васил Гюзелев. Произход, прародина, етимология на името и най-ранна история на българите до края на VI в. – In: История на средновековна България VII–XIV век. Eds. Ив. Божилов, В. Гюзелев. София: 1999, p. 74.

[39] Robert H. Hewsen. The Geography of Ananias of Širak (Ašxarhac‘oyc‘)…, p. 55, 110.

[40] Васил Гюзелев. Произход, прародина, етимология…, p. 78. He suggests the Bulgars came there before the Huns, and likely under the pressure of the Huns (Op. cit., p. 74).

[41] See for instance В.Ф. Генинг, А.Х. Халиков. Ранние болгары на Волге (Больше-Тарханский могильник). Москва: Наука, 1964, 104–105.

[42] Theodore Mommsen. Über den Chronographen von J. 354. – In: Abhadlungen der Philologischen Classe der Königlich Sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften. Leipzig: 1850, p. 591. For a thorough analysis of the source and the famous sentence “Ziezi ex quo Vulgares”, see: Osman Karatay. “The Bulgars in Transoxiana: Some Inferences from Early Islamic Sources”. Migracijske i Etničke Teme, XXV/1–2 (2009), 69–72.

[43] Robert H. Hewsen. The Geography of Ananias of Širak (Ašxarhac‘oyc‘)…, p. 55.

[44] The Chronicle of Pseudo-Zachariah Rhetor. Church and War in Late Antiquity. Ed. G. Greatex, R. R. Phenix. C. B. Horn. Liverpool: 2011, 447–448; Zachariah. The Syriac Chronicle Known as That of Zachariah of Mitylene. Eds. F. J. Hamilton, E. W. Brooks. London: 1899, p. 328.

[45] Károly Czeglédy. Pseudo-Zacharias Rhetor on the Nomads. – In: Studia Turcica. Ed. Lajos Ligeti. Budapest: 1971, p. 138, for instance, suggests it was taken from a Greek Άβασγων form, by affirming the edition of Hamilton and Brooks.

[46] Robert H. Hewsen. The Geography of Ananias of Širak (Ašxarhac‘oyc‘)…, 120–121.

[47] Occurring as the name of a kingdom in Movsēs Dasxuranci. The History of the Caucasian Albanians…, p. 67. The Armenian Geography lists the region among the 13 South Caucasian provinces of Persia (Robert H. Hewsen. The Geography of Ananias of Širak (Ašxarhac‘oyc‘)…, p. 72).

[48] Agustí Alemany. Sources on the Alans…, p. 393. He refers to the place name occurring in the inscription of the Sassanian shah Šāpūr I (243–273) (Op. cit., p. 342).

[49] Prokopios. The Wars of Justinian…, p. 468.

[50] Ibid., p. 37.

[51] Ibid., p. 463.

[52] Menander Protector. The History of Menander the Guardsman. Trans. R. C. Blockley. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1985, p. 163.

[53] Agathias. The Histories…, p. 82, 85.

[54] Menander Protector. The History of Menander the Guardsman…, p. 125, 127.

[55] Ibid., p. 175.

[56] According to Theophanes of Byzantium, the Suvars were on the Byzantine side during the 572 war, while the Alans were supporting the empire (Agustí Alemany. Sources on the Alans…, p. 205). This may be commented in such a way that they were independent then and the Kök Türks did not invade their territories yet.

[57] Menander Protector. The History of Menander the Guardsman…, p. 49.

[58] Prokopios. The Wars of Justinian…, p. 467.

[59] Referring to the catacomb tombs, Rouche posits that the Alans lived in the region between Kuban and Terek to the Darial Pass, and qualifies them as the main group remaining at home (Michel Rouche. Attila. La violence nomade. Paris: Fayard, 2009, p. 310, 319). Catacombs were, however, not an ethnic signifier of the Alans.

[60] Menander Protector. The History of Menander the Guardsman…, p. 71.

[61] Movsēs Dasxuranci. The History of the Caucasian Albanians…, p. 9; Eḷishē. History of Vardan and the Armenian War. Trans. Robert W. Thomson. Cambridge (Mass.)–London: Harvard University Press, 1982, p. 242.

[62] “(Hunor and Mogor, sons of Nimrod) went out, and when by chance they discovered that the wives and children of the sons of Belar were camped in tents in a lonely place without their menfolk, they carried them off with all their belongings as fast as they could into the Meotis marches. Two daughters of Dula, prince of the Alans, happened to be among the children who were seized. Hunor took one of them in marriage and Mogor the other, and to these women all the Huns owe their origin.” (Simon Kézai. The Deeds of the Hungarians. Ed. László Veszprémy, Frank Schaer, Jenő Szűcs. Budapest: CEU Press, 1999, p. 17). ‘Belar’ refers to the Bulgar in the east (the Great Bulgar or the one on Volga) and Dula is the name of the longduring dynasty of the Proto-Bulgars (Gyula Németh. A Honfoglaló Magyarság Kialakulása. Budapest: Hornyánszky Viktor, 1930, 173–174). Therefore, the name Alan seems as a folk name to be embedded into the Bulgar ethnie.

[63] Cf. Edward A. Thompson. A History of Attila and the Huns. Oxford: Clarendon, 1948, p. 21.

[64] Who knows, perhaps the interesting sarcasm of Jordanes “…the Bulgares, well known from the disasters our neglect has brought upon us” (Jordanes. The Gothic History of Jordanes. Trans. C. C. Mierow. London: Humphrey Milford, 1915, p. 60) points to the once capability of the Jordanes side to prevent the rise of the Bulgars. But, who were the “ours” of Jordanes? If Byzantium or Goths in the Balkans, it was not a possible mission for them to reach forth the internal and north Caucasus to interfere a rising ethnos. If those “ours” are the Alans in the Caucasus, relatives of Jordanes, then we may presume that he implies the mighty days of the Caucasian Alans compared to the Bulgars there. In this term, a recent paper by Doležal (Stanislav Doležal. Who Was Jordanes? – Byzantion, (2014), № 84 45–164) on his identity never pays attention to the Alanic origins of the author, despite Jordanes mentions about his own Alanic connections: “The Sciri, moreover, and the Sadagarii and certain of the Alani with their leader, Candac by name, received Scythia Minor and Lower Moesia. Paria, the father of my father Alanoviiamuth (that is to say, my grandfather), was secretary to this Candac as long as he lived. To his sister’s son Gunthigis, also called Baza, the Master of the Soldiery, who was the son of Andag the son of Andela, who was descended from the stock of the Amali, I also, Jordanes, although an unlearned man before my conversion, was secretary.” (Jordanes. The Gothic History…, p. 127).

[65] Cyrill Toumanoff. Studies in Christian Caucasian History…, p. 153.

[66] Армен Айвазян. Армяно-персидская война 449–451 гг. Kампании и сражения. Eреван: Воскан Ереванци, 2016, 254–256.

[67] Sebeos. The Armenian History attributed to Sebeos. Trans. R. W. Thomson. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1999, p. 5.

[68] Movsēs Dasxuranci. The History of the Caucasian Albanians…, p. 66; Elisæus. The History of Vartan and of the Battle of the Armenians. Trans. C. F. Neumann. London: The Oriental Translation Fond, 1830, p. 35; Eḷishē. History of Vardan. Ed. E. A. Thompson…. p. 121. The Huns here are the White Huns (Армен Айвазян. Армяно-персидская война…, с 74).

[69] Ibid., 191–193.

[70] According to Łazar P‘arpec‘i. The History…, p. 173, the Armenians were not sure whether the Huns would accept the invitation. That suspect might have prevented the rebels from appealing the Huns earlier. However, it is not very likely that the Armenians did not know about the plans of Attila. Perhaps, according to Rouche, the assignment of Irnek in 448 to govern the Akatzires was connected with the plans of Attila on Persia, and the Hun administration there started by signing an agreement with the Armenians (Michel Rouche. Attila. La violence nomade…, p. 186).

[71] Armen Ajvazjan. Armjane-persidskaja vojna…, p. 333.

[72] Elisæus. The History of Vartan…, 62–63; Eḷishē. History of Vardan…, Еd. E. A. Thompson, 180–181. See also: The History of Łazar P‘arpec‘i…, p. 108, 129.

[73] Армен Айвазян. Армяно-персидская война…, p. 334.

[74] Movsēs Dasxuranci. The History of the Caucasian Albanians…, p. 68. Supported by Elisæus. The History of Vartan…, p. 37; Eḷishē. History of Vardan…, Ed. E. A. Thompson, p. 130.

[75] R. C. Blockley. The Fragmentary Classicising Historians…, p. 277. Cf. Simon Kézai of the 13^th century: “(After the Italy campaign and just before the wedding, Attila) began making plans to cross the seas and subdue the Egyptians, the Assyrians and Africa.” (The Deeds of the Hungarians, p. 65).

[76] R. C. Blockley. The Fragmentary Classicising Historians…, 277–279; E. A. Thompson. A History of Attila and the Huns…, p. 31, posits that the mentioned Hunnic raid occurred between 415 and 420 or “a little later”. Cf. the Romans agreed to contribute money for the defence of the Darband fortifications in 422. (Richard N. Frye. The Political History of Iran Under the Sasanians. – In: The Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. III/1. Ed. E. Yarshater, 4^th ed. Cambridge–New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 145)

[77] Sozomen. The Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen. Trans. Edward Walford. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1855, p. 511 (xii/8).

[78] Elisæus. The History of Vartan…, p. 6; Eḷishē. History of Vardan… Ed. E. A. Thompson, p. 66.

[79] According to Egishe, the Magi priests provoked the shah to make an expedition onto the “Kushans” in 441 (Elisæus. The History of Vartan…, p. 4; Eḷishē. History of Vardan… Ed. E. A. Thompson, p. 63), however, since the White Huns were potentially raiders and invaders of the Central Asian lands of the Sassanians, in accordance with the classical framework of relations between nomadic and sedentary political formations, the Persian expedition should have been only a punitive one.

[80] Egishe says that a contingent of the Huns was in the Persian army to crush the Vardan rebellion (Elisæus. The History of Vartan…, p. 55; Eḷishē. History of Vardan… Ed. E. A. Thompson, p. 168). If they were not fugitives of the Caucasian, thus European Huns, then they might represent a group of the White Huns invited or brought according to a peace treaty (Mehmet V. Tezcan. Yüzyılda Ermeni-Sasani Savaşları ve Ermenilere Hun Desteği. – A. Ü. Türkiyat Araştırmaları Enstitüsü Dergisi, XXXII (2007), p. 197). This would show the European and Asian Huns acted not together and in conformity, but in accordance with their own will. It was not an illogical act for the White Huns to enter the Sassanid service, just after making a peace, for two reasons: Likely to receive a great sum of money from the Persians, and to use the occasion of revenge over the Armenians, who gave much harm to the White Huns between 441 and 449 under Vardan Mamikonian (Армен Айвазян. Армяно-персидская война…, p. 192).

[81] Péter Váczy. A hunok Európában. – In: Attila és Hunjai. Ed. Gyula Németh. Budapest: Magyar Szemle Társaság, 1940, p. 85.

[82] Following the suggestion of Gyula Németh. A hunok nyelve. – In: Attila és Hunjai. Ed.Gyula Németh. Budapest: Magyar Szemle Társaság, 1940, p. 224 (see also his A Honfoglaló Magyarság Kialakulása, p. 134) and Omeljan Pritsak. The Hunnic Language of the Atilla Clan. – Harvard Ukrainian Studies, VI/4 (1982), 445–446.

[83] Following the suggestion of Németh, A hunok nyelve…, p. 224; A Honfoglaló Magyarság Kialakulása, p. 136. See also: Omeljan Pritsak. The Hunnic Language of the Atilla Clan…, p. 446.

[84] Although Németh. A hunok nyelve…, p. 223, and A Honfoglaló Magyarság Kialakulása, 134–135, suggests the forms “Irnek” and “Irnik”, regarding the contemporary attestations of the name, such a form as Ernek, closer to the Ernäk of Pritsak (The Hunnic Language of the Atilla Clan, p. 447) seems better in my opinion.

[85] R. C. Blockley. The Fragmentary Classicising Historians…, p. 353; Robert W. Thomson. A History of Attila and the Huns…, 156–157.

[86] Váczy, A hunok Európában…, p. 139; Robert W. Thomson. A History of Attila and the Huns…, p. 160. However, he thinks that the Ogurs closed the way to the east and the two Hun brothers remained on the Roman borders.

[87] Elisæus. The History of Vartan…, p. 66; Eḷishē. History of Vardan…, Ed. Thomson, p. 185.

[88] Pritsak. The Hunnic Language of the Atilla Clan…, p. 447; Cf., however, Hyun Jin Kim. The Huns, Rome and the Birth of Europe, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013, p. 93, who thinks that that suffix implies “greatness”.

[89] Eḷishē. History of Vardan… Ed. Robert W. Thomson, 192–193. Cf. in almost the same days, the Albanian king Vačagan also “sent the Ephthalites as a rod of wrath against the violent and bloodthirsty king of Persia” (Movsēs Dasxuranc’i. History of the Caucasian Albanians…, p. 25). It is not out of possibility that the Caucasian Huns and Bulgars cooperated with the Albanians and Armenians in international affairs, too, as they did in the battlefields.

[90] Robert W. Thomson. A History of Attila and the Huns…, p. 157.

[91] Jordanes. The Gothic History…, p. 127.

[92] Ibidem.

[93] Ibid., p. 128.

[94] Váczy Péter. A hunok Európába…, p. 139; Hyun Jin Kim. The Huns, Rome and the Birth of Europe…, p. 57.

[95] Michel Rouche. Attila. La violence nomade…, p. 309.

[96] Моско Москов. Именник на българските ханове. София: Изд. „Петър Берон“, 1988, p. 19–20, 25, 144; Hyun Jin Kim. The Huns, Rome and the Birth of Europe…, p. 132.

[97] В. Златарски. История…, p. 57; Рашо Рашев. Прабългарите през V–VII век. София: Орбел, 2005, p. 30.

[98] Cf., for instance, Цветан Степанов. Авитохол и Атила: размишления върху една митологема – In: История и историография. Сборник в чест на проф. д-р Мария Велева. Еd. E. Дроснева. София: Универ. изд. „Св. Кл. Охридски“ 2008, 35–46, who bases on the etymology “son of doe” for the name Avitoxol developed by P. Dobrev, referring to the East Iranian Vahan language in the Pamir region, and who consequently suggests to abandon the Attila connection. Several other etymologies can be offered to explain the name Avitoxol, including the insertion of some Biblical references (i.e. Abimelech. If true, it would make the name unusable at all in terms of studying it on Asiatic terms and traditions. The Liber Generationis has the statement “Abimelech ex quo Hircani” just four lines above the famous record for us “Ziezi ex quo Vulgares” (Theodore Mommsen. Über den Chronographen von J.354…, p. 591). Not the imaginary connection of the Hyrcanians of Northern Iran with the Biblical cast of Canaan, but a possible insertion of that name to the Proto-Bulgar mind, as in the case of the forefather Nimrod of the Hungarians according to their early annals, is the determining factor at this point), however, I’m not essentially inclined to think that the Proto-Bulgars did not know the name of their earliest ruler, who was not so in a deep past as Nimrod, and denominated him as “Doe-son” by attributing him simply a mythical genealogy referring to the doe motive wellattested in Eurasia from the Scythians to the Hungarians. Nor eastern Turkic peoples are deprived of the deer in their genealogies. The actual first ruler was usually not known for ancient societies, and the earliest known person was simply the earliest ruler. A -primarily- historical explanation, rather than etymological, would provide us more solid grounds to put a light upon those days.

[99] Cf. for instance В. Златарски. История…, p. 81; В.Ф. Генинг, А.Х. Халиков. Ранние болгары на Волге…, p. 105.

[100] John of Antioch. Ioannis Antiocheni Fragmenta quae Supersunt Omnia. Еd. Sergei Mariev. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008, p. 431, 433. In spite of Gjuzelev, who classifies them as the Pannonian Bulgars (В. Гюзелев. Произход, прародина, етимология…, p. 79).

[101] The History of Łazar P‘arpec‘i, 170–174.

[102] Op. cit., 181–182.

[103] According to the chronicle attributed to him, Vaxt’ang relied on his own forces, reinforced by the Armenian participations, and the Roman emperor could not come, because he was busy at the “Khazar’ front (Robert W. Thomson. Rewriting Caucasian History…, 196–197). In any case, he assumed his Persian origin nickname gorgasal < gorgasar “wolf-head” during that battle (Op. cit., p. 197 n. 51), of which place the chronicle locates on the Kura river, near Tbilisi, and which continued for about four mounts scoreless and the Persians withdrew only after the coming of the Roman army in assistance. Just, Vaxt’ang soon joined the Persian shah to be a loyal subject of him and to participate his wars in India. There is no sign of any relation with the northerners in the Georgian chronicle; the Armenians are only figurants, and the enemy ruler is not Peroz (!), who had died just before the war, but Xosrov. Therefore, every sentence of the chronicle of Vaht’ang Gorgasali is open to criticising, compared to the content of the contemporary Armenian records written on more solid terms by more capable authors.

[104] The History of Łazar P‘arpec‘i, p. 192.

[105] Edward A., Toumanoff. Studies in Christian Caucasian History…, 364–365.

[106] Edward A., Toumanoff. Op. cit., p. 365. Sebeos says: “Then king Peroz sent against him (Vahan Mamikonean) a large army of Huns” (The Armenian History, p. 4.), but he is careless as much as not to realise many great details of the Vahan and Vaht’ang rebellion, for in his chronicle the Georgian king is absent at all, and Vahan is described as Victor with his 30,000 “elite” troops. Just as, in the next page, Sebeos calls the Ephthalites/White Huns anachronistically Kushans. Thus the word “Huns” should be deleted from his text. The death of Peroz at the hands of the Ephthalites is well described by Dasxuranc’i: “…the most wicked Peroz, for at the command of God the Ephthalites came like giants to satisfy the wrath of the Lord. First, they struck down his sons, his evil children, with the edge of the sword and massacred them before him with all the nobles and governors of the land and the masses of his numberless armies; and the king himself, the most wicked Peroz, was put to the sword and was lost among the numberless corpses, and buried in the grave of an ass. And they looted and bore away the immense riches amassed by them in their wickedness. They ravaged the women, they spared not the children, they took no mercy upon the orphans. Verily, they sated the wrath of the Lord and avenged the evils which the wicked Peroz had wrought upon many peoples, and turned them sevenfold upon his own head.” (Movsēs Dasxuranc’i. History of the Caucasian Albanians…, p. 26).

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