Hunnic invasion of Syria

[Lothia]

Ave Civitas,

I am looking for information about the Hunnic invasion of Roman Oriens in the late 4th century.
Information is good.  Resources (books) are also good.
I am writing a series of novels about Alaric the Goth.  I have finished 394 and the death of Promotus.  I am almost done with 395 with Stilicho.
  Now I am looking at the years following to continue the saga.  I know Eutropius had problems with the Huns in the Oriens.  But, other than a few sparce notes, dates and regions effected, I can't seem to find much about it.
  As always, thank you in advance

[Michael Kerr]

There seemed to be a lot of disagreement about the Hunnic invasion of 395. If you subscribe to Scribd then there are two books or documents that may assist you (unless you already have them) They are:

The World of the Huns by Otto Maenchen-Helfen who would have to be one of the best sources for anything Hunnic.

The Roman Eastern Frontier and the Persian Wars Part II AD 363-630 by Geoffrey Greatex and Samuel Lieu.

 Both of them mention sources mostly Syriac Christian sources and Claudian, all fire and brimstone stuff with cities destroyed and 18,000 Roman civilian prisoners taken. Some authors like Blockley and Thompson thought that there were two separate raids one in 395 and another Hunnic raid in 422 but Maenchen-Helfen is not so sure.

Priscus mentioned that when he was on an East Roman embassy to see Attila that he had a conversation with Romulus who was also there representing the Western Emperor and when asking Romulus how the Huns could threaten Persia,was told about a large Hunnic raid that occurred earlier due to famine or disease of their herds, led by their leaders Basich and Kursich who had crossed the Maeotis and spent fifteen days crossing the mountains and then attacking the Medes. Romulus did not mention though that this Hunnic army entered Roman territory which makes authors  think that there was a second later raid in about 422-423.

 It seems though that if the Huns of 395 attacked Roman territory then they might have split into two groups and that the major one was crushed by the Persians losing all ther loot and that maybe a smaller group split off to attack the Roman provinces for slaves and plunder taking advantage of the military situation where the armies of the East were depleted due to Theodosius’s civil war with Eugenius. If the rumours were true maybe Rufinus allowed the Huns into Roman territory. If true then this smaller group could have been defeated by Eutropius, Maenchen-Helfen still doubts Claudian’s tale that the Huns returned in 396-397 to be defeated and thinks that Eutropius defeated them in 395. 

Regards

Michael Kerr

[Alanus]

Tom,

A couple of a priori sources might be Zosimus and Socrates Scolasticus, but you've probably already used them. Good luck on your novels. I wrote one about Alaric-- The King and the Cuckold-- but never bothered to publish it. 

[Flavivs Aetivs]

But the problem is that in 422/423, Qaraton was king of the Western Huns who were based out of the Middle Danube, while Hunnic power on the Kuban had waned, so I find it rather unlikely that Basik and Kursik could have been the rulers and launched an invasion of Armenia/Anatolia/Syria/Persarmenia/etc. at that time.

[Michael Kerr]

Hi Evan, you will get no disagreement from me regarding the later date.

 Firstly if it was 422/423 then I would find it extraordinary that an Eastern Roman diplomat (Priscus) would be ignorant of such an invasion which would have occurred in his lifetime whereas a diplomat from the west (even a well travelled one) would know more about events happening in the east.

  Secondly Romulus states that there was a famine amongst the Huns which forced them to invade either looking for new pasture, cattle or both. A Roman rhetorician named Severus Sanctus Endelechius wrote a poem called De Mortibus Boum "On the Deaths of Cattle" which mentions a cattle plague (Rinderpest) occurring around the late 4th century which even hit some Roman herds and slowly affected the herds from the rest of Europe but believed to have spread from the Grey Steppe cattle of the Huns. I know a lot of these early Christian writers liked to blame the Huns for all the problems of the Empire, even their livestock, it would seem. Information is scarce though and maybe some Steppe cattle were resistant but it fits in with the time that the Huns invaded the East for reasons of famine. Turned out the Huns lost all the cattle they collected as well as loot and slaves when they were defeated by the Persians on their trip home.

Regards

Michael Kerr

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Don't forget though: Sheep, not Cows/Bulls, were the primary livestock of the steppe peoples. But that is fascinating and I never knew of this.