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Fugitives and ethnography in Priscus of Panium1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

Michael Maas
Michael Maas*
Affiliation:
Rice University
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Extract

Because the historical writings of Priscus of Panium survive only in fragments, we regrettably lack knowledge of the full complexity of this fifth century historian’s concerns. Widely cited in Byzantine sources, the greatest part of Priscus’ work is found in the Excerpta de Legationibus, which was compiled from ancient texts by the emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos in the middle of the tenth century as part of an encyclopedic collation of educational and practical information. The Excerpta, which dealt with international relations, found much of interest in Priscus, whose history included a detailed account of the struggle between the Romans and Attila the Hun. Of particular value is Priscus’ first-hand account of an embassy to Attila in 449 to discuss the exchange of fugitives and other matters. On this journey Priscus served as an assistant to Maximinus, the leader of the diplomatic mission sent from Constantinople. Envoys to foreign lands regularly included in their reports detailed observations of the societies they visited, and in this tradition the fragments preserved in the Excerpta constitute an invaluable source of information about Hunnic life as well as diplomatic matters. Priscus later reworked his acute observations of the Huns made on the embassy and mixed them with other information in the larger framework of his historical treatise, adapting part of his diplomatic intelligence report to the needs of a different sort of literary enterprise. We cannot know with any certainty the thematic architectonics of this historical work, but its fragments make it clear that Priscus’ treatment of the relations between Rome and the Empire of the Huns and his development of cultural issues implicit in those relations were more subtle than the tenth century editors’ focus on diplomatics might suggest.

Type
Research Article
Information
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 19 , 1995 , pp. 146 - 160
Copyright
Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 1995

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References

1. A version of this paper was read at the Twenty-Second Annual Conference for the Promotion of Classical Studies in Israel, Tel-Aviv University, June 3, 1993. I wish to thank Benjamin Isaac for his kind invitation to participate in the conference, and Jonathan Elukin, Joel Golb, Kenneth Holum, Sally McKee, Susan Melnick, David Nirenberg, Jonathan Shepard, Giusto Traina, and the anonymous readers for BMGS for their helpful comments. This paper was written under ideal conditions at the Institute for Advanced Studies, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and I thank its Director, David Shulman, and his staff for their hospitality.

2. Excerpta de Legationibus, ed. C. de Boor (Berlin 1903) 121-155, 575-591. For this paper I have used (with a few changes) the edition and translation of Priscus made by Blockley, R.C., The Fragmentary Classicizing Historians of the Later Roman Empire. Eunapius, Olympiodorus, Priscus and Malchus.II. Text, Translation, and Historiographical Notes. (Liverpool 1983) 222–400 Google Scholar. Because Blockley numbers the fragments differently than de Boor, in the notes below I supply references to the de Boor edition after references to Blockley. On the sources of the fragments, see Baldwin, Barry, ‘Priscus of Panium’, B30 (1980) 16–51 Google Scholar, here 29.

3. Evagrius, , HE 1.17. See also Suda II 2301; Blockley, R.C., ‘Priscus of Panium’, 60, in The Fragmentary Classicizing Historians of the Later Roman Empire, vol I (Liverpool 1981) 48–70 Google Scholar; idem, East Roman Foreign Policy. Formation and Conduct from Diocletian to Anastasius (Leeds 1992) 62-67 for historical background.

4. Blockley, frg.11.2, p.242-280/de Boor frg. 3 and 5. Priscus claims that Maximinus was unaware of the embassy’s secret purpose to arrange Attila’s asassination.

5. Ibid.

6. Lee, A.D., Information and Frontiers. Roman foreign relations in late antiquity (Cambridge 1993) 168 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7. For a general overview, see Chrysos, Evangelos, ‘Byzantine diplomacy, A.D.300-800: means and ends’, in Byzantine Diplomacy. Papers from the Twenty-fourth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Cambridge, March, 1990, ed. Shepard, Jonathan and Franklin, Simon (London 1992) 25–39 Google Scholar, esp. 33ff; Blockley, , East Roman Foreign Policy, 151–163 Google Scholar.

8. Blockley, frg.2, p.224/de Boor frg.l.

9. Blockley, frg.ll. 189, p.256/de Boor, frg.3.

10. Blockley frg.2.40, p.226/de Boor, frg. 1; Blockley, , East Roman Foreign Policy 65–66 Google Scholar.

11. e.g. Moravcsik, Gyula, Byzantinoturcica, I: Die byzantinischen Quellen der Geschichte der Türkvõlker (Berlin 1954/Leiden 1983) 60–65 Google Scholar; Blockley 1981 and 1983 for more recent bibliography.

12. Ammianus Marcellinus, XXXI.2; Matthews, John, The Roman Empire of Ammianus (Baltimore 1989) 332–342 Google Scholar.

13. Dagron, Gilbert, ‘Ceux d’en face. Les peuples étrangers dans les traités militaires byzantins’, TM 10 (1987) 207–232 Google Scholar, here 213ff.; Richter, Will, ‘Die Darstellung der Hunnen bei Ammianus Marcellinus (31.2.1-11)’, Historia 23 (1974) 343–377 Google Scholar.

14. Benedicty, Robert, ‘Die historische Authentizitát eines Berichtes des Priskos’, JÕBG 13 (1964) 1–8 Google Scholar; Moravcsik, , 482; Blockley (1981) 54–55 Google Scholar; Traina, Giusto, ‘De Synésios a Priscus: aperçus sur la connaissance de la ‘barbarie’ hunnique (fin du IVe-milieu du Ve siècle), 285–290 Google Scholar, in: L’armée romaine et les barbares du Ule au Vile siècle (Paris 1993) 287-8 on Priscus’ numerous citations of Herodotus.

15. Now based on the Hungarian plain, the Huns are still seen as steppe nomads by the Romans: Baldwin, 40ff; Blockley (1981) 56-67; on the use of the word to describe steppe peoples as well as others, see Wolfram, Herwig, History of the Goths (Berkeley 1988) 44 Google Scholar; Traina, , ‘De Synésios a Priscus’, 285; Andrea Giardina, ‘L’uomo romano’, in: L’uomo romano, ed. Giardina, A (Rome 1989) v–xix Google Scholar, see xii-xv.

16. Blockley frg. 11.2.407-423/de Boor frg. 3 and 5.

17. Blockley (1981) 56.

18. For example, Thompson, E.A., A History of Attila and the Huns (Oxford 1948) 185 Google Scholar.

19. Blockley, , ‘Priscus of Panium’, 56–57 Google Scholar for this literary dimension.

20. Benedicty, op. cit.

21. On literary precedents: Blockley (1981) 55-59; Baldwin, 40-41; on the ‘authenticity’ of the merchant: Blockley (1981) 56-67; Thompson, 184; Traina, 287-289, for important remarks on literary aspects in general, and particularly on Priscus’ treatment of crossing the frontier as a sort of initiation; on Priscus’ variation on old themes, Giardina, ‘L’uomo romano’, xn-xv.

22. Romm, James S., Tlie Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought. Geography, Exploration, and Fiction (Princeton, 1992) 45–67 Google Scholar; Baldwin, 43.

23. Kindstrand, Jan, Anacharsis: The Legend and the Apothegmata (Studia Graeca Upsaliensia 16, Uppsala 1981) esp. 17–67 Google Scholar; as one of the wise men: Diogenes Laertius 1.40 ff.

24. Romm, James, The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought, 76 Google Scholar.

25. On attitudes toward steppe nomads: Shaw, Brent, “Eaters of Flesh, Drinkers of Milk’: the ancient Mediterranean ideology of the pastoral nomad’, Ancient Society 13/14 (1982/83) 5–31 Google Scholar; Weidemann, T.E.J., ‘Between men and beasts: barbarians in Ammianus Marcellinus’, in Past Perspectives: Studies in Greek and Roman Historical Writing (Cambridge 1986) 189–201 Google Scholar.

26. Blockley (1981) 57.

27. Blockley (1981) 58.

28. Romm, James S., The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought, 45–67 Google Scholar.

29. e.g.: Blockley frg.l 1.144, p.252/de Boor, frg.5; Blockley frg.13.3, p.288/de Boor frg. 3; Lee, Information and Frontiers 66-67 for discussion of interpreters in imperial service on the northern frontier.

30. Blockley frg.ll.2,530 ff., p.274/ de Boor, frg.3.

31. See Homer, , Odyssey 11.488–491 Google Scholar for the contrast of slavery and wealth, and Xenophon, , Hellenica 4.1.32–38 Google Scholar for the loyal foreigner.

32. Harmatta, J., ‘The Dissolution of the Hun Empire’, Acta Archaeologica 2 (1952) 277–305 Google Scholar, here 303 for a discussion of the word in Priscus. Harmatta notes two inscriptions from the reign of Justinian (SIG 3, no. 910 A-B) that use õovloç/ôovleía to describe the relation ‘of a high ranking court official to the emperor.

33. see below, n. 35.

34. Blockley, frg.13.2, p.286 = Suda Z 29.

35. Blockley, frg.13.3, p.288/ de Boor, frg.3.

36. Priscus takes some pains to distinguish Attila from his subjects in small ways, and he remains a somewhat enigmatic figure. He describes Attila’s great restraint as well as his drunken death (Blockley frg.24, p.317 = Jordanes, Getica 49.254-255); Attila alone of the Huns does not find Zercon’s deformity amusing; he is exceptional among the Huns for the simplicity of his manner and dress. Priscus emphasises the Hun king’s severity, then contrasts it with his love for his son (Blockley frg.13.3, p.288 = De Boor, frg.3). Attila refuses to accept the Roman depiction of nomads like himself. He destroys paintings in Milan that show Scythians being trampled by Roman cavalry (Blockley 22.3 = Suda M405).

37. See, for example, Fowden, Garth, From Empire to Commonwealth (Princeton 1993)Google Scholar.