surprise. The origins of the Hunns was long a problem,
and .different opinions have been maintained with regard
to: it even- of late years. It is?*' generally »supposed that
the Hunns weses it people from the remotè East. When
the history of the Hiong-nuw as explored by De Guigbès
in the works of Chinese historians, it was concluded that
the Hunns were the descendants of that people, and that
their original country was on the borders of China. Late
writers have maintained that the Hunns of the I fourth
century were of the same' stock ;as the Magyars, who: i-ny
vaded the eastern parts 'of Europe in the eighth century,
and who, as we have seen, were an Ugrian race, and issued
from Ugria or Great Hungary on the borders of -theuHralian
Mountains. The inquiry* whether ^the- Hunns were a
people of the borders of Europe,: or emigrants from Eastern
Asia, is not only-an itself interestiug^but has*an important
bearing on that of other barbarous nations, wh^jduring"
many successive ages* followed;_theffpath of1f the. Hunns.
It is therefore deserving of some attention.
& The invasion of the -Hunns took places as i t . is ü well
known, in the age of the emperor Valens* In thewyedr
375 they crossed the Tanais and entered the Gothic empire
of Herman rich. The Hunns penetrated; as .far westward
as the plain of Chalons, where they were defeatedeby-dhe
Roman ^general Aëtius. After the death Attila theiSf
power was broken by the revolt of the Gotlm,- Alans, and
other nations who had been subdued by them and made
a part of their armies.* The empire of the Hunns disappears
from history, but is succeeded by that of the Bulgarians,
who were long a powerful nation in the region
which the Hunns had occupied.
The Bulgarians, who afterwards passed the Danube, and
were known among the formidable enemies of the Byzantine
empire, and whose descendants still remain among the
* In 444 Attila, in bis camp upon the banks of thé Thiess, was visited by
Priseus, the ambassador of the 'Byzantine emperor. After the death of
Attila the -Goths and Gepidse drove the Hunns put of their conquests in the
central parts of Europe. His son Ellak was slain and then, says Jornandes,
■4 reliqui germani ejus, eo occiso, fugantur juxta littus Pontiei-Maris, ubl prius
Gothos sedisse descripsimus.”
subjects* of the 'Sultan, were a tribe of the same people.
After the Hu^las and almost in their suite came likewise
the'.Av’&rs, who are ,often called Hunns by writers of the
middle ages'and identified''with the people of Attila, as
tSey really were'identified with them in their manners
and probably in their desbfenfv* Nearly two centuries later,
in the year 626y we find the firstt?ifiention of the Chazars,
who cartté; likewise from-the East and occupied the southern
part of th& country of the Bulgarians adjoining the Maeotic
Lake. Bands?tóf Chazars marched* iirêlthe army of the
emperor Heraclius against- the Persian Chosroes. The
Peeinaci or Petchéneges 1 and the Romanians, who spoke
the same language as the Petchenfeges, are found at a
somewhat later period -in possession, of the wholes country
to the.northward of the Buxine. -The latter are mentioned
by Constantine Porphyrogenifeus in I his account of the
nation? of the Byzantine^mpirg&J By Constantine they
aré teamed Patzinacitae, and are said to have inhabited the
Country on. both sides of the Dnieper, and to have reached
along the coast of Hhe Euxine to the mouth of the Danube.
They%ordered - on the Chazars ’to the westward. The
Komani are known to have been- the same people afterwards
called Kiptschaks.
The origin and relations5of all these races will be most
likely to be elucidated if webbliect and compare the notices
left of the several nations, beginning with the latest.
1 . The Kiptschaks> termed Kó/navoi by the Byzantine
writers, and in the Slavonian chronicles Polowczi, which
means inhabitants of plains, had occupied all the country to
the northward of the two sea,s before the arrival of the Mon-
goles, in the early part of the fourteenth century, by whom
they were expelled and driven to seek refuge in Hungary.
M. Zeuss has shewn that they were the people' called sometime
before Ov£oi or Uzi by Constantine,* who are connected
with the Petcheneges by some of the Byzantine writers.
The Komani are declared by Anna Commena to have
—* Constantine, Porpk. de adm. Imperio.—Die Deutehen und die Nachbar-
stamme, von Kaspar Zeuss, München, 1837, p. 721-722.—Frsehn deChasaris.
Excerpt, ex Histor. Arab.—Petrop. 1822.
VOL. IV. ^ Q