THE HUNS IN AFRICA: SOME OF THEIR DEEDS AND PARTICULARITIES ACCORDING TO PROCOPIUS

Abstract. The “History of the Wars”,1 and specially “The Vandalic War”2 written by the Byzantine chronicler and general Procopius of Caesarea (Caesarea Maritima ca. 590 AD- Constantinople ca. 560-65 AD ca.)3 represent an important literary source for the knowledge about the steppe populations living or moving on the western part of the Caspian Sea until the Western Europe, mainly regard those contemporary at the put in writing of the Procopius' works, namely the half of the VI century AD. This happened because Procopius himself has been personally present or involved in most of the events that he has related. In fact, he was a very high rank character (legal advisor, adsessor) starting by the first year of the ascend to the throne of Justinian I (527 AD), following the byzantine general Belisarius (ca. 500-565 AD)4 in his many military campaigns on various war theatres. Thus, under the orders of Belisarius he was on the border area with the Persian Empire against the Sasanians in the Iberian War (526-532 AD.), in the North Africa against the Vandals (533-534 AD) and in Italy against the Ostrogoths (535-540 AD). In 551 AD Procopius completed his work regarding these warlike events, the History of the Wars in seven books and, after, he wrote another book in 553 AD where he relates about the Lazic War (551-553 AD). The books III and IV of the History of the Wars regard the Vandalic War, namely the military expedition organized by Belisarius against the Kingdom of the Vandals and Alans5 in North Africa. In this expedition there were a consistent force of Huns at the 1 2 3 4 5 Principally, here we follow these editions: Anthony Kaldellis (ed.); Ian Mladjov; H.B Dewing (trans.), Prokopios, The Wars of Justinian, Hacket Pub Co Inc, Indianapolis/Cambridge, 2014. Ibidem, pp. 144-251; Kaldellis, Anthony: Prokopios’ Vandal War: Thematic Trajectories and Hidden Transcripts, in: S. T. Stevens & J. Conant, eds., North Africa under Byzantium and Early Islam, Washington, D.C: Dumbarton Oaks, 2016, 13–21. Naturally, on Procopius and his life and works, there is a huge literature in various languages. Here we recommend only some works where is possible to find more exhaustive bibliographic indications and discussions: Börm, Henning: Procopius of Caesarea, in Encyclopaedia Iranica Online, New York 2013, https://iranicaonline.org/articles/procopius ; Cameron, Averil: Procopius and the Sixth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985; Meier, Mischa and Federico Montinaro (eds.): A Companion to Procopius of Caesarea. Brill, Leiden 2022. For a biography of Belisarius, see: Martindale, John R., ed. , The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire: Volume III, AD 527–641, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. 1992 p. 182, and Hughes, Ian, Belisarius: The Last Roman General. Yardley, Pennsylvania: Westholme Publishing , 2009. A part of Alans, a steppe people of iranic language, united themselves with the Vandals in their Reconstructing the Past: Journal of Historical Studies 19 Volume 2 Number 3 September 2024 Byzantine service, and precisely in the Procopius writings that we can find the personal events of a lot of them and interesting accounts on some of their customs and traditions. In this article will be underlined and analyzed both these Huns and the events in connection with them during and after this African campaign. Keywords: Huns, Africa, Procopius of Caesarea, Attila, Vandals, Alans