A.D. 93. Their foreign and domestic enemies. The proud inscription" of a column, erected on a lofty mountain, announced to posterity that a Chinese army had marched seven hundred miles into the heart of their country. The Sienpi, a tribe of Oriental Tartars, retaliated the injuries which they had formerly sustained; and the power of the Tanjous, after a reign of thirteen hundred years, was utterly destroyed before the end of the first century of the Christian æra.13 The fate of the vanquished Huns was diversified by the various influence of character and situation."4 Above one hundred emigrations, thousand persons, the poorest, indeed, and the most pusillaA.D. 100, &c. nimous of the people, were contented to remain in their native country, to renounce their peculiar name and origin, and to mingle with the victorious nation of the Sienpi. Fifty-eight hords, about two hundred thousand men, ambitious of a more honourable servitude, retired towards the south, implored the protection of the emperors of China, and were permitted to inhabit and to guard the extreme frontiers of the province of Chansi and the territory of Ortous. But the most warlike and powerful tribes of the Huns maintained in their adverse fortune the undaunted spirit of their ancestors. The Western world was open to their valour, and they resolved, under the conduct of their hereditary chieftains, to discover and subdue some remote country which was still inaccessible to the arms of the Sienpi and to the laws of China.45 The course of their emigration soon carried them beyond the mountains of Imaus and the limits of the Chinese geography; but we are able to distinguish the two great divisions of these formidable exiles, which directed their The white Huns of Sogdiana. march towards the Oxus and towards the Volga. The first of these colonies established their dominion in the fruitful and extensive plains of Sogdiana, on the eastern side of the Caspian, where they preserved the name of Huns, with the epithet of Euthalites or Nepthalites." Their manners were softened, and even "This inscription was composed on the spot by Pankou, President of the Tribunal of History (Kang-Mou, tom. iii. p. 392). Similar monuments have been discovered in many parts of Tartary (Histoire des Huns, tom. ii. p. 122). 42 M. de Guignes (tom. i. p. 189) has inserted a short account of the Sienpi. 43 The æra of the Huns is placed by the Chinese 1210 years before Christ. But the series of their kings does not commence till the year 230 (Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 21, 123). The various accidents of the downfal and flight of the Huns are related in the Kang-Mou, tom. iii. p. 88, 91, 95, 139, &c. The small numbers of each hord may be ascribed to their losses and divisions. 45 M. de Guignes has skilfully traced the footsteps of the Huns through the vast deserts of Tartary (tom. ii. p. 123, 277, &c. 325, &c.). * Euthalites seems to be a misprint for Ephthalites (Feral), which is the name found in Procopius (Bell. Persic. i. The Armenian writers, who fre quently mention the wars carried on by this people against the Persians, call them Hephthal. The form Nephthalites (Nıplarai) employed by Theophanes (p. 104, 48 their features were insensibly improved, by the mildness of the climate and their long residence in a flourishing province,16 which might still retain a faint impression of the arts of Greece." The white Huns, a name which they derived from the change of their complexions, soon abandoned the pastoral life of Scythia. Gorgo, which, under the appellation of Carizme, has since enjoyed a temporary splendour, was the residence of the king, who exercised a legal authority over an obedient people. Their luxury was maintained by the labour of the Sogdians; and the only vestige of their ancient barbarism was the custom which obliged all the companions, perhaps to the number of twenty, who had shared the liberality of a wealthy lord, to be buried alive in the same grave. The vicinity of the Huns to the provinces of Persia involved them in frequent and bloody contests with the power of that monarchy. But they respected, in peace, the faith of treaties; in war, the dictates of humanity; and their memorable victory over Peroses, or Firuz, displayed the moderation as well as the valour of the barbarians. The second The Huns of division of their countrymen, the Huns who gradually ad- the Volga. vanced towards the north-west, were exercised by the hardships of a colder climate and a more laborious march. Necessity compelled them to exchange the silks of China for the furs of Siberia; the imperfect rudiments of civilized life were obliterated; and the native fierceness of the Huns was exasperated by their intercourse with the savage tribes, who were compared, with some propriety, to the wild beasts of the desert. Their independent spirit soon rejected the hereditary succession of the Tanjous; and while each hord was governed by its peculiar mursa, their tumultuary council directed the public measures of the whole nation. As late as the thirteenth century their transient residence on the eastern banks of the Volga was attested by the name of Great Hungary.49 In the winter they 46 Mohammed, sultan of Carizme, reigned in Sogdiana when it was invaded (A.D. 1218) by Zingis and his Moguls. The Oriental historians (see D'Herbelot, Petit de la Croix, &c.) celebrate the populous cities which he ruined, and the fruitful country which he desolated. In the next century the same provinces of Chorasmia and Mawaralnahr were described by Abulfeda (Hudson, Geograph. Minor. tom. iii.). Their actual misery may be seen in the Genealogical History of the Tartars, p. 423-469. 47 Justin (xli. 6) has left a short abridgment of the Greek kings of Bactriana. To their industry I should ascribe the new and extraordinary trade which transported the merchandizes of India into Europe by the Oxus, the Caspian, the Cyrus, the Phasis, and the Euxine. The other ways, both of the land and sea, were possessed by the Seleucides and the Ptolemies. (See l'Esprit des Loix, 1. xxi.) 48 Procopius de Bell. Persico, 1. i. c. 3, p. 9 [tom. i. p. 16, ed. Bonn.]. 49 In the thirteenth century, the monk Rubruquis (who traversed the immense ed. Paris; p. 188, ed. Bonn) is probably a corruption of Ephthalites (St. Martin, Notes on Le Beau, vol. iv. p. 255). They are called Cidarita by Priscus (p. 43, ed. Paris; p. 159, ed. Bonn). The present Turcomans are most likely their descendants.-S. 31 descended with the forks and herds towards the mouth of that mighty river; and their summer excursions reached as high as the intude of Saran perage the cofix of the Kama. Such at least were the recent limits of the black Calmucks who remained about a century moder the protection of Russia, and who have since returned to their native seats on the frontiers of the Chinese empire. The marth and the return of those wandering Tartars, whose united camp consists of fifty thousand tents or families, ilustrate the distant emigrations of the ancient Hus2 It is impossibue to the dark interval of time which elapsed after the Huns of the Volga were lost in the eyes of the Chinese, ques of ae and before they showed themselves to those of the Romans. There is some reason, however, to apprehend that the same force which had driven them from their native seats still continued to impel their march towards the frontiers of Europe. The power of the Senpi, their implacable enemies, which extended above three thousand miles from east to west. must have gradually oppressed them by the weight and terror of a formidable neighbourhood; and the flight of the tribes of Scythia would inevitably tend to increase the strength or to contract the territories of the Huns. The harsh and obscure appellations of those tribes would offend the ear, without informing the understanding, of the reader; but I cannot suppress the very natural suspicion that the Huns of the North derived a considerable reinforcement from the ruin of the dynasty of the South, which, in the course of the third century, submitted to the dominion of China; that the bravest warriors marched away in search of their free and adventurous countrymen; and that, as they had been divided by prosperity, they were easily reunited by the common hardships of their adverse fortune. The Huns, with their flocks plain of Kipzak in his journey to the court of the Great Khan) observed the remarkable name of Hoary, with the traces of a common language and origin (Hist. des Voyages, tom. vii. p. 269). Bell (vol. i. p. 29-34) and the editors of the Genealogical History (p. 539) have described the Calmucks of the Volga in the beginning of the present century. This great transmigration of 300,000 Calmucks, or Torgouts, happened in the year 1771. The original narrative of Kien-long, the reigning emperor of China, which was intended for the inscription of a column, has been translated by the missionaries of Pekin (Mémoires sur la Chine, tom. i. p. 401-418). The emperor affects the smooth and specious language of the Son of Heaven, and the Father of his People. 52 The Kang-Mou (tom. iii. p. 447) ascribes to their conquests a space of 14,000 lis. According to the present standard, 200 lis (or more accurately 193) are equal to one degree of latitude; and one English mile consequently exceeds three miles of China. But there are strong reasons to believe that the ancient li scarcely equalled one-half of the modern. See the elaborate researches of M. d'Anville, a geographer who is not a stranger in any age or climate of the globe. (Mémoires de l'Acad. tom. ii. p. 125-502. Mesures Itinéraires, p. 154-167.) 53 See the Histoire des Huns, tom. ii. p. 125-144. The subsequent history (p. 145277) of three or four Hunnic dynasties evidently proves that their martial spirit was not impaired by a long residence in China. and herds, their wives and children, their dependents and allies, were transported to the West of the Volga, and they boldly advanced to invade the country of the Alani, a pastoral people, who occupied, or wasted, an extensive tract of the deserts of Scythia. The plains between the Volga and the Tanais were covered with the tents of the Alani, but their name and manners were diffused over the wide extent of their conquests; and the painted tribes of the Agathyrsi and Geloni were confounded among their vassals. Towards the north they penetrated into the frozen regions of Siberia, among the savages who were accustomed, in their rage or hunger, to the taste of human flesh; and their southern inroads were pushed as far as the confines of Persia and India. The mixture of Sarmatic and German blood had contributed to improve the features of the Alani, to whiten their swarthy complexions, and to tinge their hair with a yellowish cast, which is seldom found in the Tartar race. They were less deformed in their persons, less brutish in their manners, than the Huns; but they did not yield to those formidable barbarians in their martial and independent spirit; in the love of freedom, which rejected even the use of domestic slaves; and in the love of arms, which considered war and rapine as the pleasure and the glory of mankind. A naked scimetar, fixed in the ground, was the only object of their religious worship; the scalps of their enemies formed the costly trappings of their horses; and they viewed with pity and contempt the pusillanimous warriors who patiently expected the infirmities of age and the tortures of lingering disease.54 On the banks of the Tanais the military power of the Huns and the Alani encountered each other with equal valour, but with unequal success. The Huns prevailed in the bloody contest; the king of the Alani was slain; and the remains of the vanquished nation were dispersed by the ordinary alternative of flight or submission.55 A colony of exiles found a secure refuge 54 Utque hominibus quietis et placidis otium est voluptabile, ita illos pericula juvant et bella. Judicatur ibi beatus qui in prœlio profuderit animam: senescentes etiam et fortuitis mortibus mundo digressos, ut degeneres et ignavos, conviciis atrocibus insectantur. [Ammian. xxxi. 2.] We must think highly of the conquerors of such men. 55 On the subject of the Alani, see Ammianus (xxxi. 2), Jornandes (de Rebus Geticis, c. 24), M. de Guignes (Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 279), and the Genealogical History of the Tartars (tom. ii. p. 617).a There has been much dispute respect ing the ethnological affinities of the Alani. It is usually supposed that remains of them still exist in the Ossetæ, a people of Mount Caucasus, who are said by ancient travellers to have also borne the name of Alans. But these Ossetæ appear to be an Indo-European people; while all the descriptions of the Alani by the ancient writers seem to prove that they belonged to the Tartar or nomadic races of Asia. Thus Lucian says (Toxaris, c. 51, vol. ii. p. 557, ed. Reitz) that their language and dress were the same as those of the Scythians; and Ammianus (xxxi. c. 2) describes them as resembling the Huns, but less savage in form and manners. This would point to a Turkish origin, in the mountains of Caucasus, between the Euxine and the Caspian, where they still preserve their name and their independence. Another colony advanced, with more intrepid courage, towards the shores of the Baltic; associated themselves with the northern tribes of Germany; and shared the spoil of the Roman provinces of Gaul and Spain. But the greatest part of the nation of the Alani embraced the offers of an honourable and advantageous union; and the Huns, who esteemed the valour of their less fortunate enemies, proceeded, with an increase of numbers and confidence, to invade the limits of the Gothic empire. Their the Goths, A.D. 375. The great Hermanric, whose dominions extended from the Baltic to the Euxine, enjoyed, in the full maturity of age and revictories over putation, the fruit of his victories, when he was alarmed by the formidable approach of an host of unknown enemies, 56 on whom his barbarous subjects might, without injustice, bestow the epithet of barbarians. The numbers, the strength, the rapid motions, and the implacable cruelty of the Huns were felt, and dreaded, and magnified by the astonished Goths, who beheld their fields and villages consumed with flames and deluged with indiscriminate slaughter. To these real terrors they added the surprise and abhorrence which were excited by the shrill voice, the uncouth gestures, and the strange deformity of the Huns. These savages of Scythia were compared (and the picture had some resemblance) to the ani 56 As we are possessed of the authentic history of the Huns, it would be impertinent to repeat or to refute the fables which misrepresent their origin and progress, their passage of the mud or water of the Mæotis in pursuit of an ox or stag, les Indes qu'ils avoient découvertes, &c. (Zosimus, 1. iv. [c. 20] p. 224. Sozomen, 1. vi. c. 37. Procopius, Hist. Miscell. c. 5. Jornandes, c. 24. Grandeur et Décadence, &c., des Romains, c. 17.) which is confirmed by the fact that their area, the country north of the Caucasus, between the lower Don and the lower Volga, is now occupied by the Nogay Turks, who cannot be shown to be of recent introduction. If we were to trust the Persian tradition as preserved by Ferdusi, the Alanân dwelt in the most ancient times on the northern side of the country of the Paropamisus, near the land Ghur or Ghordzeh. These Alanân are said by Klaproth to be mentioned in the Chinese Annals under the names of Yan-thsai, Alanna, Alan, and subsequently of Suthle and Suth. See Klaproth, Tableaux Historiques de l'Asie, p. 174, seq.; Zeuss, Die Deutschen und die Nachbarstamme, p. 700, seq.; Schafarik, Slawische Alterthümer, vol. i. p. 350; Latham, The Germania of Tacitus, Epileg., p. c.-S. a Art added to their native ugliness; in fact, it is difficult to ascribe the proper share in the features of this hideous picture to nature, to the barbarous skill with which they were self-disfigured, or to the terror and hatred of the Romans. Their noses were flattened by their nurses, their cheeks were gashed by an iron instrument, that the scars might look more fearful and prevent the growth of the beard. (Jornandes and Sidonius Apollinaris [Carm. ii. v. 254, segg.]): Obtundit teneras circumdata fascia nares, Ut galeis cedant. Yet he adds that their forms were robust and manly, their height of a middle size, but, from the habit of riding, disproportioned. Stant pectora vasta, Insignes humeri, succincta sub ilibus alvus. Si sedeant. -M. |