538 APPENDIX
met and defeated the warriors of Zabergan on their return from Thrace (see Agathias, 5, 24, 25, and Menander, fr. 3, F. H. G. iv. p. 202).
In the attack upon the Kotrigurs in A.D. 551, the Uturgurs were assisted by 2000 Tetraxite Goths. The remnant of the Goths who had not accompanied their brethren to new homes in Spain and Italy, remained in the Crimea. The events which followed the fall of Attila's empire led to their being split up into two parts. The Avars pressed on the Sabiri and other Hunnic peoples between the Caucasus and Lake Maeotis; the consecjuence was that there was a western movement; the Onogurs and others sought new abodes (Priscus, frag. 30). It is generally assumed, and doubtless justly, that the Onogurs of Priscus (the Hunugurs of Jordanes, and Unnugurs of Theophylactus) are the same as the Hunurgurs of Procopius.[1] This being so, the Uturgurs or Onogurs return to their old abode; but instead of travelling round the shores of the Maeotic Sea, they enter the Crimea, which they find occupied by Huns (the Altziagiri[2]) and Goths. With a portion of the Gothic race they cross over the straits of Kertsch; the Tetraxite Goths, as they were called, establishing their abode near the coast, around the city of Phanagoria (in the peninsula of Taman).
These Goths were Christians, but they do not seem to have learned their Christianity from Ulfilas, for they were not Arians. Procopius says that their religion was primitive and simple. We here touch on a problem which has not been fully cleared up. In the year 547-8 they sent an embassy to Constantinople. Their bishop had died and they asked Justinian to send them a new one. At the same time the ambassadors in a private audience explained the political situation in the regions of Lake Maeotis and set forth the advantages which the Empire could derive from fomenting enmities among the Huns. An inscription has been recently found near Taman, on a stone which may have come from Phanagoria, and it possesses interest as being possibly connected with this negotiation. It was published by V. Latyshev (in the Vizantiski Vremennik, 1894, p. 657 sqq.), who sought to explain it by Justinian's political relations with Bosporus in A.D. 527-8 (see below), and dated it A.D. 533. But the serious objections to this explanation have been set forth by Kulakovski (Viz. Vrem., 1895, 189 sqq.). We have clearly to do with a building — probably a church — built under the auspices, and at the expense (?) of Justinian, in the 11th indiction. The place where the stone was found indicates prima facie that it was a building at Phanagoria; for why should a stone relating to a building at Bosporus lie in the Taman peninsula? We may admit that Kulakovski may be right in identifying "the eleventh indiction" of the inscription with the year A.D. 547-8, in which Justinian gave the Tetraxite Goths a bishop. At the same time he may have subscribed money to the erection of a new church or the restoration of an old one. But to whichever of the three eleventh indictions of Justinian's reign the inscription belongs, it is an interesting monument of his influence in Taman.[3]
To return to the Crimea, it appears from Procopius (B. G. 4, 5) that it came under the power of the Kotrigur Huns. His narrative implies that Kotrigurs and Uturgurs had gone together westward and returned together eastward; and, while the Uturgurs crossed the Cimmerian straits, the Kotrigurs remained in, and north of, the Crimea.[4] The city of Cherson alone defied the barbarians and remained practically autonomous, though acknowledging allegiance to the Empire. No Roman governor ruled in Cherson until the ninth century.
2 Uturgur, or Utigur (Agathias), is probably the correct name; Onogur, or Unnogur, are the travesties of popular etymology, suggesting (
Greek characters) or (Greek characters).
- ↑ 2
- ↑ Jordanes, Get. c. 37.
- ↑ Since these words were written, A. Semenov has discussed the inscription (in Byz. Ztschrift., 6, p. 387 sqq., 1897) with similar reserve.
- ↑ It is tempting to suppose that the Saragurs, mentioned along with the Onogurs by Priscus (fr. 30), is a mistake for the Kotrigurs. If so, Priscus and Procopius supplement each other beautifully. The Saragurs subjugated the Akatirs; this would represent the establishment of the Kotrigurs between Don and Dnieper.
