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The Camp to Attila

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2015

E. A. Thompson
E. A. Thompson
Affiliation:
King's College, London
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Extract

Several attempts have been made to reconstruct the camp of Attila on the basis of the evidence supplied to us by the narrative of Priscus Panites, who describes in great detail what he saw during his visit to the camp in A.D. 448. Stephani has argued that the camp was of Germanic construction and that it was built by a Gothic war-prisoner from Sirmium. It may be said at once that this latter point is unlikely, for Priscus turns aside to mention that the stone baths of Onegesius were built by this war-prisoner; he would scarcely have specified this one building if in fact the whole camp had been constructed by him. Also, there is no indication in his text that the prisoner was a Goth. J. Strzygowski suggested that the camp was the work of Slavs, a conjecture which has, I think, won no acceptance. Most recently, Ferenc Vamos, in a very full discussion of the camp and its buildings, rejected both these views and suggested that the influence of two cultures can be detected in the camp: the culture of the nomads of central Asia and that of the sedentary Iranians—the Huns were introduced to the work of the latter by the intermediacy of the Alans. But before a decision can be reached on the origins of Hun architecture, we must be clear as to what it is precisely that Priscus tells us about the camp and the buildings in it.

Type
Notes
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 65 , November 1945 , pp. 112 - 115
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1945

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References

1 Priscus is cited here by page and line of Dindorf's text in his Hist. Gr. Min. I. The present writer hopes to produce an annotated edition of his fragments.

2 Stephani, K. G., Die älteste deutsche Wohnbau und ihre Einrichtung I. 173 ff., Leipzig, 1902Google Scholar.

3 Die altslavische Kunst 138 ff., Augsburg, 1929Google ScholarPubMed.

4 ‘Attilas Hauptlager und Holzpaläste,’ Seminarium Kondakovianum V. 1932 131–48Google Scholar, where full references to the earlier literature will be found.

5 Cambridge Mediaeval History I 365Google Scholar.

6 303. 18 κυκλούμενα, 311. 4 κύκλους.

7 304. 2 sq.

8 Stephani, op. cit. 175; Vámos op. cit. 135, ‘das von Priskos beschriebene Tor mit dem Hause von Onegesios ein architektonisches Ganzes bildete.’

9 Decline and Fall ch. 34; cf. Classical Quarterly, forthcoming.

10 305. 15 , cf. 304. 2.

11 FHG iv. 85 b.

12 For these see respectively 304. 24; 306. 15; 304. 12 .

13 303. 18 , 310. 26, 31 .

14 305. 13, , 309. 13 .

15 303. 24, .

16 305. 10; 309. 13.

17 304. 21, 32.

18 Get. xxxiv. 178.

19 E.g. Strzygowski, op. cit. 141, ‘die anderen aus geglätteten Balken nach dem Lot zubehauen, an den Enden ineinandergefügt,’ Stephani, op. cit. 179. Wm. Herbert, Dean of Manchester, in his Collected Works (London, 1842) III. 399n.Google Scholar, translated as ‘overcast with finished logs,’ which appears to mean, he says, the application of polished mouldings and patterns in relief on the smooth surface of the building. But άποτελοῦσιν is not passive. He correctly pointed out, however, that the Latin translation ligna in circulos curvata is incorrect.

20 On Jordanes, , Get. xxxiv. 178Google Scholar.

21 LS.9 cite the adj. ἔγγλυφος only from Priscus here and an inscription of Sidyma. ἁρμόȜειν of a joiner's work is as old as Homer, Od. v. 247. εὐπρέπεια occurs also in the parallel passage of Priscus, 303. 19. No help can, I think, be obtained from Jordanes, loc. cit., who gives a very loose paraphrase of his authority: lignea moenia ex tabulis nitentibus fabricata, … quorum compago ita solidum mentiebatur, ut vix ab intentu possit junctura tabularum comprehendi.

22 But Vámos does not notice that this κλίνη stood in the very centre of the room, Priscus 315. 20, .

23 Stephani, op. cit. 177, believes that the mound was not an artificial one, and observes that it would form the natural centre of the camp; this may be right. Vámos puts Attila's βασίλεια, not in the centre, but at one end of the encampment, which is perhaps less natural: see the diagram facing his p. 136.

24 Cf. 311. 23 sq., 315. 13.

25 315. 21.

26 Cf. Priscus, 292. 26 sq.

27 It is not easy to see why Stephani, op. cit. 182, believes Attila's κλίνη to have been raised above the level of those of the guests, and his second κλίνη somewhat higher again than the first. Priscus, 315. 21, does not say what was the purpose of the κλίνη behind that on which Attila was sitting during the banquet. Stephani, loc. cit., guesses that it was the actual throne, and that Attila sat on it at the reception of important ambassadors and on similar occasions.

28 As to these Valesius, ad loc., cites Catullus lxiv. 47 ff. (q.v.), Lucan ii. 356 f. gradibusque adclivis eburnis Stat torus et picto vestes discriminat auro, Claudian, , Rapt. Pros. ii. 320 fGoogle Scholar. alii praetexere ramis Limina et in thalamum cultas extollere vestes. There would have been no need then for such tapestries if Attila's bed had stood in a private room. Valesius had not pointed out that Priscus' phrase is borrowed from Herodotus ix. 82. 1. . In his description of the buildings Priscus has in mind Herodotus ii. 124. 4 .

29 Priscus 317. 12 .

30 Priscus 316. 24 sq.

31 Her traditional name is Creca, and Κρέκα is printed in all the texts; but it is only a copyist's error. Her name was Hereca: see Markwart, J., Ungarische Jahrbücher ix. (1929) 89n. 1Google Scholar.

32 Priscus 311. 8 sq. On the handmaids there busy with their embroideries, see Zoltán de Takács, Artibus Asiae (a journal published in Dresden), v. (1935) 24 ff., 193 f.

33 Priscus 305. 17 ξύγκλυδες ὄντες.