Attila subjugates the Akatziri

The story is told by Priscus of Panium, who accompanied Maximinus’ embassy from Constantinople to Attila in 449 (some date it to 448). On arrival the envoys were told to wait for Onegesius, the first man among the Huns after Attila, who had gone with Attila’s eldest son to the Akatziri, “a Scythian people” that had submitted to Attila. Priscus explains why: the Akatziri had many chiefs and clan leaders, and Theodosius II had sent them gifts so that, acting in concert, they would renounce their alliance with Attila and side with the Romans. But the envoy handed out the gifts without regard to rank, and Kuridach, the senior chief, received those meant for the second. Feeling cheated, he called on Attila against his fellow chiefs. Attila at once sent a large army; some of the chiefs were killed, the rest forced to submit. Invited to share in the celebration of the victory, Kuridach suspected a trap and declined with a courtly excuse: a man cannot look upon a god if he cannot even look steadily at the sun. So he kept his own lands, while the rest of the Akatziri passed under Attila.

Attila made his eldest son king of the Akatziri. Onegesius came back while the embassy was still there, reporting on his mission and on a misfortune of the prince, who had fallen from his horse and broken his right arm; later Priscus calls this son, a child of Attila’s wife Kreka, ruler of the Akatziri and the other peoples of Scythia by the Black Sea. Historians identify him with Ellac, named by Jordanes as Attila’s eldest son, who fell at Nedao in 454. The campaign is dated to 447 or 448.

Where the Akatziri lived is uncertain. Priscus places them by the Black Sea, Jordanes, writing in the 550s, south of the Aesti of the Baltic, and modern suggestions range from the steppe west of the Crimea to the lower Don; the marker is conventional. Their language and origin are unknown, and attempts to connect their name with the ancient Agathyrsi or to explain it from Turkic have not been proved. Around 463 the Akatziri were defeated by the Saragurs, newcomers from the east.