Saragurs, Urogi and Onogurs reach the Pontic steppe, c. 463

Saragurs, Urogi and Onogurs reach the Pontic steppe

Around 463 envoys of the Saragurs, Urogi and Onogurs came to Constantinople. According to Priscus, these peoples had been driven from their lands by the Sabirs, who had themselves been expelled by the Avars, and the Saragurs had won new pastures by defeating the Akatziri. Historians see them as among the first Oghur Turkic peoples in Eastern Europe and as forerunners of the Bulgars.

Date

c. 463year known, approximate

Place

Steppes north of the Caucasusapproximate locationtoday: Krasnodar and Stavropol krais, Russia (location approximate) · Eastern Europe

Participants

Saragurs, Onogurs, Akatziri, Byzantine Empire

Threads

Eastern Europe and Rus’ before the Baptism (1st–10th c.)

Also known as

Saraguri; Urogi; Onoguri; Oghurs; Sabirs; Sabiri; Caspian Gates; Сарагуры; Огуры; Савиры; Сабиры; Каспийские ворота

Priscus of Panium, in a fragment dated to about 463, writes that at this time the Saraguri, Urogi and Onoguri sent envoys to the Eastern Romans. They had left their homeland because the Sabiri had attacked them, the Sabiri having been driven out by the Avars, and the Avars in turn by peoples living by the shore of the Ocean; a passage preserved in the Byzantine lexicon Suda, which many editors print as part of this fragment, adds that those peoples had fled from fogs rising from the floods of the Ocean and from a multitude of griffins. Pressed in their turn, the Saragurs came to the Akatziri Huns and demanded land; after many battles they defeated them and then approached the Romans seeking friendship. The envoys were received kindly, given gifts by the emperor Leo I and his courtiers, and sent home.

A few years later, in the mid-460s, Priscus tells of the Saragurs marching on Persia with the Akatziri and other peoples — or, in another reading of the text, after attacking them. Finding the Caspian Gates held by a Persian garrison, they took another road, ravaged Iberia and raided Armenia; the Persians, long at war with the Kidarites, asked Constantinople in vain for money or men to hold their fortress at the Gates.

The names are Turkic of the Oghur type — Saragur is read as “white” or “yellow Oghurs”, Onogur as “ten Oghurs”, and the Urogi are usually taken to be the Oghurs. Historians such as Peter Golden regard these tribes as among the first Oghur peoples to enter the Pontic–Caspian steppe, coming from Western Siberia and the Kazakh steppes. The Onogurs later formed the core of the Bulgar union of Kubrat in the 7th century, and their name is usually thought to be the origin of the word “Hungarian”. Who Priscus’ Avars were is unknown: Denis Sinor argued that they differed from the Avars who appeared a century later, and it has been suggested that the whole chain of migrations was set off by the Northern Wei campaigns against the Rouran in the 450s. The date and the marker north of the Caucasus are approximate.

Connections

Related events

The Huns conquer the Alans and the Greuthungic. 370 – 376 · Eastern Europea century after the Huns, a new wave of nomads from the east entered the Pontic steppe

Attila subjugates the Akatziribetween 447 and 448 · Eastern Europethe Saragurs defeated the Akatziri, whom Attila had subdued some fifteen years earlier

The Rouran Khaganate dominates the steppe402–552 · Central and Northern Asiathe chain of migrations that drove the Saragurs west began in Inner Asia; some historians trace it to the Northern Wei campaigns against the Rouran in the 450s

The Avars ravage the lands of the Antesbetween 560 and 562 · Eastern EuropePriscus gives the earliest mention of the Avars; whether they were related to the Avars who reached the Pontic steppe in the 550s is disputed

Rise of the Khazar Khaganatebetween 630 and 650 – c. 670 · Eastern Europethe Onogurs later formed the core of Kubrat’s Bulgar union, the Khazars’ rival in the steppe

Same participants

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Saragurs, Urogi and Onogurs reach the Pontic steppe

Connections

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Western and Central Europe

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