Huns and Romans in the fourth century

WOUDHUYSEN, GEORGE

Abstract

The fourth century CE was a crucial but murky period in the history of Inner Asia. Recent scholarly reconceptualisation of the origins of the Huns has important implications for study of the later Roman Empire. I examine what the Romans of the fourth century knew about the Huns and when they learnt it. The Latin evidence for this problem has been neglected because of a scholarly consensus that Roman writings on nomads were based on little actual knowledge of them, and instead recycled literary tropes and ethnographic clichés. I discuss methodological problems with this consensus and show that the account of the Huns in Ammianus Marcellinus has been misrepresented. I conclude that later-Roman accounts of fourth-century nomads deserve much greater scrutiny from historians of Inner Asia.

Citation

WOUDHUYSEN, G. (2024). Huns and Romans in the fourth century. In Reimagining the Silk Roads: Interactions and Perceptions Across Eurasia (161-173). Taylor and Francis Group. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003348702

• Online Publication Date: Dec 17, 2024
• Publication Date: Dec 17, 2024
• Deposit Date: Jan 6, 2025
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 7, 2025
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis Group
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Pages: 161-173
• Book Title: Reimagining the Silk Roads: Interactions and Perceptions Across Eurasia
• Chapter Number: 11
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003348702
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/43947870
• Publisher URL: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003348702-14/huns-romans-fourth-century-george-woudhuysen?context=ubx&refId=96386368-8676-4471-aa59-031d06466159