Edekon

Edekon (also Edika ; † 469 in Pannonia on the central Danube) was a prince of the Skiren in the 5th century.

Life

Edekon was a confidante of Attila, king of the Huns . He also took on diplomatic tasks for him and traveled to Constantinople with Attila's secretary Flavius Orestes around the years 448/449 . In this context he allowed himself to be bribed to murder Attila, but revealed the plan to the king of the Huns. The Eastern Roman diplomat Priskos reports that Edekon was a respected warrior among the Huns and belonged to the closest circle of Attila.

After Attila's death in 453, Edekon took control of the Skiren in the Carpathian region . Apparently he was not a Skire himself, but was married to a Skirian nobleman. Edekon allied himself with the Gepid Ardarich against the sons of Attila. The Gepid troops and their allies were victorious in the Battle of the Nedao (in 454 or 455). In the Alföld , the great Hungarian lowlands, Edekon established a ski area that only existed for a short time. In 468 there were battles with the Ostrogoths who settled in Pannonia and crushed a Skirische contingent. Edekon joined an alliance of Gepids, Suebi and other tribes, which was probably also favored by the Eastern Roman Emperor Leo I , but the anti-Gothic coalition was defeated in 469 in the Battle of the Bolia , in which Edekon fell.

The ski kingdom collapsed, many skiers entered the Roman military service. A son of Edekon, Onoulf , rose to magister militum in the eastern empire , while another son, Odoacer , went to the western empire and rose quickly in the local military. Odoacer met the general Flavius Orestes there, whose son Romulus Augustulus was installed as shadow emperor in 475. Odoacer killed Orestes in August 476, deposed Romulus Augustulus and rose to rex Italiae ("King of Italy").

The ethnic origin of Edekon (and Odoaker) is controversial in research, since the sources do not make any precise statements or sometimes contradict each other. Priskos anachronistically refers to him as “ Scythians ”, but this is due to the classical ethnographic ideas of late Roman Greek historians, who very often used the term topically for equestrian people ; other sources refer to him as a Thuringian ( Malchus of Philadelphia ) or a Goth ( Theophanes ). In 2009 Wolfram Brandes advocated considering Eastern Roman / Byzantine sources (such as the Lexicon Suda ) to consider Edekon and Odoaker as members of the Thuringian royal family. But it could also be a misunderstanding because of Edekon's alleged belonging to the Skirischen "royal family" of the Turkilingen (who perhaps did not exist themselves). However, in late antiquity, ethnic affiliation was not very important anyway, and a person could well be described as a Teutonic, sometimes a Hun. A more precise classification is made more difficult by the fact that it cannot be unequivocally clarified whether the different mentions of the name refer to the same person.

literature

Walter Pohl : Edika. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde (RGA). 2nd Edition. Volume 6, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1986, ISBN 3-11-010468-7 , pp. 446-447.

Remarks

↑ The location of the river Bolia could not yet be determined more precisely, see Battle of the Bolia .
↑ Priskos, fragments 7 and 8.
↑ See Peter J. Heather : Invasion of the Barbarians. The creation of Europe in the first millennium after Christ. Stuttgart 2011, p. 213.
↑ See Jordanes , Getica 277.
↑ See also Walter Pohl: The Gepiden and the gentes on the central Danube after the collapse of the Attila Empire . In: Herwig Wolfram , Falko Daim (ed.): The peoples on the middle and lower Danube in the fifth and sixth centuries . Vienna 1980, pp. 239-305.
↑ Malchus of Philadelphia , fragments 8.
^ Cf. Walter Pohl: The Avars. Munich 2002, p. 21ff.
↑ Wolfram Brandes: Thuringians in Byzantine sources . In: Helmut Castritius et al. (Ed.): The early days of the Thuringians . Berlin 2009, p. 291 ff. (Supplementary volumes to the Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, Volume 63).
↑ Herwig Wolfram: The Empire and the Germanic Peoples. Between antiquity and the Middle Ages. Verlag Siedler, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-442-75518-2 , p. 264. Helmut Castritius, for example, suspected that the Turkilingen are a historical phantom: Skiren . In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde . Volume 28, 2005, p. 643.

personal data
SURNAME	Edekon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Edika
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Prince of the Skiren
DATE OF BIRTH	4th century or 5th century
DATE OF DEATH	469
Place of death	Pannonia on the central Danube

[1] The location of the river Bolia could not yet be determined more precisely, see Battle of the Bolia .

[2] Priskos, fragments 7 and 8.

[3] See Peter J. Heather : Invasion of the Barbarians. The creation of Europe in the first millennium after Christ. Stuttgart 2011, p. 213.

[4] See Jordanes , Getica 277.

[5] See also Walter Pohl: The Gepiden and the gentes on the central Danube after the collapse of the Attila Empire . In: Herwig Wolfram , Falko Daim (ed.): The peoples on the middle and lower Danube in the fifth and sixth centuries . Vienna 1980, pp. 239-305.

[6] Malchus of Philadelphia , fragments 8.

[7] Cf. Walter Pohl: The Avars. Munich 2002, p. 21ff.

[8] Wolfram Brandes: Thuringians in Byzantine sources . In: Helmut Castritius et al. (Ed.): The early days of the Thuringians . Berlin 2009, p. 291 ff. (Supplementary volumes to the Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, Volume 63).

[9] Herwig Wolfram: The Empire and the Germanic Peoples. Between antiquity and the Middle Ages. Verlag Siedler, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-442-75518-2 , p. 264. Helmut Castritius, for example, suspected that the Turkilingen are a historical phantom: Skiren . In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde . Volume 28, 2005, p. 643.