Priscus at the court of Attila

Priscus of Panium was a Roman envoy's companion who went to the court of Attila, king of the Huns, in 448 and later wrote a history in Greek. Only fragments of it survive. The best-known passages describe the journey and Attila's residence, a camp built largely of timber, and a banquet held there. The card lists J. B. Bury's English selection as posted by Fordham University. The atlas does not hold the text of this edition: no copy was harvested into the corpus, so nothing from it was read for this guide.

How they knew

Eyewitness

Who “Tartar” means here

Not recorded, and the word is not expected here. Priscus writes about Huns in the fifth century, and the card warns that Huns are not automatically later Tatars.

Why read it

It is a rare eyewitness look at a steppe ruler's camp and court, useful for seeing what a Roman visitor thought worth describing.

Watch out

The narrative survives only in excerpts. The card also warns against treating the Huns as the same people as later Tatars.