Balamber (also known as Balamir, Balamur and many other variants) was ostensibly a chieftain of the

Huns The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th centuries AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was par ...

, mentioned by

Jordanes Jordanes (; Greek language, Greek: Ιορδάνης), also written as Jordanis or Jornandes, was a 6th-century Eastern Roman bureaucrat, claimed to be of Goths, Gothic descent, who became a historian later in life. He wrote two works, one on R ...

in his ''

Getica ''De origine actibusque Getarum'' (''The Origin and Deeds of the Getae''), commonly abbreviated ''Getica'' (), written in Late Latin by Jordanes in or shortly after 551 AD, claims to be a summary of a voluminous account by Cassiodorus of the ori ...

'' ( 550 AD). Jordanes simply called him "king of the Huns" () and writes the story of Balamber crushing the tribes of the

Ostrogoths The Ostrogoths () were a Roman-era Germanic peoples, Germanic people. In the 5th century, they followed the Visigoths in creating one of the two great Goths, Gothic kingdoms within the Western Roman Empire, drawing upon the large Gothic populatio ...

in the 370s; somewhere between 370 and more probably 376 AD. A number of historians argue that Balamber may have never existed, and was a confusion of other rulers or even a fabrication.

Etymology

The name is recorded in three variants by Jordanes, and an additional two by copyists: ''Balaber'', ''Balamber'', ''Balamur'', ''Balambyr'', ''Balamir''. ''Balaber'', with omission of ''-m-'', may be a corruption of ''Balamber''. ''Balamir'' has the Gothic onomastic suffix ''-mir/-mer''. Otto J. Maenchen-Helfen argued that the original form of the name was ''Balimber'' and that its meaning is unknown. Omeljan Pritsak considered ''Balamur'' as the only original Hunnic form of the name. He derived it from a word akin to Mongolian , , (savage, wild, venturous, daring). Pristak thus reconstructs the name as coming from ''bala + mur'', meaning "the greatest among the venturous, daring". Hyun Jin Kim argues that the name is simply a corruption of the name Valamir, who he argues to have been the basis of the figure in Jordanes. Kim notes that ''Valamir'' was written ''Βαλαμηρ'' (''Balamêr'') in Greek. He argues that the name is of uncertain meaning but "seems to have an eastern origin" and suggests a connection to a city in Central Asia called ''Balaam'' (''Βαλαάμ'').

History

Jordanes recounts: Those events were preceded by the Huns' attack on the

Alans The Alans () were an ancient and medieval Iranian peoples, Iranic Eurasian nomads, nomadic pastoral people who migrated to what is today North Caucasus – while some continued on to Europe and later North Africa. They are generally regarded ...

at the Don River, who bordered the

Greuthungi The Greuthungi (also spelled Greutungi) were a Goths, Gothic people who lived on the Pontic–Caspian steppe, Pontic steppe between the Dniester River, Dniester and Don river, Don rivers in what is now Ukraine, in the 3rd and the 4th centuries. T ...

, and according to Ammianus Marcellinus, occurred an alliance between them. The events and names which followed vary according to Ammianus and

Cassiodorus Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator (c. 485 – c. 585), commonly known as Cassiodorus (), was a Christian Roman statesman, a renowned scholar and writer who served in the administration of Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. ''Senato ...

(from whose ''Gothic History'' was summarized ''Getica''): Ammianus wrote that after death of Ermanaric in 375, Vithimiris became the king of the Greuthungi, he resisted the Huns and Alans, but was killed in battle and was succeeded by young son Videric, so they were ruled by '' duces'' Alatheus and Safrax. They managed to make a confederation of Greuthungi, Alans and Huns, who escaped from the majority of Huns, crossed the Danube in 376, and fought Battle of Adrianople in 378. Cassiodorus, i.e. Jordanes recounts that after Ermanaric's death Goths separated in Western Visigoths and Eastern Ostrogoths, the latter remained in "''their old Scythian settlements''" under Hunnic rule. The Amal Vinitharius retained the "''insignia of his princely rank''", and trying to escape from the Huns, he invaded the lands of the Antes and their king Boz for merely one year, but Balamber put an end to Ostrogoths independence. After the subjection, followed more complex Ostrogoths royal descending; Ermanaric > Hunimund-Thorismund-Berimud moved with his son Videric with the Visigoths to the West because "''despised the Ostrogoths for their subjection to the Huns''". Then happened forty years of

interregnum An interregnum (plural interregna or interregnums) is a period of revolutionary breach of legal continuity, discontinuity or "gap" in a government, organization, or social order. Archetypally, it was the period of time between the reign of one m ...

and Ostrogoths decided to give the rule to Vandalaris's son Valamir, a relative of Thorismund. Valamir eventually deserted

Attila Attila ( or ; ), frequently called Attila the Hun, was the ruler of the Huns from 434 until his death in early 453. He was also the leader of an empire consisting of Huns, Ostrogoths, Alans, and Gepids, among others, in Central Europe, C ...

's sons in c. 454.

Herwig Wolfram Herwig Wolfram (born 14 February 1934) is an Austrian historian who is Professor Emeritus of Medieval History and Auxiliary Sciences of History at the University of Vienna and the former Director of the . He is a leading member of the Vienna Schoo ...

argued the possibility that unknown river ''Erac'' could be identified with the river Phasis in Lazica. Otto J. Maenchen-Helfen denied the connection with ancient ''Erax'', and considered Tiligul or lower

Dnieper The Dnieper or Dnepr ( ), also called Dnipro ( ), is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. Approximately long, with ...

. Wolfram puts the geographical location of events after the battle in 376, in Scythia, but the term shifted more westward and actually meant

Dacia Dacia (, ; ) was the land inhabited by the Dacians, its core in Transylvania, stretching to the Danube in the south, the Black Sea in the east, and the Tisza in the west. The Carpathian Mountains were located in the middle of Dacia. It thus ro ...

and

Pannonia Pannonia (, ) was a Roman province, province of the Roman Empire bounded on the north and east by the Danube, on the west by Noricum and upper Roman Italy, Italy, and on the southward by Dalmatia (Roman province), Dalmatia and upper Moesia. It ...

. Maenchen-Helfen considered that Cassiodorus would not admit that the Gothic princess Vadamerca became a wife of Balamber if he was not some sort of a king. Wolfram argued that although scholars often identify "Vithimiris" with Vinitharius, and "Videric" with Vandalarius, onomatological and genealogical methods do not go along with historical events, and many difficulties arise. One of them was that Balamber lived in the time of Valamir. However, although of similar etymological names, Balamber, Wolfram related to Iranian ''Balimber'', and as such considered them two different personalities. A number of scholars such as Edward Arthur Thompson, Hyun-Jin Kim, and Peter Heather consider Balamber's story historically improbable, and he may be a version of the better-attested Valamir, or was an invention by the Goths to explain who defeated them.

References

Sources

* * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Balamber 4th-century monarchs in Europe Kings of the Huns European people whose existence is disputed