Kursich () was a Hun general and royal family member. He led a Hunnish army in the Hunnic invasion of Persia in 395 AD.

Etymology

Omeljan Pritsak Omeljan Yosypovych Pritsak (; 7 April 1919 – 29 May 2006) was the first Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of History of Ukraine, Ukrainian History at Harvard University and the founder and first director (1973–1989) of the Harvard Ukrainian Rese ...

derived Kursich's name from a proposed

Altaic The Altaic () languages are a group of languages comprising the Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic language families, with some linguists including the Koreanic and Japonic families. These languages share agglutinative morphology, head-final ...

root *''kür'' or *''kür+ä'', meaning "brave, noble, powerful, universal," together with a suffix *-''siġ'', meaning "like, similar to". Otto Maenchen-Helfen considered the name to be a hybrid of Turkic and another language. He took the ending -ich to be a Turkic diminutive suffix -''iq'', while he compared ''kurs'' to the name ''Churs'', attested as the name of an

Armenia Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of West Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia (country), Georgia to the north and Azerbaijan to ...

n prince, Ossetian ''xors'' and the Ias name ''Horz''. Gerhard Doerfer takes the name for Hunnish but rejects attempts to etymologize it. Historian Hyun Jin Kim argued that the name was Turkic.

Biography

The Huns started to seriously threaten the

Eastern Roman Empire The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

in 395, crossing over the Caucasus mountains in the summer of that year. The following winter, another Hunnic force pillaged

Thrace Thrace (, ; ; ; ) is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe roughly corresponding to the province of Thrace in the Roman Empire. Bounded by the Balkan Mountains to the north, the Aegean Sea to the south, and the Black Se ...

and threatened

Dalmatia Dalmatia (; ; ) is a historical region located in modern-day Croatia and Montenegro, on the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea. Through time it formed part of several historical states, most notably the Roman Empire, the Kingdom of Croatia (925 ...

. The Huns then invaded Armenia, Persia and the Asian Roman provinces. Kursich and another commander, Basich, led two armies down the

Euphrates The Euphrates ( ; see #Etymology, below) is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of West Asia. Tigris–Euphrates river system, Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia (). Originati ...

, up to threatening the

Sassanid Persia The Sasanian Empire (), officially Eranshahr ( , "Empire of the Iranian peoples, Iranians"), was an List of monarchs of Iran, Iranian empire that was founded and ruled by the House of Sasan from 224 to 651. Enduring for over four centuries, th ...

n capital of

Ctesiphon Ctesiphon ( ; , ''Tyspwn'' or ''Tysfwn''; ; , ; Thomas A. Carlson et al., “Ctesiphon — ܩܛܝܣܦܘܢ ” in The Syriac Gazetteer last modified July 28, 2014, http://syriaca.org/place/58.) was an ancient city in modern Iraq, on the eastern ba ...

. One army was defeated by the Persians, while the other successfully retreated by Derbent Pass.

Priscus Priscus of Panium (; ; 410s/420s AD – after 472 AD) was an Eastern Roman diplomat and Greek historian and rhetorician (or sophist)...: "For information about Attila, his court and the organization of life generally in his realm we have the ...

recorded that Kursich later came to the city of

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

to make an alliance. Maenchen-Helfen suggested that he and Basich came to Rome in 404 or 407, as mercenaries.

References

Works cited

* * * * 4th-century births Huns Hun military leaders {{Asia-mil-bio-stub