Between 572 and 576 the Göktürks subdued the Alans of the northern Caucasus and the Onogurs, a steppe people east of the Black Sea.[1] The war is known from a single speech. In 576 the Göktürk prince Turxanthos used the two peoples as a warning to the Roman envoy Valentinos.[2] “Consider, wretches, the Alan nation and also the tribe of the Unigurs.”[2] Turxanthos said that the two peoples, full of confidence and trusting in their own strength, had faced the invincible might of the Göktürks.[2] Their hopes were dashed. Now they were subjects and numbered among the Göktürks’ slaves.[2]

The two peoples

The Alans who had not gone west under the pressure of the Huns in the 370s still occupied the country north-east of the Caucasus. They dealt regularly with the Romans through Lazica.[3] The Unigurs, more usually called Onogurs, were a Hunnic people east of the Black Sea. They were closely associated with the Sabirs.[3] About 560 the Avars, on their flight west, had already crushed them.[1][4]

Before the war

In 571 the Alans appear still to have kept some independence.[5] When Zemarchos came home through their land with a Göktürk embassy, their ruler Sarosius received the Romans gladly.[6] He would not admit the Göktürk envoys until they had laid down their arms.[6] They argued for three days. Then Zemarchos settled the dispute, and the Göktürks disarmed.[6] Sarosius’s caution may reflect fear of Göktürk power. By then that power reached the Ugurs beyond the Kuma.[7] On the same road the embassy feared a people called the Oromuskhi. They seem still to have resisted Göktürk authority.[8][5]

The war between Rome and Persia then brought the Alans in on the Roman side. Theophanes of Byzantium, a Greek historian of the same years, records that in the eighth year of Justin II the general Marcian marched against Khosrow.[9] The Colchians, the Abasgians and Saroes, king of the Alans, joined the Armenians as allies.[9]

The war

No account of the fighting survives.[10] The conquest of the Alans has been placed after 572, because Saroes still fought for Rome in that year.[1] Another suggestion has the Unigurs and the Alans fall to the Göktürks in the years after Zemarchos’s return, after a serious fight.[11] Turxanthos’s words name no battle and no commander. One account counts the Caucasian Alans among the peoples whom the Göktürks were the first to hold under a single rule, from the frontiers of Korea to the Crimea.[12]

The name of the second people

The editions give the second name differently. One edition of Menander names the Utigurs.[13] A later, corrected edition has Unigurs, the form of the English translation.[11][2] Some accordingly name the Onogurs.[5] The Utigurs stood under Göktürk rule by 576 in any case. Their ruler Anagai lay before Bosporos with a Göktürk army in that year.[2][14] How the Utigurs were subdued is not recorded.[14]

Consequences

With the Alans and the peoples east of the Sea of Azov in hand, the Göktürks stood at the strait of Kerch. In the same year Anagai and the commander Bochan took Bosporos, the Roman city on the far side.[15] From that time the name of the Utigurs disappears from the eastern shore of the Sea of Azov.[11] The conquest belongs to the Göktürk expansion into Europe. It is known only because Turxanthos held it up to Rome as the price of resistance.

References

  1. ^ a b c Blockley 1985, p. 276
  2. ^ a b c d e f Menander Protector; Blockley 1985, fr. 19.1
  3. ^ a b Blockley 1985, p. 253
  4. ^ Menander Protector; Blockley 1985, fr. 5.2
  5. ^ a b c Golden 1992, p. 130
  6. ^ a b c Menander Protector; Blockley 1985, fr. 10.5
  7. ^ Blockley 1985, p. 266
  8. ^ Menander Protector; Blockley 1985, fr. 10.4
  9. ^ a b Theophanes of Byzantium; Müller 1851, fr. 4
  10. ^ Menander Protector
  11. ^ a b c Marquart 1903, p. 505
  12. ^ Yavuz 2025, p. 295
  13. ^ Menander Protector; Dindorf 1871, p. 87
  14. ^ a b Marquart 1903, p. 504
  15. ^ Menander Protector; Blockley 1985, fr. 19.1–19.2

Sources

Literature

  • R. C. Blockley, The History of Menander the Guardsman: Introductory Essay, Text, Translation, and Historiographical Notes (1985)
  • Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
  • Josef Marquart, Osteuropäische und ostasiatische Streifzüge (1903)
  • Ludwig Dindorf (ed.), Historici Graeci minores, Bd. II: Menander Protector et Agathias (1871)
  • Karl Müller (ed.), Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, Bd. IV (darin: Menandri Protectoris fragmenta, griechisch mit lateinischer Übersetzung) (1851)
  • Emre-E. Yavuz, The Gokturk Empire: 2nd Edition (2025)

Related

What links here2

Battles & Events
Embassy of Valentinos (576)
Peoples
Alans

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Subjugation of the Alans and Onogurs (before 576).” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/events/subjugation-of-the-alans-and-onogurs/

Last revised: 8 November 2026