Ernak

Ernak was a younger son of Attila. Priscus saw him at his father’s banquet in 449. Through all the jesting of the evening Attila’s face did not change until his son came in. Then Attila looked at him gently and drew him by the cheek.^[1]^[2] Priscus wondered that Attila cared nothing for his other children and only for this one. A guest who spoke Latin told him that seers had foretold the fall of Attila’s family. They had also foretold that this boy would restore it.^[1]

After Attila’s death and the Nedao, Jordanes writes, “Hernac, the younger son of Attila, with his followers, chose a home in the most distant part of Lesser Scythia”, and his kinsmen Emnetzur and Ultzindur took Utus, Oescus and Almus on the Danube.^[3] Lesser Scythia is the Dobruja. After 455 Ernak’s Huns formed one of two Hunnic pockets inside the empire.^[4]^[5] Some scholars place him instead at the confluence of the Danube and the Tisza, on an emended text.^[6]

About 466 he and his brother Dengizich sent an embassy to the emperor Leo to ask for a market on the Danube. The request was refused. Dengizich wanted war. Ernak opposed it, because internal troubles held him back.^[7] His troubles at home were presumably with the Saragurs.^[8] What became of him is not known.^[9]^[5]

The list of the Bulgarian princes begins with an Irnik. Ernak has often been identified with him.^[10]^[5] In another account Irnik stands in second place in the list, after a rather mythical ruler. The Huns who followed Ernak formed, two centuries later, the core of the Bulgars who moved to the Balkans under Asparukh in 680.^[11] The name is understood as Turkic, from er, man, with a diminutive ending.^[12] The Wei Shu records a king of Sute who sent envoys to ransom merchants captured by the Northern Wei. A study of 1899 identified him with Ernak. The debate on the Huns and the Xiongnu carries that argument.^[13]

References

^ a b Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 93
^ Bury 1923, p. 288
^ Jordanes; Mierow 1915, § 266, p. 127
^ Maenchen-Helfen 1973, p. 152
^ a b c Golden 1992, p. 92
^ Thompson 1948, p. 154
^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 36, p. 107
^ Maenchen-Helfen 1973, p. 166
^ Thompson 1948, p. 157
^ Maenchen-Helfen 1973, p. 415
^ Sinor 1990, p. 198–199
^ Maenchen-Helfen 1973, p. 415, 443
^ Hirth 1899 (printed 1900)b, p. 249–255

Sources

Priscus
Jordanes (after Priscus and Ammianus Marcellinus)

Literature

Karl Müller (ed.), Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, Bd. IV (darin: Menandri Protectoris fragmenta, griechisch mit lateinischer Übersetzung) (1851)
J. B. Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire from the Death of Theodosius I to the Death of Justinian, vol. I (1923)
Charles Christopher Mierow, The Gothic History of Jordanes in English Version, with an Introduction and a Commentary (1915)
Otto J. Maenchen-Helfen, The World of the Huns: Studies in Their History and Culture (1973)
E. A. Thompson, A History of Attila and the Huns (1948)
Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
Friedrich Hirth, Ueber Wolga-Hunnen und Hiung-nu (1899 (printed 1900))
Emre-E. Yavuz, The Gokturk Empire: 2nd Edition (2025)
Denis Sinor (ed.), The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia (1990)