Onegesius

Onegesius was the chief minister of Attila. Priscus calls him the man who, after Attila, was the most powerful among the Scythians in wealth.^[1]^[2] He belonged to the circle of leading men whom Priscus calls logades. The circle included his brother Scottas, Edeco, Berichus and Orestes.^[3]^[4]

The embassy of 449

Theodosius II sent Maximinus to Attila in 449. The emperor asked that Onegesius be sent to Constantinople to settle the disputes between Romans and Huns.^[5] Onegesius was away when the envoys arrived. Attila had sent him with his eldest son, Ellac, to the Akatziri. The purpose was to make the young man king over that people.^[6] In his absence Priscus turned to his brother Scottas, who told him: “Doubt no longer. I have as much influence with Attila as my brother, in word or deed.”^[7]

Onegesius returned with Attila’s son. The young man had slipped and broken his right arm.^[1] His house stood next to Attila’s, inside its own wooden enclosure, but without the towers that adorned the king’s. Near it stood a bath that Onegesius had built of stone brought from Pannonia. The country had neither stone nor timber of its own. Its architect, a captive from Sirmium, had hoped to win his freedom with the work. Onegesius made him his bath attendant instead.^[1]^[2] Attila rode into the village. Onegesius’s wife came out with a crowd of maids carrying food and wine. Attila ate on horseback to please the wife of his friend.^[1]

A Greek merchant of Viminacium had fallen to Onegesius in the division of the booty when the city was taken. The Greek told Priscus that it was the custom for the leading men of the Scythians after Attila to choose the richer captives for themselves. He had won his freedom by fighting for his master against the Romans and the Akatziri. He had married a barbarian wife and ate at Onegesius’s table.^[8]

Maximinus offered Onegesius the emperor’s lasting friendship for himself and his children if he came to Constantinople and settled the disputes. Onegesius answered that he would tell the emperor only what Attila ordered. He asked whether the Romans thought they could persuade him to betray his master, to forget his upbringing among the Scythians, his wives and children, and to prefer wealth among the Romans to slavery with Attila. He said that he would be more useful at home, softening his master’s anger against the Romans.^[9]^[10]^[11]

At Attila’s court

Onegesius stood beside Attila in front of his house when Attila gave judgement to those who brought him their disputes.^[12] He took Maximinus in to Attila. Attila named the three former consuls he would accept as envoys.^[13] At the banquet he sat on a chair to the right of the royal couch, the first place of honour, with two of Attila’s sons opposite him.^[13]^[14] On the next morning he held the council of the leading men on Attila’s decisions. He had the letters to the emperor drawn up. At the envoys’ request, and after consulting Attila, he freed the wife of Sylla, captured at Ratiaria, for 500 solidi. He sent her children to the emperor as a gift.^[15]

According to a modern account, Attila survived, a few years before his death, two attempts on his life by Onegesius and his brother Scottas.^[16] In Priscus the plot of 449 is the work of the eunuch Chrysaphius through Edeco. Onegesius appears there as the most loyal of Attila’s men.^[17]

Name

ὈνηγήσιοςGreekPriscus
HunigasiusLatin

The name is the Greek form of a barbarian name. It may be the Germanic Hunigis, a name borne by a sword-bearer of Theoderic the Great. Onegesius would then be Hunigasius, Attila’s interpreter and spokesman in the Life of Saint Lupus. A Turkic derivation from oneki, twelve, is rejected.^[18] A different judgement is that the evidence for any of the Hun names is too slight to decide between Germanic and Turkic etymologies.^[19]

References

^ a b c d Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 85
^ a b Bury 1923, p. 282
^ Maenchen-Helfen 1973, p. 192
^ Thompson 1948, p. 163
^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 78
^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 82–83
^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 80–81
^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 86
^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 88
^ Bury 1923, p. 285
^ Thompson 1948, p. 114
^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 89
^ a b Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 91
^ Maenchen-Helfen 1973, p. 195
^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 8, p. 93
^ Yavuz 2025, p. 103
^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 7–8, p. 77, 88
^ Maenchen-Helfen 1973, p. 388–389
^ Thompson 1948, p. 222–223

Sources

Priscus

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)
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)
Emre-E. Yavuz, The Gokturk Empire: 2nd Edition (2025)