Valamir

Valamir was a king of the Amal house. He led the Ostrogoths in the service of Attila and the Hun empire.^[1] Jordanes calls him “a good keeper of secrets, bland of speech and skilled in wiles”. He says that Attila prized him and the Gepid king Ardaric above all his other chieftains.^[2] After Attila’s death Valamir beat Attila’s sons in Pannonia. He fell in a later war against the Sciri.^[3]

King under the Huns

Jordanes reports the death of the Ostrogothic king Thorismund, the son of Hunimund. His people mourned him so deeply that for forty years no other king took his place. In time Valamir grew to man’s estate. He was the son of Vandalarius, a cousin of that Thorismund.^[4] Valamir ascended the throne “though the Huns as yet held the power over the Goths in general as among other nations”.^[5] Modern accounts date his accession to 445.^[6]

His brothers Thiudimer and Vidimer shared the kingdom with him. Thiudimer served as a soldier under Valamir, and Valamir bade honours be given him. Vidimer was eager to serve them both. Jordanes says that the brothers ruled in such a way that they respected the dominion of Attila. They could not have refused to fight their kinsmen the Visigoths. They would even have committed parricide at their lord’s command.^[7]

With Attila’s armies

In 447 the Goths under Valamir and the Gepids under Ardaric marched with Attila against the eastern empire. This was the second of his Balkan wars.^[8] In 451 the Ostrogoths under Valamir and his brothers followed Attila on his invasion of Gaul.^[9]^[10] On the Catalaunian Plains they stood on Attila’s wings. The three brothers led them, “nobler even than the king they served”.^[11] Jordanes adds that Attila might well feel sure that they would fight against the Visigoths, their kinsmen.^[12]

Ardaric and Valamir, the senior king of the Ostrogoths, seem to have stood almost on a par with the leading men of the Huns themselves.^[13] Ardaric has been called Attila’s most trusted counsellor, and Valamir the next after him.^[14]

After Attila

Jordanes writes that no Scythian people could have been wrested from the power of the Huns except by the death of Attila.^[15] Scholars disagree on what part the Ostrogoths took in the revolt that followed. They are counted by some in the coalition that defeated Attila’s sons at the Nedao.^[16] Another account has a number of Ostrogoths in the Theiss valley begin the revolt. The Ostrogoths as a whole, apparently free already, took no part in the battle. This later earned them the hostility of the Gepids.^[17] A third explanation is that the Goths did not fight on the Nedao.^[18]

The Gepids took the lands of the Huns. The Goths then asked the Romans for land and received Pannonia.^[19] The emperor Marcian assigned them settlements in northern Pannonia as federates of the empire.^[20] Valamir lived between the rivers Scarniunga and Aqua Nigra. Thiudimer lived near Lake Pelso, and Vidimer lived between them.^[21] Some place Valamir’s land near the Drava.^[22]

The victory over Attila’s sons

The sons of Attila regarded the Goths as deserters from their rule. They came against them “as though they were seeking fugitive slaves”. They attacked Valamir alone, while his brothers knew nothing of it. Valamir had few men with him. He held out against them, wore them down and overwhelmed them so utterly that scarcely any of the enemy remained. The rest fled to the parts of Scythia along the river Danaper, “which the Huns call in their own tongue the Var”.^[23] A fraction of the Huns escaped under Attila’s younger son Ernac.^[24]

Valamir sent a messenger with the news to his brother Thiudimer. On that same day Thiudimer’s son Theodoric was born.^[25] Others date the war to about 455.^[26] It may be, they note, that the link with Theodoric’s birth reflects a wish to begin the life of the great king with a good omen.^[26] Attila’s sons made further attempts to regain their old territories. These failed against leaders such as Valamir.^[27]

King in Pannonia

Some time later the yearly gifts from the emperor Marcian were slow in coming. Valamir and his brothers saw that another Gothic leader, Theodoric the son of Triarius, enjoyed the Romans’ favour and an annual payment. They took up arms and ravaged almost the whole of Illyricum. The eastern emperor then paid the gifts that were due and promised them for the future. As a hostage of peace the Romans received the seven-year-old Theodoric, son of Thiudimer. Valamir had urged his hesitating brother to give him up.^[28]

Priscus tells of a “Balamer the Scythian” who broke his treaty, ravaged Roman lands and destroyed many cities. To stop his raids the Romans agreed to pay him 300 pounds of gold every year. He said that his numerous people had turned to war from lack of necessities.^[29] He has been identified with Valamir. In 459 the Goths under Valamir took Dyrrhachium, and in 461 he made a treaty with the Romans for that yearly sum.^[30]

Later the Goths raided the Sadagis of inner Pannonia. Attila’s son Dintzic laid siege to Bassiana, with the Ultzinzures, Angisciri, Bittugures and Bardores. The Goths turned on the Huns and drove them so ingloriously from their land that the Huns who remained feared Gothic arms “from that time down to the present day”.^[31] This second war has been dated between 463 or 464 and 466.^[32]

Death

Hunimund, chief of the Suavi, stirred the Sciri against the Goths. War came upon the Ostrogoths unexpectedly. Valamir rode before the line to encourage his men. His horse was wounded and fell, and it threw him. The enemy’s spears pierced and killed him. The Goths avenged him so fiercely that only a few of the Sciri remained.^[33] After his death the Goths turned to his brother Thiudimer.^[34]

References

^ Jordanes; Mierow 1915, § 252–253, p. 122–123
^ Jordanes; Mierow 1915, § 199–200, p. 107
^ Jordanes; Mierow 1915, § 268–269, p. 128; § 276, p. 131
^ Jordanes; Mierow 1915, § 250–251, p. 122
^ Jordanes; Mierow 1915, § 252, p. 122
^ Mierow 1915, p. 122
^ Jordanes; Mierow 1915, § 253, p. 122–123
^ Thompson 1948, p. 90
^ Thompson 1948, p. 136
^ Bury 1923, p. 291
^ Jordanes; Mierow 1915, § 198–199, p. 106–107
^ Jordanes; Mierow 1915, § 200, p. 107
^ Thompson 1948, p. 166
^ Bury 1923, p. 277
^ Jordanes; Mierow 1915, § 253, p. 123
^ Bury 1923, p. 296
^ Thompson 1948, p. 153
^ Maenchen-Helfen 1973, p. 144
^ Jordanes; Mierow 1915, § 264, p. 127
^ Bury 1923, p. 297
^ Jordanes; Mierow 1915, § 268, p. 128
^ Maenchen-Helfen 1973, p. 157
^ Jordanes; Mierow 1915, § 268–269, p. 128
^ Thompson 1948, p. 154
^ Jordanes; Mierow 1915, § 269, p. 128
^ a b Maenchen-Helfen 1973, p. 158
^ Yavuz 2025, p. 104
^ Jordanes; Mierow 1915, § 270–271, p. 129
^ Priscus; Müller 1851, fr. 28, p. 103
^ Maenchen-Helfen 1973, p. 164, 180
^ Jordanes; Mierow 1915, § 272–273, p. 129–130
^ Maenchen-Helfen 1973, p. 164
^ Jordanes; Mierow 1915, § 275–276, p. 130–131
^ Jordanes; Mierow 1915, § 278, p. 131

Sources

Jordanes (after Priscus and Ammianus Marcellinus)
Priscus

Literature

Charles Christopher Mierow, The Gothic History of Jordanes in English Version, with an Introduction and a Commentary (1915)
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)