Ikar

Ikar, Ἰκάρ, was the battlefield of a Göktürk civil war in the history of Theophylact Simocatta.^[1] Theophylact calls it a place enfolded in great plains. He sets it four hundred miles from the mountain called Golden.^[2]

The battle

The story comes from a letter in which the ruler “who is celebrated by the Turks as Chagan in the east” announced his victories to the emperor Maurice.^[3] After the victories the Göktürks fell into civil war. A certain Turum, a kinsman of the khagan, revolted and gathered great forces.^[4] When the rebels gained the upper hand, the khagan sent to three other great khagans, Sparzeugun, Kunaxolan and Tuldich.^[5]

Their whole array assembled at the Ikar. The rebels drew up against them there.^[6] Turum fell. His allies turned to flight. After much slaughter the khagan was master of his own territory again.^[6] The passage then turns to the Golden Mountain. It lies to the east. The inhabitants call it Golden for its fruits and its flocks. By custom it is ceded to the most powerful khagan.^[7]

Date and author

Theophylact tells the episode in his narrative of the year 595.^[8] The letter itself is older. The defeat of Turum may be put about 582, at the start of Maurice’s reign. It rests on the evidence of the Chinese histories of the Göktürks.^[9] A different dating puts the revolt in the years before 598 and makes it a revolt of the Ogurs.^[10] Dating the letter to 598 makes Tardush its author.^[11]

Location

Theophylact gives no position for the Ikar beyond its distance from the Golden Mountain.^[12] It is counted among the places in the passage that cannot be located without fragile hypotheses.^[13] It has also been identified with the river Guma in Central Asia.^[14] The Golden Mountain of the passage has been identified with the mountain of Ektag, where the Roman envoys met Istemi. That places it in the valley of the Tekes rather than in the Altai.^[15]

References

^ Theophylact Simocatta; Whitby 1986, vii.8.8–10, p. 190
^ Theophylact Simocatta; Whitby 1986, vii.8.10–11, pp. 190–191
^ Theophylact Simocatta; Whitby 1986, vii.7.7, p. 188
^ Theophylact Simocatta; Whitby 1986, vii.8.8, p. 190
^ Theophylact Simocatta; Whitby 1986, vii.8.9, p. 190
^ a b Theophylact Simocatta; Whitby 1986, vii.8.10, p. 190
^ Theophylact Simocatta; Whitby 1986, vii.8.11–12, p. 191
^ Whitby 1986, p. 188
^ Whitby 1986, p. 190–191
^ Golden 1992, p. 133
^ Chavannes 1903, p. 249
^ Theophylact Simocatta
^ Chavannes 1903, p. 251
^ Whitby 1986, p. 244
^ Chavannes 1903, p. 248

Sources

Theophylact Simocatta

Literature

Michael Whitby, Mary Whitby (trans.), The History of Theophylact Simocatta (1986)
Édouard Chavannes, Documents sur les Tou-Kiue (Turcs) occidentaux (1903)
Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)