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Contos de uma insurreição. A Batalha do Rio Nedao e a Revolta Fictícia dos Povos Germanos

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore and call into question the account of the insurrection of a number of Germanic tribes against the Huns, in the so called Battle of Nedao River (second half of the fifth century). The testimony of this battle, recorded by Jordanes, represents the end of the submission of many Germanic and nomadic groups and the end of the excessive oppression of Attila’s sons, Elac, Hernac and Dengzic. According to Jordanes, after the death of the famous Hunnic king, his sons started treating their subject nations as slaves, which led Ardaric, the Gepid king, to foment a revolt that claimed Elac’s life and ended the Hunnic hegemony in the Balkans. I believe that this battle is a rhetorical creation of Jordanes: as the only author who mentions this fact, Jordanes wanted to create a historiographical explanation to delimit the end of real Hunnic authority and, at the same, to elucidate the social and political chaos in the Balkans during the end of the fifth and most of the sixth centuries

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