Mundus or Mundo ( el, Μοῦνδος; Moundos, la, Mundo; died 536) was a Barbarian commander of
Gepid
The Gepids, ( la, Gepidae, Gipedae, grc, Γήπαιδες) were an East Germanic tribe who lived in the area of modern Romania, Hungary and Serbia, roughly between the Tisza, Sava and Carpathian Mountains. They were said to share the religion ...
,
Hun, and/or
Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
origins. He appears to have been the son of the Gepid king Giesmus. In the early 500s he commanded a group of bandits in Pannonia, eventually allying himself to the Ostrogothic king
Theodoric the Great
Theodoric (or Theoderic) the Great (454 – 30 August 526), also called Theodoric the Amal ( got, , *Þiudareiks; Greek: , romanized: ; Latin: ), was king of the Ostrogoths (471–526), and ruler of the independent Ostrogothic Kingdom of Italy ...
. After Theodoric's death in 526, Mundus entered Byzantine service under emperor
Justinian I
Justinian I (; la, Iustinianus, ; grc-gre, Ἰουστινιανός ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was the Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565.
His reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renova ...
, fighting in the Balkans, defending Justinian during the
Nika riots
The Nika riots ( el, Στάσις τοῦ Νίκα, translit=Stásis toû Níka), Nika revolt or Nika sedition took place against Byzantine Emperor Justinian I in Constantinople over the course of a week in 532 AD. They are often regarded as the ...
, and fighting in the first stage of the
Gothic War, during which he died in 536.
Etymology
Mundus's name is attested as la, Mundo in
Jordanes
Jordanes (), also written as Jordanis or Jornandes, was a 6th-century Eastern Roman bureaucrat widely believed to be of Gothic descent who became a historian later in life. Late in life he wrote two works, one on Roman history ('' Romana'') a ...
and
Marcellinus Comes Marcellinus Comes (Greek: Μαρκελλίνος ό Κόμης, died c. 534) was a Latin chronicler of the Eastern Roman Empire. An Illyrian by birth, he spent most of his life at the court of Constantinople. His only surviving work, the ''Chronicl ...
and as gr, Μοῦνδος (Mundus) in Greek sources. The differences between the Greek and Latin names are unusual and Gerhard Doerfer suspects that the Greek name has been partially
Hellenized
Hellenization (other British spelling Hellenisation) or Hellenism is the adoption of Greek culture, religion, language and identity by non-Greeks. In the ancient period, colonization often led to the Hellenization of indigenous peoples; in th ...
.
Omeljan Pritsak
Omeljan Yosypovych Pritsak ( uk, Омелян Йосипович Пріцак; 7 April 1919, Luka, Sambir County, West Ukrainian People's Republic – 29 May 2006, Boston) was the first Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History at Har ...
argues that Mundus's name had the same Turkic etymology as proposed by
Gyula Németh and
László Rásonyi
László () is a Hungarian male given name and surname after the King-Knight Saint Ladislaus I of Hungary (1077–1095). It derives from Ladislav, a variant of Vladislav. Other versions are Lessl or Laszly. The name has a history of being freque ...
for Attila's father
Mundzuk Mundzuk was a Hunnic chieftain, brother of the Hunnic rulers Octar and Rugila, and father of Bleda and Attila by an unknown consort. Jordanes in ''Getica'' recounts "''For this Attila was the son of Mundzucus, whose brothers were Octar and Ruas, w ...
, from
Turkic ''*munʒu'' (jewel, pearl; flag). Pritsak also argues that Mundus's father, Giesmus, had a name derived ultimately from the
Turkic–
Mongolian root ''kes/käs'' (protector, bestower of favor, blessing, good-fortune).
Otto Maenchen-Helfen
Otto John Maenchen-Helfen (German: Otto Mänchen-Helfen; July 26, 1894 – January 29, 1969) was an Austrian academic, sinologist, historian, author, and traveler.
From 1927 to 1930, he worked at the Marx-Engels Institute in Moscow, and from 193 ...
, however, takes ''Giesmus'' for a
Germanic name and in this connection notes
Moritz Schönfeld's Germanic etymology of ''Mundus'', comparing it to the Germanic names ''Mundila'' and ''
Munderic Munderic (died 532/33) was a Merovingian claimant to the Frankish throne. He was a wealthy nobleman and landowner with vast estates in the region around Vitry-le-Brûle (now Vitry-en-Perthois) near Châlons-sur-Marne.
In 532 or 533 or around tha ...
'', both derived from PGmc *''munda'' ("protection). Stefan Krautschik likewise argues that the Germanic name of Mundus's grandson
Theudimund speaks for a Germanic etymology. Gottfried Schramm rejects a Germanic origin, arguing that an original East Germanic name would have appeared as ''*Munda'' in Jordanes. However, Gudmund Schütte notes other East Germanic names recorded as ending in -o rather than -a, such as ''Veduco'' and ''Tremo'', and proposed interference in the Latin transcription from another Germanic dialect.
Ethnic identity
Different ancient authors give different indications of Mundus's ethnic identity. Jordanes identifies Mundus as "formerly of the Attilani," that is, the Huns (Jord. Get. 301), whereas
John Malalas (chap. 450) and
Theophanes the Confessor
Theophanes the Confessor ( el, Θεοφάνης Ὁμολογητής; c. 758/760 – 12 March 817/818) was a member of the Byzantine aristocracy who became a monk and chronicler. He served in the court of Emperor Leo IV the Khazar before taking ...
(A.M. 6032) identify Mundus as the son of a king of the Gepids. Marcellinus Comes refers to Mundus as a , which he also uses to mean
Ostrogoth, while
Procopius
Procopius of Caesarea ( grc-gre, Προκόπιος ὁ Καισαρεύς ''Prokópios ho Kaisareús''; la, Procopius Caesariensis; – after 565) was a prominent late antique Greek scholar from Caesarea Maritima. Accompanying the Roman gen ...
merely says he was a barbarian.
The
Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire
''Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire'' (abbreviated as ''PLRE'') is a work of Roman prosopography published in a set of three volumes collectively describing many of the people attested to have lived in the Roman Empire from AD 260, the date ...
has argued that because Mundo (Jordanes) has Hunnic origins and Mundus has Gepid origins, they cannot be the same person, an argument rejected by
Patrick Amory
Patrick Amory (born 1965) is a historian and an executive in the recorded music industry.
Early life
Patrick Amory was born in New York City on July 10, 1965, to literary parents. His father, the late Hugh Amory, was noted as the most "rigorous ...
and Stefan Krautschik. Brian Croke argued that Jordanes's statement could also mean that Mundus originated in the confederacy of the Huns rather than that he was a Hun himself. Stefan Krautschik instead argues that the Gepid royal family and Attila's were likely connected by marriage. According to Amory, Mundus could have had ancestors who thought of themselves as Goths, Gepids, or Huns, from among which he and others could have chosen as needed.
Biography
According to
Theophanes, Mundus was the son of Giesmus, a ruler of the
East Germanic
East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the ...
tribe
Gepids
The Gepids, ( la, Gepidae, Gipedae, grc, Γήπαιδες) were an East Germanic tribe who lived in the area of modern Romania, Hungary and Serbia, roughly between the Tisza, Sava and Carpathian Mountains. They were said to share the religion ...
with his capital in
Sirmium
Sirmium was a city in the Roman province of Pannonia, located on the Sava river, on the site of modern Sremska Mitrovica in the Vojvodina autonomous provice of Serbia. First mentioned in the 4th century BC and originally inhabited by Illyrian ...
, and nephew to another Gepid ruler, Thraustila.
[Theophanes, 6032] After his father's death, Mundus was raised by his maternal uncle Thraustila, who likely succeeded Giesmus. Thraustila was killed in battle in 488 by the forces of
Theodoric the Great
Theodoric (or Theoderic) the Great (454 – 30 August 526), also called Theodoric the Amal ( got, , *Þiudareiks; Greek: , romanized: ; Latin: ), was king of the Ostrogoths (471–526), and ruler of the independent Ostrogothic Kingdom of Italy ...
. After Thraustila was succeeded by his son Traseric, Mundus came to lead a group of bandits in
Pannonia. He declared himself a king and established himself in a tower called Herta. When the Byzantines sent an army to fight him under the general
Sabinianus in 505, Theodoric sent his general Pitzias and he and Mundus joined forces and defeated Sabinianus. Although he disappears from the sources, Mundus appears to have remained Theodoric's ally until the latter's death in 526.
Mundus is next mentioned as a commander of the Gepids and
Heruli
The Heruli (or Herules) were an early Germanic people. Possibly originating in Scandinavia, the Heruli are first mentioned by Roman authors as one of several " Scythian" groups raiding Roman provinces in the Balkans and the Aegean Sea, attacking ...
in Pannonia in the 520s. In 529, in the context of new battles between the Gepids and Byzantines, Mundus and his son
Mauricius entered Byzantine service and was made
magister militum
(Latin for "master of soldiers", plural ) was a top-level military command used in the later Roman Empire, dating from the reign of Constantine the Great. The term referred to the senior military officer (equivalent to a war theatre commander, ...
in
Illyricum by the Byzantine emperor
Justinian I
Justinian I (; la, Iustinianus, ; grc-gre, Ἰουστινιανός ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was the Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565.
His reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renova ...
, where he fought against the Slavs and Bulgars. In 531, he replaced
Belisarius
Belisarius (; el, Βελισάριος; The exact date of his birth is unknown. – 565) was a military commander of the Byzantine Empire under the emperor Justinian I. He was instrumental in the reconquest of much of the Mediterranean terr ...
as ''magister militum per Orientem'' before re-assuming his rank of ''Magister militum per Illyricum'' again in 532. In that same year, Mundus and a troop of Heruli happened to be in Constinople when the
Nika riots
The Nika riots ( el, Στάσις τοῦ Νίκα, translit=Stásis toû Níka), Nika revolt or Nika sedition took place against Byzantine Emperor Justinian I in Constantinople over the course of a week in 532 AD. They are often regarded as the ...
broke out; he successfully suppressed the riots with Belisarius, with his troops massacring many near the
hippodrome
The hippodrome ( el, ἱππόδρομος) was an ancient Greek stadium for horse racing and chariot racing. The name is derived from the Greek words ''hippos'' (ἵππος; "horse") and ''dromos'' (δρόμος; "course"). The term is used i ...
. In 535, with the outbreak of the
Gothic War, Mundus was sent to
Dalmatia and conquered the city of
Salona
Salona ( grc, Σάλωνα) was an ancient city and the capital of the Roman province of Dalmatia. Salona is located in the modern town of Solin, next to Split, in Croatia.
Salona was founded in the 3rd century BC and was mostly destroyed in ...
(
Split
Split(s) or The Split may refer to:
Places
* Split, Croatia, the largest coastal city in Croatia
* Split Island, Canada, an island in the Hudson Bay
* Split Island, Falkland Islands
* Split Island, Fiji, better known as Hạfliua
Arts, entertai ...
) from the Goths. In 536, his son Mauricius was killed during a Gothic counterattack; Mundus subsequently thoroughly defeated the Goths, but was killed while pursuing them.
Notes
References
Bibliography
Primary sources
*
Procopius
Procopius of Caesarea ( grc-gre, Προκόπιος ὁ Καισαρεύς ''Prokópios ho Kaisareús''; la, Procopius Caesariensis; – after 565) was a prominent late antique Greek scholar from Caesarea Maritima. Accompanying the Roman gen ...
''De Bello Persico'', Volume I.(Project Gutenberg)
*
John Malalas, ''Chronographia''
*
Theophanes the Confessor
Theophanes the Confessor ( el, Θεοφάνης Ὁμολογητής; c. 758/760 – 12 March 817/818) was a member of the Byzantine aristocracy who became a monk and chronicler. He served in the court of Emperor Leo IV the Khazar before taking ...
, ''Chronicle''
*
Marcellinus Comes Marcellinus Comes (Greek: Μαρκελλίνος ό Κόμης, died c. 534) was a Latin chronicler of the Eastern Roman Empire. An Illyrian by birth, he spent most of his life at the court of Constantinople. His only surviving work, the ''Chronicl ...
,
Chronicon'
Secondary sources
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
{{DISPLAYTITLE:Mundus (''magister militum'')
536 deaths
6th-century Byzantine military personnel
Byzantines killed in battle
Byzantine people of Hunnic descent
Generals of Justinian I
Gepid warriors
History of Dalmatia
Magistri militum of Hunnic descent
People of the Gothic War (535–554)
Year of birth unknown