The "shepherds of the Romans" ( la, pastores Romanorum) were a population living in the

Carpathian Basin The Pannonian Basin, or Carpathian Basin, is a large Sedimentary basin, basin situated in south-east Central Europe. The Geomorphology, geomorphological term Pannonian Plain is more widely used for roughly the same region though with a somewh ...

at the time of the Hungarian conquest of the territory around 900, according to the ''

Gesta Hungarorum ''Gesta Hungarorum'', or ''The Deeds of the Hungarians'', is the earliest book about Hungarian history which has survived for posterity. Its genre is not chronicle, but ''gesta'', meaning "deeds" or "acts", which is a medieval entertaining li ...

'' and other medieval sources.

Hungary: the pasturing land of the Romans

The identification of the lowlands east of the

Middle Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...

as pasturing lands was first recorded in Emperor Constantine VII's '' De administrando imperio'' ("On Administering the Empire") in connection with the towns of Dalmatia. The Emperor wrote that "the Avars had their haunts on the far side of the river

Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , p ...

", adding that the Dalmatians saw "the beasts and men on the far side of the river" when they visited the borderlands. In contrast with the Byzantine Emperor,

Odo of Deuil Odo of Deuil (1110 – 18 April 1162), his first name also spelled Odon, Eude or Eudes, was a French historian of and participant in the Second Crusade (1147–1149). Born at Deuil to a modest family, he became a monk and was a confidant of Suger ...

who marched through Hungary in 1147 mentioned that the lands west of the river were said to have been the pasturing lands of

Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, ...

. According to an early 13th-century report by one Friar Ricardus, a lost Hungarian chronicle''The Deeds of the Christian Hungarians''stated that Hungary had been called the pasturing lands of the Romans before the Magyars conquered it. The identification of Hungary as the one-time ''pascua Romanorum'' ("the Romans' pasturing lands") was also mentioned in the '' Rhymed Chronicle of Stična'' from the 1240s, in

Thomas the Archdeacon Thomas the Archdeacon ( la, Thomas Archidiaconus; it, Tommaso Arcidiacono; hr, Toma Arhiđakon; c. 1200 – 8 May 1268), also known as Thomas of Spalato ( la, Thomas Spalatensis, hu, Spalatói Tamás), was a Roman Catholic cleric, historian and ...

's '' History of the Bishops of Slanona and Split'', which was written after 1250, and in the '' Anonymi descriptio Europae orientalis'' from the early 14th century. On the other hand,

Simon of Kéza Simon of Kéza ( hu, Kézai Simon) was the most famous Hungarian chronicler of the 13th century. He was a priest in the royal court of king Ladislaus IV of Hungary. In 1270–1271, bearing the title "master" (''magister''), Simon was part of a d ...

and the 14th-century Hungarian chronicles did not refer to Hungary as the Romans' pasturing land. Instead, they wrote of the "shepherds and husbandmen" or the "farm-workers and shepherds" of the Roman citizens of Pannonia,

Pamphylia Pamphylia (; grc, Παμφυλία, ''Pamphylía'') was a region in the south of Asia Minor, between Lycia and Cilicia, extending from the Mediterranean to Mount Taurus (all in modern-day Antalya province, Turkey). It was bounded on the north b ...

, Macedonia, Dalmatia and Phrygia who stayed behind when their masters fled from these

Roman province The Roman provinces (Latin: ''provincia'', pl. ''provinciae'') were the administrative regions of Ancient Rome outside Roman Italy that were controlled by the Romans under the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire. Each province was rule ...

s after the arrival of the

Huns The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th century AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was part ...

. Both Simon of Kéza and the 14th-century identified these "shepherds and husbandmen" as

Vlachs "Vlach" ( or ), also "Wallachian" (and many other variants), is a historical term and exonym used from the Middle Ages until the Modern Era to designate mainly Romanians but also Aromanians, Megleno-Romanians, Istro-Romanians and other E ...

The Romans' shepherds

According to the chapter 9 of the ''

'', Rus' princes informed the Magyars who marched by

Kyiv Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe. Kyi ...

towards "Pannonia" that in that land "there lived the Slavs, Bulgarians, Vlachs, and the shepherds of the Romans" ''(quam terram habitarent Sclavi, Bulgarii et Blachii ac pastores Romanorum)''. The anonymus author of the ''Gesta'' added that "after the death of King Attila, the Romans said the land of Pannonia was pastureland because their flocks grazed in the land of Pannonia".''Anonymus, Notary of King Béla: The Deeds of the Hungarians'' (ch. 9.), p. 26.

Notes

Sources

Primary sources

*''Anonymus, Notary of King Béla: The Deeds of the Hungarians'' (Edited, Translated and Annotated by Martyn Rady and László Veszprémy) (2010). In: Rady, Martyn; Veszprémy, László; Bak, János M. (2010); ''Anonymus and Master Roger''; CEU Press; . *''Constantine Porphyrogenitus: De Administrando Imperio'' (Greek text edited by Gyula Moravcsik, English translation by Romillyi J. H. Jenkins) (1967). Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies. . *''Simon of Kéza: The Deeds of the Hungarians'' (Edited and translated by László Veszprémy and Frank Schaer with a study by Jenő Szűcs) (1999). CEU Press. . *''The Hungarian Illuminated Chronicle:'' Chronica de Gestis Hungarorum (Edited by Dezső Dercsényi) (1970). Corvina, Taplinger Publishing. .

Secondary sources