Preface 1. Introduction: the concept of Inner Asia Denis Sinor 2. The geographical setting Robert N. Taaffe 3. Inner Asia at the dawn of history A. P. Okladnikov 4. The Scythians and Sarmatians A. I. Melyukvoa 5. The Hsiung-nu Ying-Shih Yu 6. Indo-Europeans in Inner Asia A. K. Narain 7. The Hun period Denis Sinor 8. The Avars Samuel Szadeczky-Kardoss 9. The peoples of the Russian forest belt Peter B. Golden 10. The peoples of the south Russian steppes Peter B. Golden 11. The establishment and dissolution of the Turk empire Denis Sinor 12. The Uighars Colin Mackerras 13. The Karakhanids and early Islam Peter B. Golden 14. Early and medieval Tibet Helmut Hoffman 15. The forest peoples of Manchuria: Kitans and Jurchens Herbert Franke Bibliographies Index.

The World of the Huns

The Cambridge history of early Inner Asia

Greek artefacts, craftsmen and artists had penetrated Rome since regal days; from the second century BC this trickle had become a continuing and influential flood, contributing together with Italic and Etruscan architecture and art, and the developing central Italian and Roman concrete architecture, to the rich tapestry of the art of the capital. Vespasian (69-79), founder of the Flavian dynasty, showed an astute pragmatism in his handling of architecture and art. In the provinces the architectural and art forms characteristic of the Flavian era continued to flourish. Dynamism returned to imperial commissions with the Romano-Spanish Trajan. The age of Hadrian (117-38) proved to be extraordinary, largely because of the extent to which he was able to impress upon it his own many-sided personality: ruler, philhellene, architect, dilettante, poet, traveller and romantic. The rich artistic harvest of the Flavian to the Antonine ages was not just an imperial, but a corporate achievement, one which offered a worthy inheritance to following generations.

Art and architecture

From the mid-third century, Gothic tribes inhabited lands north of the river Danube; they were destined, however, to play a major role in the destruction of the Roman Empire and the creation of the medieval world order. In the last quarter of the fourth century, in the face of Hun attacks, some Goths (those commonly known as Visigoths) fled into the Roman Empire, winning a famous victory at Hadrianople in 378 and sacking Rome in 410. They later moved further west to found a kingdom in southern Gaul and Spain. Of equal historical importance are those Goths (usually known as Ostrogoths) who remained north of the Danube under Hun domination from c. 375 to c. 450. They too then entered the Empire, and, under Theoderic the Great, established a kingdom in Italy which is known to us through Boethius, Cassiodorus, and Ennodius. Much less well known, however, is the formative stage of their history when the Ostrogoths endured Hun domination, and it is on our sources for this period that this study will concentrate.

The World of the Huns

Citations

The Cambridge history of early Inner Asia

Art and architecture

Cassiodorus and the Rise of the Amals: Genealogy and the Goths under Hun Domination

The peoples of the south Russian steppes

Specialized production and exchange

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