In 448, a Roman named Priscus went as a diplomat to the court of Attila the Hun at a location north of the Danube River. His firsthand report of what he learned about life among the Huns during this visit includes this conversation with a stranger he met there. They exchanged contrasting views of whether life, law, and freedom were better protected among the Romans or the Huns (called Scythians here). According to descriptions of the Huns by other authors (such as the fourth-century historian and military man Ammianus Marcellinus), Romans recognized these barbarians as fearless and proud, and they respected them for their fierce dedication to their way of life. As a writer, Priscus could have been influenced by having read the bitter criticism of Roman society that Tacitus, the famous Roman historian writing in the early second century C.E., put into the mouths of non-Romans in his works. But the details that Priscus gives about the stranger’s personal appearance and life story perhaps increase the likelihood that he is reporting, in this document, a conversation held with a real person.

A man who I assumed was a barbarian from his Scythian-style clothes came up to me and said “Hello!” in Greek. I was surprised by a Scythian speaking Greek. For the subjects of the Huns, swept together from various lands, speak, in addition to their native barbarian languages, either Hunnic or Gothic, or—since many of them do business with the western Romans—Latin. None of them usually speak Greek, except captives from the Thracian or Illyrian coast; anyone who meets them easily recognizes, from their ripped clothing and the poor appearance of their heads, that they are individuals whose lives have taken a turn for the worse. This man, on the other hand, was well dressed in fancy Scythian clothes and a circular mullet-style haircut.

Returning his greeting, I asked him who he was and where he had come from into a barbarian land and chosen the Scythian lifestyle. When he asked me why I was eager to know, I told him that his speaking Greek had made me curious. Then he laughed and said that he was a Greek by birth and had gone as a merchant to trade in Viminacium, in the region of Moesia on the Danube River. He had lived there a long time and married a very rich wife. But barbarians captured the city, and his property was taken away. On account of his riches he was allotted as a captive to [the Hun] Onegesius in the division of the spoils, since it was customary that, after Attila, the chiefs of the Scythians, because they commanded many men, would keep the rich prisoners for themselves. He later fought bravely [in attacks by the Huns] against the Romans and the Acatiri tribe. Following the Scythian custom, he gave the spoils that he won to his master, and so got his freedom. He then married a barbarian wife and had children.

Since he had the privilege of eating at the table of Onegesius, he considered his new life among the Scythians better than his old life among the Romans. For he explained that once a war is over, the Scythians live at ease, each enjoying what he has got, with no, or only a little, bothering of others or being bothered themselves. The Romans, on the other hand, are very likely to be destroyed by war, as they have to pin their hopes of safety on other people: their tyrants do not permit everyone to use weapons. And Romans who do use them are harmed by the cowardly actions of their generals, who cannot stand up to the stresses of war. But the condition of Roman subjects in peacetime is far more burdensome than the evils of war, on account of the harshness of tax collection and the harm done by wrongdoers, since the laws do not apply to everyone. A member of the upper class who breaks the law does not face punishment. If a man is poor, however, and doesn’t understand how to handle things, he suffers the penalty imposed by the law, if he doesn’t leave this life before he gets to the trial, given how long lawsuits are dragged out and how much money has to be spent. The most painful thing of all is to have to pay in order to try to get justice. For no one will give his day in court to the man who has been treated unjustly unless he pays money to the judge and the judge’s clerks.

As he was saying many other things like this, I calmly asked him to hear what I had to say. I insisted that the founders of the Roman Republic were wise and good men. To prevent things from being done randomly, they arranged for some people to be guardians of the laws, while others were tasked with skill in weapons and to train for war, focused on nothing else but being ready for battle and having the spirit to go to war as if going to their usual exercises, having gotten rid of their fear ahead of time through their training. The founders arranged for others to do farming and care for the land, to feed both themselves and those who fought for them by contributing the tax that consists of the grain supply for the army. They arranged for others to pay attention to people who have been treated unjustly and to conduct rightful prosecutions for people who are too weak to advance their own case. Others they set up as judges to guard what the law wishes.

Since the founders were concerned for those involved in the judicial process, they also arranged for others whose job it is to make sure that a person who wins a judgment in court will in fact receive the damages that have been awarded, as well as that the person who was found guilty does not pay more than the legal judgment specified. If no one existed who would pay attention to such things, then the motivation for a second case at law would arise from the first one, because either the winner in the case would apply too much pressure, or the person who lost the case would continue to act unjustly.

There is indeed an amount of money that these officials are paid by those involved in court cases, just as the farmers pay a set amount to the soldiers. Isn’t it proper to support those who help you and reward their good will, in the same way that feeding a horse helps a horseman . . . ? Whenever court costs have to be paid even though we’ve lost the case, shouldn’t we blame our own unjust action instead of attributing the harm to someone else?

If it does happen that it takes too long to try a case, that’s the result of a concern for justice, to prevent judges from judging cases carelessly and making mistaken judgments. For they believe that it is better to finish a case late than to wrong someone by hurrying and thereby committing an offense against God, the founder of justice. The laws do apply to everyone, so that even the Roman emperor obeys them. And it’s not true, as was said in his accusation, that the rich use force against the poor without any risk, unless someone escapes prosecution because he never got caught. The poor can get away with things this way, too. Criminals under these circumstances get away because of the lack of evidence, something that happens among all peoples and not just the Romans.

You ought to thank chance for the freedom you enjoy, not the master who led you into war, where as a result of your inexperience you could have been killed by the enemy or punished by the one who possessed you if you ran away from the battlefield. The Romans usually treat even their household slaves better than this. They act like fathers or teachers to them, to restrain them from behaving stupidly and to get them to do what is considered right, and they teach them self-control when they make mistakes, just as with the children in their families. It is not legal for them to punish them with death, as the Scythians do.

There are many ways to freedom among the Romans. Not just the living but even those who have died gladly give it, arranging their estates however they wish. The law is that whatever each person wishes to happen to his possessions when he dies is valid.

In tears, he said that the laws were excellent and the Roman Republic [as the Romans still called the Empire] was good, but the officials were corrupting it by not living up to the same moral standards that the officials of the past did.

Source: Priscus, fr. 11.2 Müller Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum (= Exc. de Leg. Rom. 3). Translation by Thomas R. Martin.

Questions to Consider