Aigan (Hun commander)

Aigan or Aïgan (late 5th century or early 6th century – c. 534–548) was a Hun general serving as a cavalry commander for the Byzantine Empire, active in the early 6th century.

Biography

Aigan commanded a body of Hun cavalry at the Battle of Dara against the Sasanians, terrifying the Persians.[1][2] He was fundamental in the Byzantine victory.[3]

He then participated in the Byzantine expedition against the Vandalic Kingdom in 533, being one of the four cavalry commanders under Belisarius.[4] He remained in Africa to serve under Solomon after Belisarius returned to Constantinople in the summer of 534.[4]

In 534 he and Rufinus the Thracian fought against the Moors in Byzacena. They ambushed a Moorish raiding party, whom they killed, and released their prisoners. Thereafter they were in turn ambushed by a Moorish army overwhelmingly greater in number (they were possibly 500 against 50,000).[4] They put up a brave fight but were eventually defeated. His fellow cavalry commander Rufinus was beheaded, and his head was carried off by Moorish chieftain Medisinissas.[4]

References

  1. ^ Kim, Hyun Jin (2013). The Huns, Rome and the Birth of Europe. Cambridge University Press. p. 140. ISBN 9781107009066. Retrieved 25 October 2022.
  2. ^ Whately, Conor (2021). Procopius on Soldiers and Military Institutions in the Sixth-Century Roman Empire. Brill. p. 56. ISBN 9789004461611. Retrieved 25 October 2022.
  3. ^ Kim, Hyun Jin (2015). The Huns. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781317340904. Retrieved 25 October 2022.
  4. ^ a b c d Martindale, John R., ed. (1992). The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire: Volume III, AD 527–641. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 1098. ISBN 0-521-20160-8.