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. 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.