Edeko

By the name Edeko (with various spellings:Edicon, Ediko, Edica, Ethico) are considered three contemporaneous historical figures,[1] whom many scholars identified as one:

• A prominent Hun, who served as both Attila's deputy and his ambassador to the Byzantine Empire (in 449).[1][2]
• A chieftain of the Scirii, who was defeated at the Battle of Bolia by the Ostrogoths at the river Bolia in Pannonia sometime in the late 460s.[3]
• Idikon or Edico,[1] the father of Odoacer, who became a magister militum in the Roman Army and the first King of Italy (476–493).[1]

Etymology

Otto Maenchen-Helfen considered the Hunnic name Έδέκων (Edekon) to be of Germanic or Germanized origin, but did not mention any derivation.[1]

Omeljan Pritsak derived it from Old Turkic verbal root *edär- (to pursue, to follow), and deverbal noun suffix κων (kun < r-k < r-g < *gun).[2] The reconstructed form is *edäkün (< *edär-kün; "follower, retainer").[4]

References

1. Maenchen-Helfen 1973, p. 388.
2. Pritsak 1982, p. 456.
3. Priscus, fragments 7 and 8, translated by C.D. Gordon, The Age of Attila: Fifth Century Byzantium and the Barbarians. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan. 1966. pp. 70–93.
4. Pritsak 1982, p. 457.

Sources

• Maenchen-Helfen, Otto J. (1973). The World of the Huns: Studies in Their History and Culture. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520015968.
• Pritsak, Omeljan (1982). The Hunnic Language of the Attila Clan (PDF). IV. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. ISSN 0363-5570.
• Reynolds, Robert L.; Lopez, Robert S. (1946). "Odoacer: German or Hun?". The American Historical Review. 52 (1): 36–53. doi:10.1086/ahr/52.1.36. JSTOR 1845067.