Priscus
5th-century diplomat, historian and orator
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Why Is Priscus Influential?
(Suggest an Edit or Addition)According to Wikipedia, Priscus of Panium was a 5th-century Eastern Roman diplomat and Greek historian and rhetorician . Biography Priscus was born in Panion between 410 and 420 AD. In 448/449 AD, he accompanied Maximinus, the head of the Byzantine embassy representing Emperor Theodosius II , on a diplomatic mission to the court of Attila the Hun. While there, he met and conversed with a Greek merchant, dressed in "Scythian" fashion, who was captured eight years earlier when the city of Viminacium was sacked by the Huns. The trader explained to Priscus that after the sack of Viminacium, he was a slave of Onegesius, a Hunnic nobleman, but obtained his freedom and chose to settle among the Huns. Priscus ultimately engaged in a debate with the Greek defector regarding the qualities of life and justice in both the Byzantine Empire and in barbarian kingdoms.
