Heruli

The Heruli (also Eluri, Eruli, Herules, Herulians) were one of the smaller Germanic peoples of Late Antiquity, known from records in the third to sixth centuries AD. The best recorded group of Heruli established a kingdom north of the Middle Danube, probably including the area north of present day Vienna. This kingdom was a neighbour to several other small and short-lived kingdoms in the late 5th century AD and early 6th century, including those of the Sciri, Rugii, Danubian Suebi, and Gepids. After the conquest of this Heruli kingdom by the Lombards in 508, splinter groups moved to Sweden, Ostrogothic Italy, and present-day Serbia, which was under Eastern Roman control.

The Danubian Heruli are generally equated to the "Elouri" who lived near the Sea of Azov during the late 3rd or early 4th century, and are believed to have migrated westwards. In 267-270 these Elouri took part together with Goths and other eastern European peoples in two massive raids into Roman provinces in the Balkans and Aegean Sea, attacking not only by land, but notably also by sea. The equation of these "ELuRi" with the "ERuLi" was made by several Byzantine authors, and is still widely accepted although some scholars such as Ellegård consider this equation uncertain, and propose that the Heruli homeland lay elsewhere. For example, because a group of 6th century Heruli moved from the Danube to Scandinavia, some scholars believe that the Heruli had their earliest origins in Scandinavia. There are also proposals that there were Heruli kingdoms in several parts of Europe, already in the 3rd and 4th century, perhaps with common origins in the north. One proposal, based upon indirect evidence, is that there was a "Western Heruli" settlement based near the Lower Rhine, because in 286 AD, only a few years after the eastern raids, the Heruli were defeated in an attack on Roman Gaul.

Like their sometime allies the Goths, soon after first being noted in contemporary records as Eastern European raiders, Heruli also began entering the Roman empire and serving in its military, where they developed a particularly notable reputation already in the 4th century, at first mainly in the Western Roman Empire. A new Heruli unit was stationed in northern Italy. On the other hand, Heruli living near the Roman frontiers were also among the many groups which caused disruption to the empire in this period. The Heruli probably already settled north of the Danube in the 4th century. In 409 AD Heruli were among the "ferocious" nations, mostly from the Danubian area, that Saint Jerome described as occupying all of Roman Gaul. An important influence upon the movements of such peoples in this period was that the Huns were moving west. Eventually Attila's empire was based in the Danubian region. The Danubian Heruli kingdom known from later records probably already existed in some form within his empire, as did the kingdoms of the Ostrogoths, Sciri, and Gepids.

After the death of Attila in 453, the Danubian Heruli fought in the Battle of Nedao in 454, although it is not certain which side they took among his various former allies. They also participated in successive conquests of Italy by Odoacer (476), Theoderic the Great (493), Narses (554), and probably also the Lombards (starting in 568). Under Roman command the Heruli played important military roles in Balkan, African, and Italian conflicts. With their last known kingdom in the Balkans eventually dominated by Rome however, and smaller groups integrated into larger political entities such as the Gepids and Lombards, the Heruli disappear from history around the time of the conquest of Italy by the Lombards. In this period the Middle Danube was coming under the control of the Pannonian Avars.