Editing Heruli (section)

===The "western" Heruli of the 4th century===
{{Also|Heruli (military unit)}}
[[File:Heruli seniores shield pattern.svg|right|thumb|The shield pattern of the ''[[Heruli seniores]]'', a [[Late Roman military]] unit composed of Heruli.]]
As with their neighbours the Goths, Heruli were already seen in western Europe before the empire of Attila, both as raiders and as soldiers working under Roman authority. They first appear at the time of their first ambitious campaigns in the east. In 286 [[Claudius Mamertinus]] reported the victory of [[Maximian]] over a group of Heruli and Chaibones (known only from this one report{{efn|The Chaibones may have been [[Aviones]], according to Neumann, ''Namenstudien zum Altgermanischen'', p. 316.}}) attacking Gaul. Further reports of the Heruli in the west continue in the 4th century and based on this there is a proposal that there was a distinct Western kingdom of Heruli living near the Lower Rhine, who were not descended from the Heruli who lived in the Black Sea.{{sfn|Goffart|2006|p=206}}{{sfn|Steinacher|2010|p=328}} 

Already before the time of Attila the Romans established a Herulian auxiliary unit in the Western Roman Empire, and it has been argued that this implies that they were already settled somewhere within the empire. The ''Heruli seniores'' were stationed in northern Italy. This ''numerus Erulorum'' was a lightly-equipped unit often associated with the [[Batavi (Germanic tribe)|Batavi]]an ''Batavi seniores''. If there was ever a regiment called ''Heruli iuniores'', then it is possible it was based in the Eastern Roman empire and it may have been one of the units which ceased to exist after the [[Battle of Adrianople]] in 378.{{sfn|Liccardo|2024|p=291}}
*In about 314, the Heruli (like the Sciri and Rugii) were already listed in the ''[[Laterculus Veronensis]]'' as one of the barbarian peoples living within the Roman empire. Ellegård argues that this and other 4th century sources indicate that several of Attila's future allies in the Middle Danube were already established in the 4th century. He proposes that the Heruli were already based somewhere between Passau and Vienna.{{sfn|Ellegård|1987|p=22}} Liccardo has however criticized Ellegård's interpretation of the evidence, noting that they are placed (together with the Rugii) between the northern British Barbarians and the tribes of the Lower Rhine.{{sfn|Liccardo|2024|p=297}}
*In 360, [[Constantius II]] ordered the future emperor [[Julian the Apostate]], who then had command of forces in Gaul, to send some of his best units including the Heruli, Batavi, and others, for fighting against the Parthians in the Middle East.The records about this imply that the Heruli were a unit who had left their homes east of the Rhine, which Ellegård thinks is consistent with a base near Passau, while Liccardo emphasizes that it implies that they now lived west of the Rhine.{{sfn|Liccardo|2024|pp=292-293}}{{sfn|Ellegård|1987|p=20}} 
*In 366 the Batavian and Heruli units fought against the [[Alamanni]] near the Rhine, under the leadership of [[Charietto]], who died in the battle, and then against [[Picts]] and [[Scoti]] in Britain. They were subsequently sent to fight [[Parthia]]ns in the east.{{sfn|Steinacher|2017|p=67}}{{sfn|Steinacher|2010|pp=326-328}}
*In 405 or 406, a large number of barbarian groups [[Crossing of the Rhine|crossed the Rhine]], entering Roman Gaul, and the Heruli appear in the list of peoples given by the historian [[Jerome]]. However, this list is sometimes thought to have drawn on historical lists for literary effect. Furthermore the list included many of the Middle Danubian peoples from the East, including Roman provincials from Pannonia, and was already in the period where the Huns were causing major movements of such peoples.
*In 435 the Heruli are mentioned by Sidonius Apollinaris (Letter 7, lines 23-240) among the troops which [[Flavius Aëtius|Aëtius]], who had spent time in exile with the Danubian Huns, used to defend [[Gallia Belgica]], a Roman province, from [[Burgundians]]. (At least some of his troops such as the [[Sarmatians]] apparently came from Eastern Europe.){{sfn|Steinacher|2017|p=93}}

Ellegård argues that the association with the Batavi in this period should be seen not as a connection to the Lower Rhine, the original home of the Batavi unit centuries earlier, but to their quarters in this period which were at [[Passau]] (''Castra Batava'') on the Danube, not far from where the Heruli would later have their kingdom.{{sfn|Ellegård|1987|p=21}} Liccardo argues that even though "units were moved around and over time tended to lose any ethnic or geographical homogeneity" they could still give hints about the origins of ethnic groups.{{sfn|Liccardo|2024|p=292}}

At least two much later mentions of Heruli in southwestern Europe, after the Heruli were established on the Middle Danube, and in parts of Italy, can be connected to the Visigoths who had been granted a kingdom by the Romans in what is now southwestern France, but have also been taken to imply the existence of Heruli based on the North Sea coast, for example near the Lower Rhine. Firstly, two sea raids were made by Heruli around coastal Spain in the 450s, as reported by [[Hydatius]]. Secondly, shortly after 475 Sidonius Apollinaris reported the presence of Heruli at the Visigothic court of [[Euric]] in Bordeaux.{{sfn|Goffart|2006|p=206}}<ref>[http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/sidonius_letters_08book8.htm Letters 8.9]</ref> They are listed in a poetic way together with other barbarians, from places as distant as [[Parthia]], who Sidonius found looking for protection and patronage.
{|
!style="width: 50%;" |Latin
!style="width: 50%;" |English
|-
|''hic glaucis Herulus genis vagatur,'' 
|Here wanders the Herulian with his blue-grey cheeks, 
|-
|''  imos '''Oceani''' colens recessus algoso prope concolor profundo.'' 
|who dwells in the uttermost retreats of '''Ocean''' and is almost of one colour with its algae-filled depths.
|}

Particularly striking in this passage is the implication that the Heruli homeland is on the "Ocean". More generally the connection of these Heruli with the sea, so far to the west, is sometimes taken as evidence that these Heruli were not from the Danube or Black Sea. Steinacher, on the other hand, argues that the poetic references of Sidonius linking the Heruli to the sea might be "nothing more than a bookish reference to 3rd-century accounts of Herules" who attacked from the Black Sea.{{sfn|Steinacher|2010|p=329}} Steinacher, along with fellow scholar Halsall, has pointed out that this evidence of Heruli in Visigothic territory is consistent with the conflicts within the Roman empire during this period; Halsall writes that it "must at least be a possibility" that the Herulian raids in Spain during this period "constituted part of a Romano-Visigothic offensive against the [[Kingdom of the Suebi|Sueves]]". These [[Suebi]], themselves from central Europe, had recently established a kingdom on the northern coast of Spain, and the Visigoths coordinated with Rome against them.{{sfn|Halsall|2007|p=260}} On the other hand, other scholars, such as Liccardo, emphasize that Sidonius lists the Herulians with Saxons, Franks and Burgundians—i.e., as if they were subjects or supplicants from Gaul.{{sfn|Liccardo|2024|p=294}}

The 6th century correspondence of Theoderic the Great, preserved in {{lang|la|Variae}} of [[Cassiodorus]], does not give any information about the location of the homeland of the Heruli. This leaves open the possibility that the recipient of the letter was the Middle Danubian kingdom of the Heruli. Proponents of a distinct Western Herulian kingdom near the Rhine note that the letter was also sent to the kings of the [[Thuringians]] and [[Warini]]—quite far to the north of the Danube, and more directly threatened by the Franks who are discussed in the letter; opponents emphasize that Theoderic was clearly concerned with a large part of central Europe, and that the Franks did in reality quickly make inroads towards the Middle Danubian region whence Italy could be threatened.<ref>See for example {{harvtxt|Liccardo|2024|p=294}}, {{harvtxt|Steinacher|2017|pp=73,140}}, and {{harvtxt|Steinacher|2010|pp=328-330,348}}.</ref>