Egy hellenisztikus korra visszamenő görög hagyomány Belső-Ázsia törzseiről

As far as we know, no information was preserved about Inner Asia before the era of the Principate. A possible exception is Amometus’ data about the Attacora people, cited by Pliny and Solin. Amometus was an almost unknown author in Egypt, probably in the period of the diadochs or Ptolemy I. The citation seems to refer to a mythical people (like the Hyperborei), but its analysis shows that Amometus knew two other peoples beyond the Attacorae: the Brisari and ‘Cicones’. However, the name ‘Cicones’ is probably corrupted from an original Conae/Cones. The real existence of the Attacorae is supported by the fact that Ptolemy, Orosius and Pseudo-Aethicus know a variant of this name, and give a rough geographic position too. According to them, the Attacorae were accessible from two sides, southwards getting round the Himalaya Mts., northwards via Gandhara and Bactria. Consequently, the Attacorae lived in an Inner Asian basin, presently not specifiable, and the more northern Conae people can be related to the Chuni people by Orosius and the Old Chinese pronunciation of the Xiongnu name (as modern reconstructions show it), that is, possibly it was the first European mention of the Huns.