Priscus or Priscus Panites
Πρίσκος
(Πρίσκος,), one of the earliest and most important Byzantine historians, was surnamed PANITES, because he was a native of Panium in Thrace. We know little of his life in general, but much of a short, though highly interesting and important period of it, viz. from A. D. 445-447, when he was ambassador of Theodosius the Younger at the court of Attila. The embassy consisted of several persons. In later years he and one Maximinus transacted diplomatic business for the emperor Marcian, in Egypt and Arabia. He died in or about A. D. 471. Niebuhr thinks he was a heathen.
Works
Account of Attila
Priscus wrote an account of his embassy to Attila, enriched by digressions on the life and reign of that king, the Greek title of which is Ἱστορία Βιζαντικὴ καὶ κατὰ Ἀττήλαι. which was originally divided into eight books, according to Suidas. This is the most valuable account we have on Attila, and it is deeply to be regretted that only fragments of it have come down to posterity: it was written after the death of Theodosius, which took place in A. D. 450. Priscus is an excellent and trustworthy historian, and his style is remarkably elegant and pure.
Μελεταὶ Ῥητορικαί, Declamationes Rhetoricae
Suidas says that he also wrote Μελεταὶ Ῥητορικαί, Declamationes Rhetoricae and Epistolae, which are lost.
Impact
Jornandes and Juvencus, the author of the Life of Attila, borrowed largely from the History of Priscus, whose name is often mentioned by them, as well as by other Byzantine writers, as, for instance, by Evagrius, who calls him Πατρίσκος, and by Theophanes, who calls him Περσικός, both apparently mistakes or corruptions of the text.
Editions
The fragments of the History were first edited in Greek by David Hoeschel, Augsburg, 1603, 4to; a Latin translation with notes, by Cantoclarus or Chanteclair, Paris, 1609, 8vo; the same reprinted together with the text, and revised by Fabrot in the Paris edition of Excerptae de Legationibus, together with Dexippus, Menander, and others; the same also in Labbe's Protrepticon, Paris, 1648, fol. The latest and best edition, together with the other writers who have furnished the materials for the Excerpta de Legationibus, is, by Niebuhr, in the Bonn Collection of the Byzantines, 1829, 8vo.
Further Information
Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vii. p. 539, 540; Hanckius, de Script. Byzant.; Niebuhr's Notes on Priscus, in his edition mentioned above; Suidas, s. v. Πρίσκος Πανίτης.
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.