The Chionites of Ammianus Marcellinus: on the question of the ethnocultural conceptions of the late Roman historian

The article is devoted to the reconstruction of the political history of the Huns on the eve of their invasion of the steppes of the Northern Black Sea region. The author bases on the information of the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus about the Chionite king Grumbates, he tries to determine the origin of the Chionites and their cultural and historical place among the nomads of the Eurasian steppes of the second half of the 4th century. The author accepts the hypothesis about the connections of the Chionites with the Huns, he examines the ethno-political landscapes, which became the object of the conquest of the Huns. First of all, the author reconstructs the political evolution of the Alans, whose development is considered in the broad context of the political history of the Sarmatian nomadic world from the Parthians to the Danubian Sarmatians. The author bases on the information of Ammianus Marcellinus and he reconstructs the events of the political history of the Sarmatians and Goths in the second quarter of the 4th century; he concludes about the significant political role of the Alan tribal union in the early Humic power in the second half of the 4th century.