Edeko

Edeko, with various spellings including Edekon, Aediko, Idikon and Edica, was a prominent military leader in the fifth-century multiethnic empire of Attila the Hun, before he died in 453 AD. "Edekon" was sent by Attila on a diplomatic mission to Constantinople in 448/9, which was reported in detail by the Roman diplomat and historian Priscus of Panium, who returned with Edeko to the headquarters of Attila.

Scholars generally also believe that this "Edekon" was the same as "Edica", who one of the two chiefs of the Sciri in 468/9 after the death of Attila, mentioned by the 6th-century historian Jordanes. Many of these Sciri were killed in two battles against the increasingly powerful group of Goths who came to be known as the Ostrogoths, which was another of the groups who had previously been part of Attila's empire. It is not clear if Edeko survived the second battle, but the Sciri were not mentioned anymore as an independent people after this.

Two more records exist say that Aediko or Idikon was the name of the father of the well-known military leader Odoacer, who became ruler of Roman Italy. One of these records specifically mentions that Odoacer himself was Scirian, and that his brother "Onulf" was the one who killed Armatus. Odoacer's brother Onoulphus is therefore normally equated to the second Scirian chief who fought together with "Edica", and whose name Jordanes spelled as "Hunuulf".

The ethnicity and language of Edeko and his family before they became part of Attila's empire has been a subject of disagreement among scholars, as contemporary sources describe the affiliations of Edeko and his two sons in several different ways. A Greek fragment from the Suda which describes Onoulphus as Thuringian on the paternal side, and Scirian on the maternal side, implies that Edeko's connection to the Sciri was through his wife. The term "Thuringian", which by implication applies to Edeko, was not much mentioned in this period, and scholars believe that the Suda was rightly or wrongly using it to refer to the group which Jordanes called the "Turcilingi" when describing Edeko's son Odoacer. Little is known about either the Thuringi or Turcilingi in the 5th century, and there is no consensus about whether the Thuringians and Turcilingi really were the same people.