Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

scythians in the longue durée
As the new province of Dacia developed the Roxolani living on the Wallachian
plain were given an annual payment but were required to stay well clear of Roman
frontiers. The withdrawal of the subsidy in ad 117 led to a rebellion but this was
quickly put down by the Romans and the subsidy reinstated. As a result of the new
agreement the king of the Roxolani became a Roman vassal.
While these events were unfolding in the lower Danube valley the Iazyges were
establishing themselves in the Great Hungarian Plain on the east bank of the Danube
facing across the river to the Roman province of Pannonia. Although there was a
degree of mixing with the indigenous population, the Iazyges managed to maintain
their distinctive culture at least into the third century ad. To the Romans this was
Sarmatia. Until ad 160 relations between the Romans and the Sarmatians Iazyges
were generally good. The Iazyges provided auxiliary cavalry for the Roman army and
fought as allies of Rome against the Dacians except for the brief period ad 117–19
when they attacked the Roman province of Dacia from the west while the Roxolani
advanced from the south. Peace was soon restored but the incident was a reminder to
Rome that the Sarmatians remained an ever-present threat.
In the second half of the second century ad a Germanic tribe, the Marcomanni,
threatened Rome’s northern frontier, initiating two long periods of warfare, the Marcomannic
Wars of ad 166–72 and 177–80. During the first war the Sarmatians crossed
the Danube and attacked the province of Pannonia, only to be severely beaten by
Marcus Aurelius who assumed the honorific title ‘Sarmaticus’ for his achievements.
As a result of their defeat the Iazyges were required to live well clear of the Danube
frontier and to provide 8,000 cavalrymen to serve as auxiliaries in the Roman army.
Of these 5,500 were sent to Britain to be dispersed in units of 500 among the forts in
the north and west of the country. There is evidence of their presence at Chesters on
Hadrian’s Wall, at Ribchester, and at the legionary base of Chester, where the grave of
an unnamed Sarmatian horseman was marked by a tombstone. He stares forlornly at
his unfamiliar surroundings, 1,800 km from his home.
Relationships between the Romans and the Iazyges remained uneasy. A major
campaign was fought between ad 236 and 238. In ad 248–50 the Iazyges raided
Dacia and four years later they were involved in attacks on Pannonia. A generation
later, in ad 271, the province of Dacia was finally abandoned by the Romans and
left to the Visigoths. Thereafter the Iazyges continued to raid Pannonia, the most
far-reaching attack, in ad 282–3, spurring a punitive and long drawn-out Roman
response. A civil war which broke out among the Iazyges in the early fourth century
for a while deflected attention from the rich pickings still to be had in Pannonia but
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