Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

scythians in the longue durée
unending lucrative raids. They were ideally located to sustain themselves in the
way that predatory horsemen had forever done.
The Alans: The Last Spectacular Thrust
The origin of the Alans, like that of other nomadic hordes, is obscure but there is
some evidence to suggest that they emerged from the confederacy of the Aorsi. That,
at least, is what the Chinese annals imply when the say that the Aorsi were renamed
Al’lan’ai. The likelihood is that the Alani originated as a power group among the
Aorsi somewhere on the steppe north of the Caspian Sea, their rise forcing the rest
of the Aorsi to migrate across the Don. In ad 68 the presence of Alans near the Sea
12.7 Funerary monument of marble from the Bosporan city of Tanais at the mouth of the Don. It was set
up to commemorate Triphon, who, as a member of the Sarmatian elite, probably served in the army of
the Bosporan kings.
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