HISTORY IN DETAIL

 

THE GETAE

The Getae were once mistaken for the ancestors of the Goths because the West Roman court poet Claudian (370-404 CE) linked them with the Visigoths of his time. It is believed he simply assumed that the Getae mentioned by ancient Greek writers were the ancestors of the Goths because the Goths had first entered the Roman Empire via eastern Romania, and Greek writers with whom he would have been familiar mentioned the Getae living in this same region much earlier. He had no notion that the Goths had migrated into eastern Romania after the Getae had been displaced by the Sarmatians, instead assuming the Goths were descended from the Getae. Many later Roman writers either made the same assumption or simply followed Claudian's example uncritically, and this view long held sway. Archeology reveals that the Getae had a material culture that mixed Thraco-Kimmerian and Skythian elements. The ancient Greeks confirm that they were linguistically and culturally part of the northern Thracian sphere. They fought against the Persians when Darius I invaded Skythia in the seventh century BCE, they were conquered by the Persians and incorporated into the satrapy (i.e., province) of Skuda (516-460 BCE), and they formed an important part of the southern Thracian Odrysian Kingdom (460 BCE-46 CE), which encompassed an area roughly analogous to modern Bulgaria. There were some Getic tribes in the north that remained independent of the Odrysian Kingdom, but when Alexander I of Macedonia campaigned to secure the eastern Balkan peninsula for his empire (ca. 335 BCE), all the Getic tribes submitted to him. Getic cavalry would prove to be among the most valuable units in Alexander's army during his conquest of the Achaemenid Persian Empire (ca. 334-329 BCE). During the Wars of the Diadokhoi that saw the breakup of Alexander's empire (ca. 322-275 BCE) the Getae regained their independence from the Macedonians, but in 279-277 BCE several large groups of Celts migrated through the Balkan peninsula and wreaked havoc on the Kingdom of Macedonia, the city-states of Greece, and the Thracian kingdoms. One such group passed through Getic territory, crossed the Bosporus, and rampaged through Anatolia (they eventually settled in central Anatolia and founded the Galatian Kingdom). Beginning in about 200 BCE a proto-Slavic people known as the Bastarnae began to expand into Getic territory from the north (they originated in the region of the Pripet Marshes of southern Belarus), and the Roman Empire expanded into the Balkans south of the Danube (ca. 215-148 BCE). These pressures pushed the Getae into an ever-closer relationship with their Dacian neighbors to the west, and the Kingdom of Pontus across the Bosporus in Anatolia. The Getic king Burebista (82-44 BCE) formed an alliance with the Kingdom of Pontus and formed a coalition with the Skythians, Bastarnae, and Dacians (ca. 60-50 BCE) that invaded Roman Thrace, and defeated a Roman army under the command of Gaius Antonius Hybrida. Burebista worked to create a union between the Getic and Dacian tribes, built a string of stone fortresses in the Orăștie Mountains in central Dacia (Sarmizegetusa, Costeşti, Blidaru, Piatra Roşie, Bănița, and Căpâlna), and helped the Dacian tribes to drive the Celtic tribes of the Boii and Taurisci from the area of the Little Carpathians (modern Slovakia). He also subjugated the Greek colonies along the Black Sea shore and raided the Celtic Scordisci in Illyria. Burebista formed an alliance with the Roman general and statesman, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great) against Gaius Julius Caesar in the Roman civil war that ended the First Triumvirate (ca. 49-48 BCE), but Pompey was defeated and Burebista was assassinated soon after (a cabal of tribal chieftains were rebelling against Burebista's attempts to consolidate his Daco-Getic empire). However, Caesar had considered Burebista's meddling in the internal politics of Rome to be an intolerable threat, and he was preparing for an invasion of the northern Balkans when he was assassinated by a conspiracy of republican senators in Rome. After his adopted son and successor, Octavian Augustus, defeated his republican rivals and established himself as Rome's first emperor, he revived Caesar's plans to subjugate the Balkan peninsula and sent an army under Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa to attack the Bastarnae, the Getae, and a number of other southern Thracian tribes that had not yet submitted to Rome (ca. 29 BCE). This expedition firmly established the Roman frontier along the Danube River in the Balkans, and severely weakened the remaining Getic tribes, who were then in no condition to resist an incursion by the Sarmatians (ca. 16 BCE), an Aryan people that had taken over the Pontic steppe from the Skythians. Ironically, the Getae appealed to Rome for succor, and were allowed to cross the Danube and settle in the Odrysian Kingdom (at that time a Roman client kingdom). In 6 CE the Roman province of Moesia replaced the Odrysian Kingdom, and the remaining Getae and southern Thracians were assimilated by the Romans.

 

THE AGATHYRSIANS

The Agathyrsians lived to the west of the Getae, beyond the Carpathian Mountains on the Transylvanian Plateau, in the heart of ancient Dacia (modern Romania). The Agathyrsians suffer from an identity crisis in modern historiography. Herodotos identified them as a tribe of Skythians inhabiting Transylvania in the sixth and fifth centuries BCE, and this is corroborated by the presence of archeological sites with Skythian characteristics in that area dated to that time-period. However, as with the Getae, these archeological finds exist side-by-side with typical Thracian sites dated to the same period (the archeological horizon is broader, however, roughly dated eighth to third centuries BCE). However, Herodotos also says that the Agathyrsians had adopted many of the customs of the Thracians. This implies a small Skythian ruling class being assimilated by a numerically superior Thracian underclass. Herodotos calls the Getae "Thracians" and the Agathyrsians "Skythians," and most modern historians have followed suit, but I'm not certain it's important whether you believe them to be Skythianized Thracians, Thracianized Skythians, or a Skythian nobility lording it over Thracian subjects, you ultimately end up with a society that probably looked very much like that of the neighboring Getae (making them both Skytho-Thracians). Unfortunately, the controversy doesn't end there. They basically disappear from the historical record after the fourth century BCE (although not the archeological record), only to reappear in the first century CE in the writings of Roman historians and geographers (Pomponius Mela, Gaius Plinius Secundus), who suddenly place them living on the Pontic Steppe north of the Black Sea. Later Roman writers (Maurus Servius Honoratus, Ammianus Marcellinus, Stephen of Byzantium) repeat this information. So, apparently some time between the third century BCE, when the archeological record for them in Transylvania ceases, and the first century CE, when Roman writers again mention them, they migrated east of the Carpathian Mountains and out onto the Pontic Steppe. Where they have left no distinct archeological trace. This is certainly possible, although I'm not convinced. The great Celtic invasion of the Balkans, which drove across the Transylvanian Plateau, occurred in the second century BCE, very soon after the last verifiable date of Agathyrsian habitation there, and this could explain a sudden migration by the more-mobile, semi-nomadic, quasi-Skythian nobility. However, we know that ancient Greek and Roman writers sometimes filled in gaps in their knowledge of the geopolitical landscape far from the borders of their civilization by simply inserting names from earlier historical sources—to them, the distinctions between "barbarian" peoples were sometimes irrelevant, and they often conflated groups we know from other evidence to have been distinct. They were also known to sometimes simply lift whole paragraphs from earlier works, in toto, and copy them into their own works (plagiarism is a modern concern). This was usually done when a writer wanted to provide background information on a subject for which he was unable to get first-hand information. The instances in which later Roman authors mention the Agathyrsians have the hallmarks of this sloppy historiography. In this case, we know that the Greeks and Romans long referred to anyone living on the steppes of eastern Europe as "Skythians," including groups that they should have known were not (e.g., the Goths), and we have already seen how the Agathyrsians may have been conflated with the Skythians. In each of the Roman works, the Agathyrsians are listed amongst Skythian or Sarmatian tribes living north of the Black Sea, and the language is almost verbatim in several accounts (sometimes the names of the neighboring tribes changes, sometimes not). This impression is reinforced by the fact that for a long time, the Agathyrsians were also conflated with the Akatziri, something that has been thoroughly discredited (see my Western Aryan Nomads gallery and notes). I believe the reason for the difficulty, with them often being confused for other groups living on the Pontic steppe, is that they likely were not really there at all. They are a historiographical phantom that historians keep trying to link to other obscure peoples to try to explain their presence in Roman works. Thus, I believe the narrative of the Agathyrsians should go something like this: A group of Skythians crossed the Carpathian Mountains and settled on the Transylvanian Plateau (ca. eighth century BCE). They dominated the local Thracian tribes and gradually assimilated with them. The Celts invaded Transylvania (ca. 277 BCE) and the Thraco-Skythian Agathyrsians were driven into marginal areas, where they were probably completely assimilated by their former subjects. There may have been a group that fled the Celtic conquest of Transylvania and migrated out onto the Pontic steppe, but if so they were likely a very small group that was quickly assimilated by the Skytho-Sarmatian tribes and left behind little more than their name.