Sarmatians (600 BCE - 550 CE)

Sarmatae or Sauromatae (Latin), Sarmatai, Sauromatai, or Syrmatai (Greek),

Sairima (Avestan), Sarumatah (Old Persian), Sarumatagan (Middle Persian)

 

The Sarmatians were a Skythian/Scythian people that originally lived somewhere in the vicinity of the Samara Bend of the Volga River, northwest of the Caspian Sea. Their history is generally divided into three periods—the Early Sarmatian Period (ca. 600-300 BCE), during which the Sarmatians are treated as a subgroup of the Skythians; the Middle Sarmatian Period (ca. 299 BCE-200 CE), during which the Sarmatians overthrew the power of the royal clan of the Skythians (Greek, Basileis Skuthes), and thereafter the royal clan of the Sarmatians (Greek, Basileis Ourgoi) extended its hegemony over most of what had been the Skythian realm; and the Later Sarmatian Period (ca. 201-550 CE), during which Sarmatian hegemony in eastern Europe was first challenged by the East Germanic peoples (especially the Goths, Gepids, Scirians, and Heruls) and the Massagetae/Alans (an Aryan nomad group from the Kazakh steppe), before the Sarmatian period came to a close with the coming of the Huns.

 

According to Herodotos, the Sarmatians lived under the dominion of the royal clan of the Skythians (Basileis Skuthes) until 300 BCE, when the Sarmatians fought a successful war of independence and then gradually began to displace the Skythians across much of the Pontic-Caspian steppes. For our purposes here, the Early Sarmatians and their mode of warfare was broadly identical to those of the other Skythian groups discussed on the main Western Aryan Nomads gallery page. The Early Sarmatians were primarily horse-herding steppe nomads, although they also herded cattle and Bactrian camels. They used covered wagons and camels to transport their goods between seasonal camps, and they used wagon forts/laagers to protect their camps. They had a caste system with at least three castes—priests, warriors, and commoners—and although women may have been the primary property holders and warrior-caste women seem often to have fought alongside men, there is no evidence of an actual matriarchy. Women simply had more freedom and higher status than they generally had in Greek society, and this was enough to amaze writers from more misogynistic cultures. The tactical roles of fighters were also determined by caste, with warriors generally fighting as cavalry and commoners fighting as infantry. Almost all fighters were bowmen/archers, although there were subject tribes (agro-pastoralist groups living in the forests and marshes, as well as fisherfolk near bodies of water) outside the formal caste system that were sometimes induced to provide infantry levies—mostly poorly equipped massed spearmen, although some skirmishing infantry (javelinmen, archers, and/or slingers) is likely. The exact nature of the Sarmatian “displacement” of the Skythians is open to debate—it seems to have involved the replacement of one ruling clan (the Skythian Basileis Skuthes) with another (the Sarmatian Basileis Ourgoi), although we do not know to what degree the Sarmatians may have conquered, destroyed, or driven off Skythian groups that supported the Basileis Skuthes. The Sarmatian takeover should probably be seen more as a revolution rather than as a campaign of conquest. There is no evidence of any large-scale migration of Skythian peoples fleeing the Sarmatians—indeed, the Royal Skythian clan seems to have withdrawn into the Crimea, where they remained independent until the second century BCE, when they were conquered by Mithridates VI of Pontus (Pontus was an Anatolian kingdom). The Sarmatian revolution was marked, however, by a shift in tribal alliances and composition (basically, the constituent clans seem to have realigned themselves into new federations), although as with the Skythians, it is difficult to identify the role of the Royal Sarmatian clan (the Ourgoi) or to locate their territory (if any). They undoubtedly originated as the ruling clan of the Early Sarmatians that inhabited the Samara Bend region and initiated the rebellion against the Royal Skythians (ca. 300 BCE), but as the authority of the Royal Skythians collapsed across the Pontic-Caspian steppes (ca. 300-100 BCE), new tribal federations were formed, and it is possible that the Ourgoi married into prominent Skythian clans as these each in turn agreed to join the rebellion against the Royal Skythians. If so, it would explain why we have even less information about the Royal Sarmatians than we do for the Royal Skythians (i.e., they seem to have formed an upper strata within the pan-tribal warrior caste, and were no longer considered a separate tribe).

 

The Middle Sarmatian Period (ca. 299 BCE-200 CE) saw the emergence of a collection of new tribal groups across the Pontic-Caspian steppes—the Siraces/Sirakoi in the Kuban region northwest of the Caucasus and east of the Black Sea; the Roxolani/Rosomoni in eastern Ukraine (roughly between the Dnieper and Don rivers); the Iazyges/Iaxamatae/Metanastae in western Ukraine (roughly between the Dniester and Dnieper rivers); the Tyragetae/Tyrageti/Tyrangitae on the Moldavian Plateau (along both banks of the Tyras River, after which this tribal group took its name); the Serbi/Serboi in the Kalmykia-Astrakhan region northeast of the Caucasus and west of the Caspian Sea; the Aorsi/Aorsoi between the Volga and Ural rivers north of the Caspian Sea; and the Spali/Spalaei/Pali between the Don and Volga rivers north of the territories of the Siraces and Serbi. As with the Skythians, the Sarmatians that lived closest to the Black Sea—and those that ultimately migrated to the southwest along Rome’s Danube frontier—developed close economic, cultural, and military ties with the Hellenistic world, especially the Bosporan Kingdom (438 BCE-370 CE) in the Crimea and the eastern littoral of the Black Sea, and with the northern Thracian Kingdom of Dacia (200 BCE-106 CE) in Romania. By the first century CE, the Roman Empire began to exert an influence in the Balkans and Black Sea regions, and the Sarmatians also established economic, cultural, and military ties with the Romans. As with the Skythians before them, the Sarmatians were considered very warlike by classical Greek, Roman, and Persian authors (they too were accused of sacrificing war captives and drinking their blood), and Greek and Roman writers document numerous Sarmatian raids into the lands of the settled peoples on the edges of their territory (e.g., the proto-Slavic Bastarnae/Basternai/Bastarni and Veinedi/Venedi/Veneti, the East Germanic peoples, the Hellenistic states, the Caucasian kingdoms, and the Persian and Roman empires), and they also served as mercenaries in the armies of these same peoples.

 

Militarily, the Middle Sarmatian Period saw a departure from the practices of the Skythians. Basically, this represented a shift from the preeminence of the horse archer to that of the heavy cavalry lancer (although horse archers did not disappear altogether). Horse armor was known to the Skythians prior to the Sarmatian revolution, probably as early as 500 BCE, and Skythian horse archers also often carried a variety of hand-to-hand weapons (sword, pick, axe, and one-handed spear that could be thrust or thrown), but the predominant tactical stance of Skythian warrior-caste cavalry units seems to have remained that of the horse archer until at least 300 BCE. It seems unlikely that the heavy cavalry lancer as a fighting system merely popped into existence in 300 BCE, although most ancient and modern historians have credited its development to the Sarmatians, and at least some of these have intimated that it represented a tactical revolution that may have enabled the Sarmatians to replace the Skythians. However, as I have tried to indicate in my discussions of the various military systems featured on this website, such changes tend to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary, and I strongly suspect there may have been a shift in the ethos and tactical doctrines of the Skythian warrior elites prior to 300 BCE that increasingly emphasized a more prominent close-combat role. At best, the Sarmatians probably capitalized on this trend. It could also simply be a coincidence that the Royal Sarmatians came to power at about the same time this shift in equipment and tactics was taking place across the Pontic-Caspian steppes, and it may not have played any role in their rise to power. In several instances, Sarmatian infantry are mentioned, although it is unclear whether these consisted of commoner-caste Sarmatians, subject peoples (e.g., Germans, Getae, Bastarnae, Venedi, Maeotians, Sindi, or Tarpetes), or both. Mostly, they seem to have fought as massed spearmen with a minor military role (i.e., rabble)—unlike the Skythians, the Sarmatians do not seem to have made much use of infantry bowmen.

 

Although Sarmatian warriors continued to carry bows and arrows, they seem to have increasingly specialized as lancers, eventually utilizing a long (with a shaft over 13 feet) two-handed lance that Greek and Roman writers called a kontos/contus (Greek/Latin, “barge-pole”). This obviated the use of a shield and would have made switching between a lance and a bow impractical under combat conditions. The lack of a shield seems to have led to the wearing of heavier armor by Sarmatian cavalrymen, as well as the adoption of more elaborate horse armor with better coverage for mounts (although unarmored mounts likely remained the norm). Prior to 300 BCE, Skythian horse armor was generally limited to a chamfron for the head and a pectral skirt for the chest and shoulders, but during the Middle Sarmatian Period the use of more extensive barding proliferated (chamfron for the head, crinets for the neck, pectral for the chest and shoulders, and cruppers for the flanks). Scale was still the armor of choice for man and beast, although there are several surviving images of Sarmatian warriors that picture them wearing some kind of segmented cuirass (similar to the Roman lorica segmentata), and mail shirts were sometimes used to supplement scale (probably under the influence of the East Germanic peoples from about the first century CE). Mail and bronze or iron scale was likely rare—limited to kings and chieftains—while the majority of Sarmatian warriors used hardened leather or horn scales (the segmented cuirass is also believed to have been made from hardened leather). Several Greek and Latin authors state that the Sarmatians sometimes lacquered the armor scales—various shades of red predominated, although green is also mentioned (the appearance of the armor being compared to that of a green pinecone). It has been suggested, plausibly, that the Sarmatians invented the composite helm design later known as the spangenhelm, long believed to have been an innovation of the ancient Germanic peoples. This consisted of an iron framework basket, with hardened leather, bronze, or iron plates bolted into the interstices between the framework braces. Picks and axes continued to be used during the Middle Sarmatian period, although the akinakes short sword was replaced with a long sword (up to three feet blade length), possibly inspired by the contemporary Persian shamshir (the length of the blade was likely to increase the reach of the wielder while mounted). This had straight parallel edges with a sharply tapered point. Both lance and sword seem to have been two-handed weapons, and in a time before the invention of stirrups, one may well wonder how Sarmatian cavalrymen wielded them. The key seems to have been in the Sarmatian solid-treed four-horned saddle (a saddle that was adopted by the Romans under the influence of the Sarmatians)—when a rider sat on this saddle, the four horns on the four corners of the saddle would compress slightly inward, essentially using the rider’s own weight to hug the rider to the saddle. This provided the necessary stability to wield a two-handed weapon from horseback. Finally, the Roman writers Arrian (86-160 CE) and Vegetius (late fourth century CE) stated that the Sarmatians were the inventors of a unique type of battlefield pennon that they referred to as the draco (“dragon”). This consisted of a hollow cast-bronze head—a dragon, wolf, boar, or other beastie—surmounting a pole, with a windsock-like tubular cloth attached to one end. According to ancient authors and surviving pictorial representations, the idea was for the wind to blow into the mouth and through the head to fill the tail and cause it to wave about. As if this weren’t enough, it was apparently designed to make a howling noise as the wind blew through it (like blowing across the mouth of a soda or beer bottle). Although the Sarmatians invented this type of pennon, it gained widespread use from the second to the sixth centuries CE among the Romans and Byzantines, Parthians, Alans, Dacians, Germanic peoples, and the Caucasian Georgians.

 

By the Later Sarmatian Period (ca. 201-550 CE) we see the decline of the Sarmatians as an independent socio-political force. In the first century CE, the Roxolani migrated westwards and settled on the plains in eastern Romania (in-between the Carpathians and the Black Sea), several large groups of Roxolani were settled in various parts of the Roman Empire as federates (where they were assimilated by the Romans), and those that remained in eastern Romania seem to have been absorbed into the Thervingian Goth kingdom (ca. 220-400 CE). Around the same time as the migration of the Roxolani, the Iazyges migrated westwards through eastern Romania and southern Romania (Wallachia and Oltenia), and finally settled on the Pannonian Plain (modern Hungary), several groups were also settled in various parts of the Roman Empire as federates (also being assimilated by the Romans), and those that remained in Pannonia were ultimately conquered and assimilated by the Huns (ca. 410-435 CE). The Taifali/Tayfali federation seems to have been formed via a combination of Gothic and Sarmatian (probably Iazyges) tribes in Oltenia (southern Romania) in the third century (ca. 250 CE), they subsequently allied themselves with the Thervingian Goth and Gepid kingdoms in Dacia (ca. 291-350 CE), and as with the Roxolani and Iazyges some groups of Taifals were settled as federates in various parts of the Roman Empire (where they were assimilated), while those that remained in Oltenia were eventually conquered by the Huns (ca. 405-412 CE). The fate of the Siraces is unknown—they are last mentioned in 193 CE, when they made an attack on the Bosporan Kingdom (at that time a Roman client state), although they likely remained in the Kuban region until the coming of the Huns (ca. 370-375 CE). The Tyragetae federation seems to have been formed via a combination of Getic (i.e., Skytho-Thracian) and Sarmatian tribes on the Moldavian Plateau (in-between eastern Romania and western Ukraine) during the migration of the Roxolani and Iazyges through Moldavia in the first half of the first century CE. They are believed to have been absorbed into the Thervingian Goth kingdom (ca. 220-400 CE). The Aorsi appear to have been conquered and assimilated by the Massagetae/Alans (see my Alans gallery)(ca. 100 BCE-100 CE), although some groups appear to have fled into the territory of the Spali (between the Don and Volga rivers), some of whom joined the migrants and fled into the territories of the Roxolani (between the Dnieper and Don rivers) and Iazyges (between the Dniester and Dnieper rivers). This event appears to have destabilized the socio-political order on the Pontic-Caspian steppes and is believed to be the reason the bulk of the Roxolani and Iazyges migrated west toward the Roman Empire. The remnant groups of the Roxolani, Iazyges, Spali, and Aorsi that lived on the steppes between the Dniester and Volga rivers seem to have reorganized themselves into a number of new tribal federations whose names (the Alpidzuri, Itimari, Tuncarsi, Akatziri, and Boisci) are not recorded until the late fourth century (ca. 370-469 CE), in connection with the Hunnic conquest of eastern Europe. It is unknown what relationship these Sarmatian tribes may have had with the Greuthungian Goth or Herul kingdoms—two East Germanic groups that came to control the Ukraine, parts of the Crimea, and the northern littoral of the Black Sea (ca. 220-375 CE). Finally, the fate of the Serbi/Serboi, like that of their neighbors, the Siraces, is a bit of a mystery. They also seem to have been attacked by the Massagetae/Alans (ca. 100 BCE-100 CE), but their subsequent peregrinations are obscure. My personal favorite theory is that, like the Roxolani and Iazyges, they migrated westward and settled in southern Poland, where they were later conquered by the Huns (fifth century CE). The ethnogenesis of the Slavs is an extremely controversial topic in the halls of academia, but it is believed that when the Huns conquered eastern and central Europe, the various groups that lived under their hegemony (e.g., East Germanic, Bastarnic, Sarmatian, and Venedic peoples) assimilated with one-another, resulting in the emergence of Slavic culture. Following this theory, and the etymological connection between the Sarmatian tribal name of the Serbi and the Slavic tribal name of the Serbs, it is believed that the Sarmatian Serbi became Slavicized and were transformed into the Slavic Serbs (the Serbs are believed to have migrated from southern Poland into the Balkans in the seventh century CE).

 

The Roman writer, Ammianus Marcellinus (330-400 CE), included two curious events in his Rerum Gestarum Libri that provide further tantalizing clues about the internal socio-political order of the Sarmatians. In 332 CE a Sarmatian group at that time living in eastern Romania appealed to the Roman emperor, Constantine I (324-337 CE), seeking an alliance against the Thervingian Goths. It is unclear whether Constantine lent any help because Ammianus goes on to say that the Sarmatian masters (he calls them Sarmatae liberi, “free Sarmatians”) were forced to arm their “slaves” (Sarmatae servi) in order to better fight off the Goths, but these “slaves” then rebelled against their “masters,” forcing the latter to flee to the Victohali (a West Germanic group) in Pannonia (ca. 334 CE). However, he also wrote that in 357 CE a group called the Limigantes, at that time living in Pannonia, rebelled against their overlords—a group called the Arcaragantes—then crossed the Danube into Roman territory (Moesia Superior), were defeated in battle by the Roman emperor, Constantius II (337-361 CE), who forced them to return to Pannonia beyond the Danube, where they were settled as Roman federates (they broke the treaty in 358 CE and were annihilated by the Romans). The seeming parallel between these two events is suggestive. Although Ammianus does not specify the tribal name of the Sarmatae liberi and Sarmatae servi, most modern scholars agree they had to have been Roxolani—the Roxolani migrated from eastern Ukraine to eastern Romania in the first century CE, and they subsequently attempted to resist the encroachment of the Thervingian Goths (ca. 220-400 CE), although they were ultimately assimilated by the Goths. Ammianus also does not specify the ethnicity of the Arcaragantes or Limigantes, although many modern scholars believe they were Iazyges—the Iazyges migrated from western Ukraine to Pannonia in the first century CE, and the Iazyges remained the dominant group in Pannonia until the fifth century CE. There were other ethnic groups living in Pannonia at that time—the West Germanic Victohali, and the East Germanic Hasding Vandals and Gepids—but the names of the Arcaragantes and Limigantes do not appear to be Germanic, and Ammianus’ account makes it clear that the Arcaragantes were primarily horsemen and the Limagantes were primarily infantrymen. By that time, the Germanic peoples fielded high-quality cavalry, but the bulk of their armies was still usually composed of infantry. Some scholars have suggested that the Sarmatae liberi were analogous to the Arcaragantes, and the Sarmatae servi were analogous to the Limigantes—unfortunately, the surviving text of Ammianus’ Rerum Gestarum Libri is fragmentary, and his account of the two rebellions is lacking in context, but both rebellions occurred relatively close together in time (about twenty years apart), and both seem to have involved a conflict within the social order of the Sarmatian groups in question. Thus, some modern scholars have theorized that Arcaragantes might have been the name of the Sarmatian warrior caste, and Limigantes might have been the name of the Sarmatian commoner caste, and since the idea of a caste system was alien to the Romans, Ammianus may have misconceived the nature of the conflict and the exact relationship of the groups involved (i.e., alternately referring to the warrior caste as “free Sarmatians” and the commoner caste as “Sarmatian slaves,” then referring to the two classes as separate tribes). I like this theory, but I think it is important to note that this is a highly controversial topic not likely to be resolved unless the missing portions of Ammianus’ history are discovered somewhere (an unlikely event). One of the things that makes it difficult to resolve issues like this is that during the Later Sarmatian Period (ca. 201-550 CE), Roman writers tended to homogenize their treatment of individual Sarmatian tribal groups—they stop using tribal names, and simply refer to them all as “Sarmatians”—and Roman narratives and archeological evidence indicate that the distinctiveness of the Sarmatian panoply, and the distinct tactical stance of Sarmatian lancers, began to disappear as the Sarmatians were increasingly assimilated by the Romans and East Germanic peoples. Horse armor became very rare, the kontos/contus seems to have been jettisoned in favor of a one-handed spear, mail surpassed scale as the body armor of choice, and Germanic-style shields, swords, and axes were adopted.

 

The figures pictured here would be most appropriate to the Middle Sarmatian Period (ca. 301 BCE-200 CE). The heavy cavalry lancers are from Donnington Miniatures (although I modified the figures of the command unit), while the light cavalry skirmishers and infantry are from Khurasan Miniatures.