Cassius Dio may have claimed that with the death of Marcus Aurelius in 180 CE, the Roman Empire descended “from a kingdom of gold to one of iron and rust,”129 but such a gloomy prognosis would hardly have rung true for most citizens of the empire in 247 when the Eternal City was preparing to celebrate its millennial birthday with elaborate ludi saeculares. Despite recent political instability, public affairs seemed, finally, to be stabilizing. Philip, the emperor, was securely in power, relations with the Senate were better than they had been in decades, and order had been
127Μάλιστα δ᾿ οἱ νῦν ἄμεινον ἔχοιεν ἄν τι λέγειν περὶ τῶν κατὰ Βρεττανοὺς καὶ Γερμανοὺς καὶ τοὺς περὶ τὸν Ἴστρον
τούς τε ἐντὸς καὶ τοὺς ἐκτός, Γέτας τε καὶ Τυρεγέτας καὶ Βαστάρνας.
128 Ab eo in plenum quidem omnes Scytharum sunt gentes, variae tamen litori apposita tenuere, alias Getae, Daci Romanis dicti, alias
Sarmatae, Graecis Sauromatae, eorumque Hamaxobii aut Aorsi, alias Scythae degeneres et a servis orti aut Trogodytae, mox Alani et Rhoxolani.
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restored along the Danube limes following a series of raids by the Carpi, a tribe of free Dacians who really should have known better.130 It was true that Olbia, a city far north along the Euxine coast but theoretically attached to the province of Moesia, had been sacked by Scythians in 238, but it was hardly the first time that that distant bastion of Hellenism had suffered disaster.131 With the recent Carpic unpleasantness tidied up and a huge party in the works at Rome, the people of Philippopolis - largest city in the province of Thrace - were probably as optimistic about the future as anyone ever was in antiquity. The stability and optimism present at the end of 247, however, would prove illusory; within two years, Philippopolis would come to share the fate of Olbia: its walls breached by Scythian arms, treasures looted, and populace either killed, scattered, or led off beyond the Danube in chains.132
We can thank Herennius Dexippus of Athens for most of what we know about the siege of Philippopolis and the other events of these third century Scythian troubles. Dexippus was a
contemporary of, and participant in, these events, which he chronicled at length in a work entitled, fittingly, Scythica.133 In the surviving fragments we see barbarians identified as Scythians conducting sieges - sometimes with success - involving complex towers and mining operations. In the field,
130 The murder of Alexander Severus in 235 was perpetrated by Maximinus Thrax, who spent most of his brief reign on
campaign before succumbing to a mutiny of his own soldiers while marching on Rome to put down usurpers. Gordian III emerged from the resultant power vacuum and ruled successfully until 244 when he died mysteriously while on campaign against Persia. In early 248, Philip the Arab was firmly in power and appeared to be doing a decent job (Potter 2014, pp. 162-171, 225-237). For the ludi saeculares and Philip’s relationship with the Senate, see Potter 2014, pp. 232-237. For the Carpic wars, see Kovács 2014, pp. 230-234. For the various Carpic raids in the 230s and 240s, see SHA, Gord. 26.3, and Zos. 1.15. There is considerable debate about who the Carpi actually were. The Romans seem to have considered them a group of back-woods Dacians (Zos. 4.34.6), but modern attempts to study their origins and cultural habitus have been hindered by a lack of evidence and nationalistic narratives (Batty 2007, pp376-379; Ioniţa 1982, pp. 76-77; Bichir 1976).
131 Batty 2007, pp. 198-199, 433-434. The earlier tragic history of Olbia is remarked upon by Dio Chrysostom in his
Borysthenitic Oration (see sec. 2.3.1 below).
132 Scyth. fr. 24, Cod. Vind. Hist. gr. 73 fol. 195, A.M. 31.5.17.
133 Dexippus, it seems, helped organize and execute a campaign of guerilla warfare in and around Attica following the
Herulian/Scythian capture of the city in 267. A speech in his voice, rallying the survivors to the defense of their homeland is partially preserved (Scyth. fr. Mec. 31/Mar. 25).
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they defeat the legions of Decius on multiple occasions and even kill the emperor and his son at Abritus.134 We learn of Athens’ capture and the Hellenic defenders, Dexippus among them, forced to resort to guerilla tactics to resist the Scythian menace. The historian-turned-general’s speech to the Greek partisans is full of classical commonplaces, but this cannot hide the fact that the world has been turned upside down: civilized men reduced to sniping from the woods, unable to resist the unified strength of a barbarian army.135 Even if many of the details in Dexippus’ battle narratives and speeches stem from the Hellenic warfare of Thucydides,136 the basic facts of the Scythica appear reliable.137 These Scythians were organized, aggressive, and capable of capturing Roman cities. What’s more, they held no special dread of the imperial legions and proved more than capable of defeating the best Rome had to offer in an admittedly troubled time. In short, these raiders failed to act in the ways Scythians were supposed to.
There were two dominant schools of thought regarding Scythians at the time of the
invasions, and the partisans of both would probably have been surprised by the enemies that actually showed up at the walls of Philippopolis. Some thought of Scythians as dangerous, nomadic
horsemen. These Scythians knew that the secret key to invincibility lay in mobility and disavowal of landed property. One cannot defeat what one cannot catch. This ‘strong Scythian’ had his origins
134 For Scythian siege narratives, see, eg: Scyth. fr. 22 (Marcianopole), fr. 24 (Philippopolis), fr. 27 (Side). For the death of
Decius, Scyth. fr. Mec. 23/Mr. 17. See also, Zos. 1.23, Jord. Get. 101-103, both of which are dependent on Dexippus.
135 For Dexippus’ guerilla tactics, see Scyth. fr. 25. For the strength of the Scythians, see also Decius’ speech in Scyth. fr.
Mec. 30/Mar. 24.
136 For an assessment of the many linguistic and thematic parallels, particularly in the siege narrative from fr. 24, see
Blockley 1972.
137 Millar 1969. While Potter questions Dexippus’ historical acuity and objectivity (2014, pp. 228-230), there is no reason
to seriously doubt the veracity of the basic narrative, given the author’s proximity in time to the events of the Scythica and his own personal involvement in the war. Indeed, Potter considers it highly likely that Dexippus relied heavily on reports from Romans taken captive by the Scythians for most of his non-Thucydidean details on Scythian warfare and political organization (personal correspondence, June 2017).
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in the ethnographic writings of Herodotus and his contemporaries, but had been transmitted, more or less unchanged, through the centuries, arriving alive and well in the minds of non-specialist writers of the middle Empire, such as Lucian and Tertullian. Even if this sort of Scythian was thought to be extremely dangerous, it was a danger that belonged mainly to another reality: the inverted world of the Scythian steppe.138 These barbarians had no place besieging cities; such a sedentary act went against their very nature.139
Other third century Romans, particularly those more in tune with current military practices on and beyond the Middle Danube, were conditioned to see the Carpathian Basin beyond the river as the heart of Scythia and its remaining ‘free’ inhabitants, the Sarmatian Iazyges, as the quintessential Scythians. This conflation of Scythians and Sarmatians/Sauromatians also dated back to Herodotus and his contemporaries,140 but whereas the original Sauromatians were described as even more
138 Hartog’s The Mirror of Herodotus (1988) revolutionized the field by interpreting the author's Scythian Logos as a
comment on contemporary Greek society. The Scythians were described as inversions of the Greeks in terms of economy, religion, politics, and culture. While Hartog’s point that we, today, cannot use Herodotus to study the real, historical Scythians, is absolutely correct, this did not stop the ancients from accepting and internalizing his ethnography as the objective truth.
139 Herodotus’ Scythians mainly stay in their own world beyond the Danube and Euxine. Most notably, when Darius and
his army manage to get across the Danube ahead of their Scythian pursuers, the barbarians choose not to pursue despite having chased the Persians around the Pontic Steppe for months (4.140-142). Early in the Histories, we learn that having defeated the native Cimmerians north of the Black Sea, the victorious Scythians pursued them across the Caucasus mountains into Media (Hdt. 1.103-5; 4.12.). For the next twenty-eight years, “the Scythians were masters of Asia, and all was wasted by their violence and pride; for apart from their exacting tribute, which they laid upon each man, apart from the tribute they rode around and plundered whatsoever it was that anyone possessed” (1.106). Unmatched on the battlefield, the Scythians were ultimately defeated through treachery. Cyaxares, king of the Medes, hosted a large number of the Scythian elite at a banquet, where, after getting them drunk, he promptly had his men slit their throats (1.106). Bereft of leadership, the horde no longer posed a threat. Herodotus is vague concerning subsequent events, but some of the invaders, at least, eventually returned home to the Pontic Steppe (4.1). In this fable, the Scythians are adept at plundering the countryside and exacting tribute, but totally out of their depth in the world of cities and politics.
140 In Herodotus, the Sauromatai are the product of Scythian men and Amazon women, and dwell beyond the Tanais River
(the Don), adjacent to the territory of the Scythians-proper. Their customs are identical to the rest of the Scythians, and they are said to speak a dialect of the same language. The only difference is the Amazonian practice of allowing women to fight in battle, at least until married (4.110-117). The Hippocratic author of the Airs, Waters, and Places also describes the Sauromatai as a subset of the larger Scythian ethnos (17). Fourth century BCE authors Theophrastus and Isocrates continue the conflation of the two groups (Phot., Bibl. Cod., ‘Theophrastos,’ 278; Isocrates, Panegyricus 67-70).
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fearsome than the standard Herodotean Scythians, the contemporary second and third century Sarmatians were long-standing clients of Rome and popularly seen as impotent, feckless wanderers prone to minor acts of banditry across the river, but posing no credible threat to Roman order. Despite an unexpected raid into Greece in the 160s that led to the sack of the sanctuary of Demeter at Eleusis, the Sarmatians had been so thoroughly subdued during the Marcomannic Wars, that there had been nothing even remotely similar from them in nearly a century.141 This sort of ‘weak
Scythian’ certainly was not considered capable of storming cities and killing emperors.
One thing that everyone could agree on was that the barbarians beyond the Danube were Scythians, whatever that might imply, and so Dexippus identified his barbarians as such, even though he, and others, knew that these particular barbarians had an alternative name: Goths.142 When these people sacked Olbia in 238 and began raiding into the empire a decade later, they revealed the lie behind both popular stereotypes. This chapter aims to answer the question of why the Romans misunderstood and underestimated the third century ‘Scythians.’ Rather than focus on the emergence of the vibrant, multi-ethnic Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov Culture probably responsible for the bulk of the third century raiders,143 we will consider how Romans adopted and modified Greek
141 Maximinus Thrax may have campaigned briefly against the Sarmatians in 236-7, however Herodian (7.1.2) is the only
substantial narrative account and it suffers from the ills common to that author, namely imprecise terminology and a lack of detail in narratives about military campaigns and, particularly, barbarian peoples. For a recent, if perhaps a bit optimistic scholarly assessment, see Kovács 2014, pp. 225-230. By Kovács’ reckoning, Maximinus first waged war against Germanic tribes beyond the Rhine and Upper Danube in 235-6, then moved his operations to the Hungarian Plain where he subdued apparently rebellious Sarmatians and Dacians in 236-7. This latter campaign is poorly documented, and may have been more propaganda than reality.
142 Gregory Thaumaturgus, a contemporary of the third century troubles, describes the barbarians as “Boradoi and Gotthoi”
(Ep. Can. 5). Fragment 23/17 of Dexippus acknowledges that the Scythians who killed Decius were also known as Goths, although the use of this term here may stem from the epitomizer, George Syncellus.
143 The topic of Gothic origins is hugely complex and controversial and has probably seen more attention than it actually
deserves. The association between the Sântana-de-Mureş/Cernjachov material culture group and the early Goths is fairly clear, although the exact relationship is fuzzy because of the limits imposed by modern thinking about archaeological cultures (For a succinct discussion of the problems with interpreting material remains, see Kulikowski 2007. Goffart 2006 offers a more thorough deconstruction.). We will not seek to greatly advance this field here or elsewhere in this
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ethnographic stereotypes about Scythians, and how these tropes came to be applied to the peoples living beyond the Middle and Lower Danube. When trying to conceptualize and understand the people beyond the Danube, Romans tended to favor Scythian explanations from among multiple existing ethnographic models because the worldview that went along with the ethnographic tropes - where the Danube marked a clear divide between Scythia and the rest of the oikoumene - helped explain (and thereby support) the establishment of the river as the empire’s north-central military boundary.
Once the association between transdanubian peoples and Scythians was more firmly established in the Roman imagination, emperors and authors began to use it more intentionally, emphasizing certain of the canonical tropes while downplaying others in order to portray the free transdanubians as impoverished weaklings unfit for inclusion within the empire. Such a view of the people beyond the river helped perpetuate the subjugation and exploitation of the Iazyges and other transdanubian tribes, a topic to which we will dedicate the entirety of Chapter Three. Scholars examining the interactions between Rome and other foreign peoples, most notably Carthaginians, Germans, and Persians, have recognized that the stereotypes and prejudices Romans had about barbarians exerted a strong influence on the policies implemented by the Roman state.144 To date, however, there has been little corresponding effort to understand the Scythian ideologies underlying and shaping Roman interactions with the peoples beyond the Danube. This chapter considers the development and early employment of Scythian tropes by Roman authors and policy makers up to the third century turmoil. Stereotypical ideas about Scythians and Sarmatians underlie nearly every
dissertation, although we will return to the Sântana-de-Mureş/Cernjachov Culture in Chapter Four as a point of comparison to archaeological trends from the Hungarian Plain to the west.
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Roman-barbarian interaction known from the Danubian Borderland, both the imperial triumphs and disasters. By charting the development of Scythian and Sarmatian tropes in the Roman imagination, this chapter will lay the intellectual foundations upon which we can interpret the political and social history of the Danubian Borderland in the following chapters. Beginning with the Scythian depredations of the third century described by Dexippus, tropes originally employed to make sense of the second century Middle Danube Borderland failed to evolve with the changing realities of the late antique frontier, particularly when applied to the different natural and cultural landscape of the Lower Danube. What had once been an ideological support for Rome’s Danubian
limes system, increasingly led Roman generals and emperors to misunderstand their northern
neighbors. The Scythians had changed, Rome’s intellectual arsenal failed to keep up, and the results proved disastrous on multiple occasions.