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Carpians
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The Carpi or Carpiani were a Dacian tribe that were located, between not later than ca. 100 and until at least ca. 400 AD, in the central eastern Carpathian Mountains, and in what is today central Moldavia (Romania). The Carpi were one of the Dacian tribes that escaped subjugation by the Roman Empire when it annexed the central part of Dacia in 106 AD.
The group is first mentioned in the period following the Roman annexation of Dacia.
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The Carpi or Carpiani were a Dacian tribe that were located, between not later than ca. 100 and until at least ca. 400 AD, in the central eastern Carpathian Mountains, and in what is today central Moldavia (Romania). The Carpi were one of the Dacian tribes that escaped subjugation by the Roman Empire when it annexed the central part of Dacia in 106 AD.
The group is first mentioned in the period following the Roman annexation of Dacia. After 150 years of obscurity, the Carpi emerged in ca. 240 AD as a major and persistent adversary of the Romans. In the period 240-70, the Carpi were an important component of a grand coalition of Transdanubian barbarian tribes that included Germanic and Sarmatian elements. These were responsible for a series of large and devastating invasions of the Balkan regions of the empire which nearly caused its disintegration, but were ultimately repulsed.
In the last quarter of the 3rd century, substantial numbers of Carpi were forcibly transferred by the Roman military to the Roman province of Pannonia (mod. W Hungary) following two major defeats the Carpi suffered at Roman hands (272 and 296). In the same period, the remaining Carpi probably occupied the northern part of the Roman province of Dacia, which was evacuated by the Romans in 270-5.
In the 4th century, the Carpi appear to have fallen under the hegemony, if not direct rule, of the Goths who occupied the Wallachian plain and at least part of Moldavia. After the collapse of the Gothic kingdoms in Dacia under Hunnic pressure in the late 4th century, the Carpi are last mentioned as part of a coalition of Huns and Sciri who were defeated by the emperor Theodosius I (379-95). Their fate after that, despite extensive speculation, is impossible to determine on the currently available evidence.
Name etymology
The name Carpi may derive from the same root as the name of the mountain range they occupied, which may be the Proto-Indo-European word *ker/sker, meaning "peak" or "cliff" (cf. Albanian karpë = "rock" and English "scarp"). But this derivation is uncertain and the two names may derive from different words, despite their similarity. Both the Carpi (Karpiani) and the Carpathian (Kárpates) names are first mentioned in classical sources in the Geographia of Greek geographer Ptolemy, composed between 130 and 148 AD.
Ethno-linguistic affiliation
The Carpi are believed by modern historians to have been a tribe of the Dacian nation (ethno-linguistic group) However, none of the classical sources states this explicitly. The Roman imperial-era sources refer to three groups, the Daci, Costoboci and Carpi, as residing in "Dacia" outside the part of Dacia annexed by the Romans in 106 AD (which was only about half the geographical region called Dacia, roughly corresponding to modern Romania, by the ancients). It is not clear whether Daci was used as a general term including the other two, or to refer to a specific group (or in both ways). The 6th-century historian Zosimos refers to ?a?p?d??a?, "Karpo-Dakai", which could mean either "the Dacian Carpi" or "the Carpi and the Dacians" or indeed "the Carpi living in Dacia". It cannot therefore be excluded that the Carpi were not Dacian-speakers, but spoke a Germanic or Sarmatian dialect as did many neighbouring tribes, and/or that they entered the region at a late stage, perhaps around the time of the Dacian Wars (102-6). However, taking the evidence as a whole, it seems that a Dacian ethnic identity is more likely, at least originally. Modern historians conventionally describe all three groups as "Free Dacians" to distinguish them from the Dacians residing in the Roman province of Dacia.
Territory
The Free Dacians inhabited the regions to the North and Northeast of the Roman province of Dacia. During the Roman Principate era, the Carpi are believed to have occupied a region between the central eastern Carpathians (the Muntii Giurgeului and Harghita) and the Prut river (i.e. the central part of the principality of Moldavia). The Carpi thus lay on the eastern border of the Transylvanian section of the Roman province. The Carpi's neighbours to the North, in northern Moldavia, were the Costoboci, to the South, in the Wallachian plain, the Roxolani Sarmatians and to the East of the Prut the Bastarnae (a Sarmato-German or possibly Celtic group) and other Sarmatian tribes.
Material culture
Archaeologists have ascribed to the Carpi 2nd/3rd-century artefacts found at a site in Poienesti (near Vaslui, Romania). If this attribution is correct, the finds demonstrate the wide variety of cultural influences on the Free Dacians. Funerary urns have lids which display pre-Roman Dacian features. Ceramics are largely Roman in style, while other artefacts, such as mirrors and animal-shaped handles, have characteristically Sarmatian designs. The latter demonstrate Carpi interaction with their Sarmatian neighbours.
Conflict with Rome
Before ca. 240 AD, the Carpi are not mentioned separately in Roman accounts of several campaigns against the Free Dacians. For example, in Rome's vast and protracted conflict with the Danubian tribes, known as the Marcomannic Wars (166-80), during which Dacia province suffered at least two major invasions (167, 170) by a Free Dacian and Sarmatian alliance, only the Costoboci are mentioned specifically. Silence on the role of the Carpi in these conflicts could imply that they were Roman allies in this period, or that they were simply subsumed under the Costoboci label by Roman chroniclers.
Around 200 AD started a phase of major population movements in the European barbaricum (the region outside the borders of the empire. The cause of this dislocation is unknown, but an important factor may have been the Antonine plague (165-180), a devastating smallpox pandemic which may have killed 15-30% of the Roman empire's inhabitants. The impact on the barbarian regions would have resulted in many weakened tribes and empty regions that may have induced the stronger tribes to exploit opportunities for expansion. A well-known example of the trend are the Goths. These were recorded by the Roman historian Tacitus, under the name Gothones, as inhabiting the area East of the Vistula river in central Poland in 100 AD. By 250, the Goths had moved South into western Ukraine and were frequently raiding the empire in conjunction with local tribes.
It was in this context of upheaval that, in mid-3rd century, the Carpi emerged as a major barbarian threat to Rome's lower Danubian provinces. They were described by one chronicler as "a race of men all too eager to make war, and often hostile to the Romans". A series of major Carpi incursions into the empire are recorded, mostly in alliance with their neighbouring Sarmatian and/or Germanic tribes (inc. Roxolani, Bastarnae, Goths). During the rule of emperor Philip the Arab (244-9), the Carpi crossed the Danube and laid waste Moesia Inferior. The emperor responded with a major counterattack, which forced the Carpi to retreat over the Danube, but without inflicting a decisive defeat on them. In 250-1, the Carpi were involved in the Gothic and Sarmatian invasions which culminated in the catastrophic Roman defeat at the Battle of Abrittus and the slaying of the emperor Decius (251), although their exact role is difficult to discern as the most coherent account, that of Zosimus, often denotes the participants in this invasion under the vague term "Scythians" (meaning inhabitants of Scythia, not ethnic Scythians). The Carpi apparently launched an invasion of Dacia in 250, but were defeated by Decius. However, other groups of Carpi warriors were probably with the Gothic forces which eventually prevailed over the Romans.
The Roman defeat at Abrittus was the start of the Third Century Crisis, a period of military and economic collapse which came close to destroying the empire. At this critical moment, the Roman army was crippled by the outbreak of a second smallpox pandemic, the plague of Cyprian (251-70). The effects are described by Zosimus as even worse than the earlier plague. Taking advantage of Roman military disarray, a vast number of barbarian peoples overran much of the empire. In 252, on the Danube, a massive coalition of Carpi, Goths, the Urugundi and the Borani (the latter two probably Sarmatian tribes) is recorded as ravaging Thracia as far as the Aegean coast, and only turned back after being bought off by emperor Gallus (r.251-3). Sometime in the period 253-8 under Valerian I (r. 253-60), the same coalition of tribes swept through Illyricum and entered Italy. They reached as far as Rome, forcing the Senate to take emergency measures such as arming the civilian population to man the walls. The barbarians retreated when co-emperor Gallienus broke off his campaigning on the Rhine and moved his army to Italy. During the sole rule of Gallienus (260-8), the "Scythian" coalition (including the Carpi) invaded Thracia and then took Athens by assault. They were eventually driven out by Gallienus' general Marcianus. In 267/8, the coalition, swollen by the adherence of the Bastarnae (Peucini branch) and the Heruli, became even more ambitious and built a fleet in the estuary of the river Tyras (Dniester). Launching it in 268, the barbarians sailed along the Black Sea coast to Tomis (Constanta) in Moesia Inferior, which they tried to take by assault without success. They then attacked the provincial capital Marcianopolis, also in vain. Sailing on through the Bosporus, the expedition laid siege to Thessalonica in northern Greece. Driven off by Roman forces, the coalition host moved overland into Thracia, where it was destroyed by emperor Claudius II (r. 268-70) in two successive battles, at Nessos and Naissus (269).
The rule of Aurelian (r. 270-5) had a radical impact on the Carpi. The emperor scored a major victory over the Carpi in 272, for which he was granted the title Carpicus ("Victorious over the Carpi") by the Senate. He resettled a large number of Carpi prisoners around Sopiana (Pécs, Hungary) in the Roman province of Pannonia. Shortly afterwards, Aurelian decided to abandon the Roman province of Dacia, evacuating most of its population, both urban and rural, and resettling it in Moesia Inferior. The main motivation was probably to re-populate the latter province, which had been ravaged by the plague and wars. The Carpi probably filled the vacuum left by the Roman withdrawal, occupying Transylvania, a process allegedly supported by the archaeological record. (The western Wallachian plain evacuated by the Romans was overrun by the Sarmatian Roxolani, who already occupied its eastern part).
This was in line with the long-established Roman practice of settling surrendering barbarian communities (dediticii) in the empire, granting them land in return for an obligation of military service much heavier than the usual conscription quota. The policy had the triple benefit, from the Roman point of view, of weakening the hostile tribe, bringing abandoned land in the frontier provinces back into cultivation and providing a pool of first-rate recruits for the army. But it could also be popular with the barbarian prisoners, who were often delighted by the prospect of a land grant within the empire. In the 4th century, such communities were known as laeti. The resettlement policy was continued by Diocletian (ruled 284-305), who inflicted a crushing defeat on the Carpi, judging by his assumption of the title Carpicus Maximus ("Totally Victorious over the Carpi") in 297. Victor states that Diocletian transferred the entire Carpi tribe to Pannonia, but this is unrealistic and contradicted by Zosimus, who reports that nearly a century later the emperor Theodosius I (r. 379-95) repulsed an invasion of Huns, Sciri and "Carpo-Dacians", probably those Carpi who had occupied Dacia province after the Roman withdrawal. Nevertheless, Eutropius confirms that the resettlement involved very large numbers.
During the 4th century, the Zosimus quote mentioned above is the only specific record of the Carpi. The emperor Constantine I (ruled 312-37) built a gigantic series of defensive earthworks on the mountain edges of the Tisza and Wallachian plains facing the Carpathians (the Devil's Dykes and Brazda lui Novac de Nord respectively). These have been interpreted as designed to protect the Romans' tributary Sarmatian tribes in those plains (the Iazyges and Roxolani respectively) against incursions by the mountain peoples (including, and perhaps especially, the Carpi). Nevertheless, after the death of Constantine, the Wallachian plain fell under the domination of the Tervingi branch of the Gothic nation, as evidenced by 4th century archaeological finds there, which are exclusively of the Chernyakhov culture, which is usually associated with the Goths. But it is unclear whether Gothic rule extended over the areas of likely Carpi inhabitation (Moldavia and Transylvania) or whether the Carpi retained their political independence. The discovery of Chernyakhov sites in those regions, and particularly artefacts in the two former legionary bases of ex-Roman Dacia (at Apulum and Potaissa), including the grave of a princely-status "migrator" (probably a Goth), indicates the possibility of the Carpi being under some form of Gothic hegemony.
Ultimate fate
Zosimus' mention of the Carpo-Dacians in the late 4th century is the latest extant specific record of the Carpi. This has led to considerable speculation about their eventual fate. The most likely scenario is that the Carpi in Dacia mingled with the various other peoples who migrated into the region from the 4th century onwards (Goths, Huns, Gepids and Slavs) and gradually lost their ethnic identity (whatever that was). But this is denied by the proponents of Daco-Roman continuity in Dacia, who claim that the Free Dacians who occupied the Roman province after it was abandoned were Latinised, and maintained their unique culture through the migration period. But this view is based on tendentious interpretation of archaeological data and has been challenged in recent years by a new wave of Romanian archaeologists who dispute that the Daco-Romans and the Free Dacians shared a common culture and language.
Separate speculation surrounds the fate of the Carpi transferred to Pannonia by Aurelian and Diocletian. Some proponents of the Daco-Thracian origin of the Albanian language suggest that the Pannonian Carpi moved to SW Illyria (mod. Albania) from 450 AD onwards in order to escape the Hunnic and later invasions, bringing their language with them, and supplanting the indigenous (probably Illyrian) dialects. But this theory lacks any documentary evidence, other than the affinities between the Albanian and Romanian languages, which also have been explained by other scenarios. Also, it presupposes that the Pannonian Carpi had not become Latin speakers during the 150 years they sojourned in Pannonia, but had retained their old Dacian tongue. This ignores the powerful Latinising pressure of the (exclusively Latin-speaking) Roman army, to which, as military colonists, every Carpi family would have been obliged to send at least one son for a 25-year term of service. During that time, the soldier might serve far from home and marry a non-Dacian woman, and raise an exclusively Latin-speaking family, often returning on discharge to his home district as a relatively wealthy and high-status individual.
Citations
Ancient
- Ammianus Marcellinus Res Gestae (ca. 395 AD)
- Eutropius Historiae Romanae Breviarium (ca. 360)
- Anonymous Historia Augusta (ca. 400)
- Jordanes Getica (6th c.)
- Ptolemy Geographica (ca. 140)
- Sextus Aurelius Victor De Caesaribus (ca. 380)
- Tacitus Germania (ca. 100)
- Zosimus Historia Nova (ca. 500)
Modern
- Barrington (2000): Atlas of the Greek & Roman World
- Cambridge Ancient History
- Holder,Paul (2003): Auxiliary Deployment in the Reign of Hadrian
- Köbler, Gerhard (2000): Indo-germanisches Wörterbuch (online)
- Mattingly, David (2006): An Imperial Possession: Britain in the Roman Empire
- Millar, Fergus (1970): The Roman Empire and its Neighbours
- Niculescu, G-A. : Nationalism and the Representation of Society in Romanian Archaeology (online paper)
- Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (1991)
- Penguin Historical Atlas of ancient Rome (1995)
- Room, Adrian (1997): Placenames of the World
- Stathakopoulos D. Ch. (2007): Famine and Pestilence in the late Roman and early Byzantine Empire
See also
External links
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