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The Massageteans (; ) or Massagetaeans were an Iranian people
Ancient Iranian peoples

Ancient Iranian peoples who settled Greater Iran in the 2nd millennium BC first appear in Assyrian records in the 9th century BC. They remain dominant throughout Classical Antiquity in Scythia and Persia....
 of antiquity known primarily from the writings of Herodotus
Herodotus

Herodotus of Halicarnassus was a Greeks historian who lived in the 5th century BC and is regarded as the "Father of History" in Western culture....
. Their name was probably akin to Getae
Getae

The Getae was the name given by the Greeks to several Thracian tribes that occupied the regions south of the Danube, in what is today northern Bulgaria, and north of the Lower Danube, in Romania....
 and Thyssagetae
Thyssagetae

Thyssagetae were an ancient tribe described by Herodotus as occupying a district to the north-east of Scythia separated from the Budini by a desert seven days journey broad, perhaps the Voguls....
.

rding to Herodotus:

They were similar to the Scythians in their dress and mode of living. Each man had one woman, yet their wives were held in common, this custom differentiating the Massagetae from the Scythians.






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The Massageteans (; ) or Massagetaeans were an Iranian people
Ancient Iranian peoples

Ancient Iranian peoples who settled Greater Iran in the 2nd millennium BC first appear in Assyrian records in the 9th century BC. They remain dominant throughout Classical Antiquity in Scythia and Persia....
 of antiquity known primarily from the writings of Herodotus
Herodotus

Herodotus of Halicarnassus was a Greeks historian who lived in the 5th century BC and is regarded as the "Father of History" in Western culture....
. Their name was probably akin to Getae
Getae

The Getae was the name given by the Greeks to several Thracian tribes that occupied the regions south of the Danube, in what is today northern Bulgaria, and north of the Lower Danube, in Romania....
 and Thyssagetae
Thyssagetae

Thyssagetae were an ancient tribe described by Herodotus as occupying a district to the north-east of Scythia separated from the Budini by a desert seven days journey broad, perhaps the Voguls....
.

Customs

According to Herodotus:

They were similar to the Scythians in their dress and mode of living. Each man had one woman, yet their wives were held in common, this custom differentiating the Massagetae from the Scythians. Queen Tomyris
Tomyris

Tomyris was the queen who reigned over the Massagetae, an Iranian peoples of Central Asia east of the Caspian Sea, at approximately 530 B.C. In Persian texts, ????????, is the way her name is written....
 succeeded her dead husband, the former king of the Massagetae. The Massagetae worshipped only one god, the sun, and sacrificed a horse in its honour.

History

A number of different versions have been transmitted concering the death of Cyrus the Great
Cyrus the Great

Cyrus the Great , , also known as Cyrus II of Persia and Cyrus the Elder, was a Persian people Shah . He was the founder of the Persian Empire under the Achaemenid dynasty, an empire, perhaps the most wealthy and magnificent in history....
. One version reported:

According to Herodotus, Cyrus the Great
Cyrus the Great

Cyrus the Great , , also known as Cyrus II of Persia and Cyrus the Elder, was a Persian people Shah . He was the founder of the Persian Empire under the Achaemenid dynasty, an empire, perhaps the most wealthy and magnificent in history....
 of Persia
Persian Empire

The 'Persian Empire' was a series of successive Iranian or Persianization empires that ruled over the Iranian plateau, the original Persian homeland, and beyond in Southwest Asia, South Asia, Central Asia and the Caucasus....
 met his death in a battle with the Massagetae living beyond the Araxes river. They were a people from the southern deserts of Khwarezm
Khwarezm

Khwarezm were a series of states centered on the Amu Darya river delta of the former Aral Sea, in Greater Iran , extending across the Ust-Urt plateau and possibly as far west as the eastern shores of the northern Caspian Sea....
 in today's Bukhara
Bukhara

Bukhara , also spelled as Bukhoro and Bokhara, from the Soghdian ?uxarak , is the Capital of the Bukhara Province of Uzbekistan. The nation's fifth-largest city, it has a population of 237,900 ....
, Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan , is a Landlocked_country#Doubly_landlocked_country country in Central Asia, formerly part of the Soviet Union....
. The queen of the Massagetae, Tomyris
Tomyris

Tomyris was the queen who reigned over the Massagetae, an Iranian peoples of Central Asia east of the Caspian Sea, at approximately 530 B.C. In Persian texts, ????????, is the way her name is written....
, prevailed, although Cyrus had defeated Tomyris's son Spargapises. Herodotus mentions: Of all the combats in which the barbarians have engaged among themselves, I reckon this to have been the fiercest.

Note on the geography of Herodotus

The name Araxes probably means "rapid stream". In the context of the Massagetae "Araxes" refers to Jaxartes.

Continuity

Ammianus Marcellinus
Ammianus Marcellinus

Ammianus Marcellinus was a fourth-century Ancient Rome historian. His is the last major historical account of the late Roman empire which survives today....
 considered the Alans
Alans

The Alans or Alani were a group among the Sarmatians people, Eurasian nomads of the 1st millennium AD who spoke an Eastern Iranian language which derived from Scytho-Sarmatian language and which in turn evolved into modern Ossetian language....
 to be the former Massagetae. At the close of the 4th century CE, Claudian
Claudian

Claudian was a Roman poet, who worked for Emperor Flavius Augustus Honorius and the latter's general Stilicho.A Greek language citizen of Alexandria, Claudian arrived in Rome before 395, and made his mark with a eulogy of his two young patrons, Probinus and Olybrius, thereby becoming court poet....
 (the court poet of Emperor Honorius
Honorius

Honorius may refer to:* Honorius , western Roman emperor 395-423* Honorius of Canterbury , archbishop of Canterbury 627-655* Honoratus of Amiens , bishop of Amiens...
 and Stilicho
Stilicho

Flavius Stilicho was a high-ranking general , Patrician and Consul of the Western Roman Empire, notably of barbarian birth....
) wrote of Alans and Massagetae in the same breath: "the Massagetes who cruelly wound their horses that they may drink their blood, the Alans who break the ice and drink the waters of Maeotis' lake" (In Rufinem).

Others contact them with the Huns
Huns

The Huns were a confederation of Central Asian Eurasian nomads or semi-nomads, who had established an empire in Eurasia. The Huns may have stimulated the Migration Period, a contributing factor in the collapse of the Roman Empire....
:

Procopius
Procopius

Procopius of Caesarea was a prominent Byzantine Empire scholar of the family Procopius . A participant himself in the wars of the Emperor Justinian I, he was the major historian of the 6th century, writing the Wars of Justinian, the Buildings of Justinian and the celebrated Secret History....
' writes in History of the Wars Book III: The Vandalic War: "the Massagetae whom they now call Huns
Huns

The Huns were a confederation of Central Asian Eurasian nomads or semi-nomads, who had established an empire in Eurasia. The Huns may have stimulated the Migration Period, a contributing factor in the collapse of the Roman Empire....
" (XI. 37.), "there was a certain man among the Massagetae, well gifted with courage and strength of body, the leader of a few men; this man had the privilege handed down from his fathers and ancestors to be the first in all the Hunnic armies to attack the enemy" (XVIII. 54.).

Evagrius Scholasticus
Evagrius Scholasticus

Evagrius Scholasticus was an ecclesiastical historian, who wrote six books, covering a period of 163 years, from the Second Council of Ephesus in 431 to the 12th year of the emperor Maurice ....
 (Ecclesiastical History. Book 3. Ch. II.): "and in Thrace
Thrace

Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. Today the name Thrace designates a region spread over southern Bulgaria , northeastern Greece , and European Turkey ....
, by the inroads of the Huns
Huns

The Huns were a confederation of Central Asian Eurasian nomads or semi-nomads, who had established an empire in Eurasia. The Huns may have stimulated the Migration Period, a contributing factor in the collapse of the Roman Empire....
, formerly known by the name of Massagetae, who crossed the Ister without opposition".

See also

  • Mount Imeon
    Mount Imeon

    Mount Imeon is an ancient name for the Central Asian complex of mountain ranges comprising the present Hindu Kush, Pamir Mountains and Tian Shan, extending from the Zagros Mountains in the southwest to the Altay Mountains in the northeast, and linked to the Kunlun Mountains, Karakoram and Himalayas to the southeast....


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