Rhoxolani
Encyclopedia
The Roxolani were a Sarmatian
people, who are believed to be an off-shoot of the Alans
. Their first recorded homeland lay between the Don and Dnieper rivers; they migrated in the 1st century BC toward the Danube
, to what is now the Baragan
steppes in Romania
.
The Greco-Roman
historian Strabo
(late 1st century BC-early 1st century AD) described them as "wagon
-dwellers" (i.e. nomad
s) (Geographika, Book VII).
Around 100 BC they invaded the Crimea
under their king Tasius
in support of the Scythian warlord Palacus
but were defeated by Diophantus
, general of Mithradates VI.
In the mid-1st century AD, the Roxolani began incursions across the Danube
into Roman territory. One such raid in AD
68/69 was intercepted by the Legio III Gallica
with Roman auxiliaries, who destroyed a raiding force of 9,000 Roxolanian cavalry encumbered by baggage. Tacitus
(Hist. Bk1.79) describes the weight of the armor worn by the 'princes and most distinguished persons' made 'it difficult for such as have been overthrown by the charge of the enemy to regain their feet' The long two-handed kontos lance
, the primary melee weapon
of the Sarmatians, was unusable in these conditions. The Roxolani avenged themselves in AD 92, when they joined the Dacians
in destroying the Roman Legio XXI Rapax
.
During Trajan's Dacian Wars, the Roxolani at first sided with the Dacians
, providing them with most of their cavalry strength, but they were defeated in the first campaign of AD 101-102. They appear to have stood aside as neutrals during Trajan's final campaign of AD 105-106, which ended in the complete destruction of the Dacian state. The creation of the Roman province of Dacia
brought Roman power to the very doorstep of Roxolani territory. The Emperor Hadrian
reinforced a series of pre-existing fortifications and built numerous forts along the Danube to contain the Roxolani threat.
Later, Marcus Aurelius also campaigned against the Roxolani along the Danubian frontier. They are known to have attacked the Roman Province of Pannonia
in 260; shortly afterwards contingents of Roxolani troops entered Roman military service.
Like other Sarmatian peoples, the Roxolani were conquered by the Huns
in the mid-4th century.
n anti-Normanist historian
s, such as Dmitry Ilovaisky
, have linked the Roxolani with the Slavic
Rus
, who appeared in Eastern Europe
some four centuries after the disappearance of the Roxolani. Such theories continue to be popular in Russia to this day. A wife of the 16th-century Ottoman
Sultan
Süleyman the Magnificent was known as Roxelana
, an appellation which indicated her Russian or Ukrainian
Slavic origin.
Sarmatians
The Iron Age Sarmatians were an Iranian people in Classical Antiquity, flourishing from about the 5th century BC to the 4th century AD....
people, who are believed to be an off-shoot of the Alans
Alans
The Alans, or the Alani, occasionally termed Alauni or Halani, were a group of Sarmatian tribes, nomadic pastoralists of the 1st millennium AD who spoke an Eastern Iranian language which derived from Scytho-Sarmatian and which in turn evolved into modern Ossetian.-Name:The various forms of Alan —...
. Their first recorded homeland lay between the Don and Dnieper rivers; they migrated in the 1st century BC toward the Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
, to what is now the Baragan
Baragan Plain
The Bărăgan Plain is a steppe plain in south-eastern Romania. It makes up much of the eastern part of the Wallachian Plain. The region is known for its black soil and a rich humus, and is mostly a cereal-growing area....
steppes in Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
.
The Greco-Roman
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
historian Strabo
Strabo
Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
(late 1st century BC-early 1st century AD) described them as "wagon
Wagon
A wagon is a heavy four-wheeled vehicle pulled by draught animals; it was formerly often called a wain, and if low and sideless may be called a dray, trolley or float....
-dwellers" (i.e. nomad
Nomad
Nomadic people , commonly known as itinerants in modern-day contexts, are communities of people who move from one place to another, rather than settling permanently in one location. There are an estimated 30-40 million nomads in the world. Many cultures have traditionally been nomadic, but...
s) (Geographika, Book VII).
Around 100 BC they invaded the Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
under their king Tasius
Tasius
Tasius is the name given by Strabo to the king of the Rhoxolani, a Sarmatian tribal group. Around 100 BCE, Tasius led an invasion of Crimea in support of the Scythian warlord Palacus. He was defeated by the Pontian general Diophantus....
in support of the Scythian warlord Palacus
Palacus
Palacus or Palakus was the king of Lesser Scythia who succeeded his father, Skilurus. Resuming the latter's war against Mithridates the Great, he attempted to besiege Chersonesos but was defeated by Pontic forces under Diophantus. Enlisting the assistance of the Rhoxolani under Tasius, Palacus...
but were defeated by Diophantus
Diophantus (general)
Diophantus , son of Asclepiodorus, of Sinope, was a general in the service of Mithridates VI of Pontus. Diophantus was active in Mithridates' campaigns in the Bosporan Kingdom and elsewhere around the Black Sea, although their chronology is disputed...
, general of Mithradates VI.
In the mid-1st century AD, the Roxolani began incursions across the Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
into Roman territory. One such raid in AD
Anno Domini
and Before Christ are designations used to label or number years used with the Julian and Gregorian calendars....
68/69 was intercepted by the Legio III Gallica
Legio III Gallica
Legio tertia Gallica was a Roman legion levied by Julius Caesar around 49 BC, for his civil war against the conservative republicans led by Pompey. The cognomen Gallica suggests that recruits were originally from the Gallic Roman provinces. The legion was still active in Egypt in the early 4th...
with Roman auxiliaries, who destroyed a raiding force of 9,000 Roxolanian cavalry encumbered by baggage. Tacitus
Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors...
(Hist. Bk1.79) describes the weight of the armor worn by the 'princes and most distinguished persons' made 'it difficult for such as have been overthrown by the charge of the enemy to regain their feet' The long two-handed kontos lance
Lance
A Lance is a pole weapon or spear designed to be used by a mounted warrior. The lance is longer, stout and heavier than an infantry spear, and unsuited for throwing, or for rapid thrusting. Lances did not have tips designed to intentionally break off or bend, unlike many throwing weapons of the...
, the primary melee weapon
Mêlée weapon
A melee weapon is any weapon that does not involve a projectile — that is, both the user and target of the weapon are in contact with it simultaneously in normal use...
of the Sarmatians, was unusable in these conditions. The Roxolani avenged themselves in AD 92, when they joined the Dacians
Dacians
The Dacians were an Indo-European people, very close or part of the Thracians. Dacians were the ancient inhabitants of Dacia...
in destroying the Roman Legio XXI Rapax
Legio XXI Rapax
Legio vigesima prima rapax was a Roman legion levied in 31 BC by Augustus, probably from men previously enlisted in other legions. The XXI Rapax was destroyed in 92 by the Dacians and Sarmatians...
.
During Trajan's Dacian Wars, the Roxolani at first sided with the Dacians
Dacians
The Dacians were an Indo-European people, very close or part of the Thracians. Dacians were the ancient inhabitants of Dacia...
, providing them with most of their cavalry strength, but they were defeated in the first campaign of AD 101-102. They appear to have stood aside as neutrals during Trajan's final campaign of AD 105-106, which ended in the complete destruction of the Dacian state. The creation of the Roman province of Dacia
Dacia
In ancient geography, especially in Roman sources, Dacia was the land inhabited by the Dacians or Getae as they were known by the Greeks—the branch of the Thracians north of the Haemus range...
brought Roman power to the very doorstep of Roxolani territory. The Emperor Hadrian
Hadrian
Hadrian , was Roman Emperor from 117 to 138. He is best known for building Hadrian's Wall, which marked the northern limit of Roman Britain. In Rome, he re-built the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus and Roma. In addition to being emperor, Hadrian was a humanist and was philhellene in...
reinforced a series of pre-existing fortifications and built numerous forts along the Danube to contain the Roxolani threat.
Later, Marcus Aurelius also campaigned against the Roxolani along the Danubian frontier. They are known to have attacked the Roman Province of Pannonia
Pannonia
Pannonia was an ancient province of the Roman Empire bounded north and east by the Danube, coterminous westward with Noricum and upper Italy, and southward with Dalmatia and upper Moesia....
in 260; shortly afterwards contingents of Roxolani troops entered Roman military service.
Like other Sarmatian peoples, the Roxolani were conquered by the Huns
Huns
The Huns were a group of nomadic people who, appearing from east of the Volga River, migrated into Europe c. AD 370 and established the vast Hunnic Empire there. Since de Guignes linked them with the Xiongnu, who had been northern neighbours of China 300 years prior to the emergence of the Huns,...
in the mid-4th century.
The Rus/Roxolani hypothesis
A number of RussiaRussia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n anti-Normanist historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
s, such as Dmitry Ilovaisky
Dmitry Ilovaisky
Dmitry Ivanovich Ilovaysky was an anti-Normanist Russian historian who penned a number of standard history textbooks.Ilovaysky graduated from the Moscow University in 1854 and first attracted critical attention with his thesis on the Principality of Ryazan in 1858...
, have linked the Roxolani with the Slavic
Slavic peoples
The Slavic people are an Indo-European panethnicity living in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, North Asia and Central Asia. The term Slavic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people, who speak languages belonging to the Slavic language family and share, to varying degrees, certain...
Rus
Rus' (people)
The Rus' were a group of Varangians . According to the Primary Chronicle of Rus, compiled in about 1113 AD, the Rus had relocated from the Baltic region , first to Northeastern Europe, creating an early polity which finally came under the leadership of Rurik...
, who appeared in Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
some four centuries after the disappearance of the Roxolani. Such theories continue to be popular in Russia to this day. A wife of the 16th-century Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
Sultan
Sultan
Sultan is a title with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic language abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", and "dictatorship", derived from the masdar سلطة , meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be used as the title of certain rulers who...
Süleyman the Magnificent was known as Roxelana
Roxelana
Haseki Hürrem Sultan was the wife of Süleyman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire.-Names:Sixteenth-century sources are silent as to her maiden name, but much later traditions, for example Ukrainian folk traditions first recorded in the 19th century, give it as "Anastasia" , and Polish...
, an appellation which indicated her Russian or Ukrainian
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...
Slavic origin.