By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean by Cunliffe Barry;

Author:Cunliffe, Barry;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2015-08-18T16:00:00+00:00

7.18 A marble stele commemorating Diodotus Tryphon found in the Greek city of Tanis at the mouth of the Don in the kingdom of Bosporus. He is dressed in scale armour typical of a Sarmatian cavalry man

In the second century bc the Roxolani, one of the Sarmatian tribes, destroyed the Scythian royal capital at Kamianka on the lower Dnieper, forcing the tribal leaders to retreat to the Crimean peninsula to establish a new capital at Neapolis, a well-fortified commercial and political centre strongly influenced by Greek architectural traditions. An uneasy relationship between the new settlement and the leading Greek colony of Chersonesos, near modern Sevastopol, culminated, in 110–109 bc, in a Scythian attempt to seize the city. The Greeks called in help from the kingdom of Pontus in Asia Minor, with the result that the Scythians were defeated and Neapolis taken. After the Roman annexation of the kingdom of Bosporos in 65 bc all the Greek cities in the Crimea came under Roman authority and a garrison was stationed in Chersonesos, the city remaining under Roman protection until the end of the third century ad.

The long-term mobility of the Sarmatian tribes is nicely demonstrated by the history of the Iazyges and Roxolani in the period from the second century bc to the second century ad. The Iazyges originally lived between the Don and the Dnieper north of the Sea of Azov, with the Roxolani located to the west of them on the lower Volga. In the second century bc the Roxolani, under pressure from their eastern neighbours the Aorsi, moved westwards across the Don, forcing the Iazyges to migrate westwards to the steppe of the lower Dniester, where they came up against indigenous agriculturalists, the Bastarnae (possibly of Celtic origin) and the native Getae, forcing them to turn southwards, following the Black Sea littoral to the Danube delta. To the south of the Danube lay territory under the control of the Romans. The strengthening of Roman power in the region and the creation of a fortified frontier zone along the lower Danube made any hope of further movement to the south unrealistic, but the Iazyges were frequently involved in raids into Roman territory, working in concert with their neighbours the Dacians, who occupied much of modern Romania. Raids were recorded in ad 6 and 16, but soon after ad 20 the Iazyges moved on again, this time travelling west through the Carpathians into the Great Hungarian Plain, where they established themselves on the steppe to the east of the middle Danube, confronting the Romans across the Danube frontier. To begin with, relations between the Iazyges and the Romans were friendly and the Iazyges provided auxiliary cavalry units for the Roman army fighting the Dacians, but when Trajan’s armies eventually conquered Dacia in ad 101 and made it a Roman province, the Iazyges found themselves almost surrounded by the Romans to the east, south, and west. It was an untenable position.

Towards the beginning of a long conflict which became known as

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