- Rhoxolani
The Rhoxolani were a Sarmatian people, who are believed to be an off-shoot of the
Alans . Their first recorded homeland lay between the Don andDnieper rivers; they migrated in the1st century BC toward theDanube , to what is now the Baragan steppes inRomania .The Greco-Roman historian
Strabo (late first century BC-early first century AD) described them as "wagon -dwellers" (i.e.nomad s) ("Geographika," Book VII).Around 100 BC they invaded the
Crimea under their kingTasius in support of the Scythian warlordPalacus but were defeated by Diophantus, general ofMithradates VI .In the mid-first century AD, the Rhoxolani began making incursions across the
Danube into Roman territory. One such raid in AD 68/69 was intercepted by theLegio III Gallica withRoman auxiliaries , who destroyed a raiding force of 9,000 Roxolanian cavalry encumbered by baggage.Tacitus (Hist. Bk1.79) describes the weight of thearmor 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-handedkontos lance , the primarymelee weapon of the Sarmatians, was unusable in these conditions. The Rhoxolani avenged themselves in AD 92, when they joined theDacians in destroying the RomanLegio XXI Rapax .During
Trajan 'sDacian Wars , the Rhoxolani at first sided with theDacians , 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 ofDacia brought Roman power to the very doorstep of Rhoxolani territory. The EmperorHadrian reinforced a series of pre-existingfortifications and built numerousfort s along the Danube to contain the Rhoxolani threat.Later,
Marcus Aurelius also campaigned against the Rhoxolani along the Danubian frontier. They are known to have attacked the Roman Province ofPannonia in 260; shortly afterwards contingents of Rhoxolani troops entered Roman military service.Like other Sarmatian peoples, the Rhoxolani were conquered by the
Huns in the mid fourth century and disappeared from history.The Rus/Rhoxolani myth ?
A number of
Russia nanti-Normanist historian s have attempted to link the Rhoxolani with the Slavic Rus, who appeared inEastern Europe some four centuries after the disappearance of the Rhoxolani. Such theories continue to be popular in Russia to this day, though they were generally considered, even before the era of genetic research, aspseudo-science by most academics.Resources
* [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Strabo/7C*.html Strabo's "Geographika"]
* [http://starnarcosis.net/obsidian/siberia.html#Sarmatia Rhoxolani rulers on Bruce Gordon's Regnal Chronologies]
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