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M Claudius Tacitus
Marcus Claudius Tacitus, (c.200 - 276) Roman Emperor from September 25, 275, to April 276, was a native of Interamna (Terni) in Umbria.
In the course of his long life he discharged the duties of various civil offices, including that of consul in 273, with universal respect.
Six months after the assassination of Aurelian, he was chosen by the senate to succeed him, and the choice was cordially ratified by the army. During his brief reign he set on foot some domestic reforms, and sought to revive the authority of the senate, but, after a victory over the Alans near the Palus Maeotis, he was assassinated at Tyana in Cappadocia.
Tacitus, besides being a man of immense wealth (which he bequeathed to the state) had considerable literary culture, and was proud to claim descent from the historian Gaius Cornelius Tacitus, whose works he caused to be transcribed at the public expense and placed in the public libraries.
References
- Eutropius, Breviarium ab urbe condita, ix. 16
: "…After him TACITUS succeeded to the throne; a man of excellent morals, and well qualified to govern the empire. He was unable, however, to show the world anything remarkable, being cut off by death in the sixth mouth of his reign..…"
: [http://www.forumromanum.org/literature/eutropius/trans9.html#16 English version of Breviarium ab Urbe Condita]
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See also: Roman Empire
External links
Tacitus
Tacitus
Tacitus
Tacitus
Tacitus
Tacitus
ja:タキトゥス (ローマ皇帝)
276
Events
- Sassanid Shah Bahram II succeeded Bahram I.
- Probus became Roman Emperor.
- Mani, a sage from Persia, is executed after preaching a religious belief that combines Zoroastrian dualism with Christian theology and Buddhist thought -- stirring conflict with the adherents of both religions.
Births
Deaths
- Marcus Claudius Tacitus, Roman emperor
- Florianus, Roman Emperor.
- Mani, Persian sage.
Category:276
ko:276년
Roman EmperorsThis is a list of Roman Emperors with the dates they controlled the Roman Empire.
Note that in the list below Julius Caesar is not mentioned as an Emperor, as conventionally he is not considered as such. For a more in-depth discussion of whether or not Julius Caesar might have been considered as the first Emperor, see Roman Emperor.
For the worship of the Roman Emperor as a god, see imperial cult.
For a simplified list see: Concise List of Roman Emperors
italics: claimant who cannot be considered to have ruled, or who held power over part of the empire only
bold: nickname by which the individual is commonly known
Severan Dynasty, African, Asian and Syrian Emperors
Tetrarchies, unifications and new splits
| Reign
| Common name
| Personal name & Title<
275
Events
- Eutychian elected pope (probable date)
- September 25 - Marcus Claudius Tacitus appointed emperor by the senate
Births
- Eusebius of Caesarea (approximate date)
- Saint George, soldier of the Roman Empire and later Christian martyr (or 280, approximate date).
Deaths
- Aurelian, Roman Emperor
- Mani, founder of Manichaeism (approximate date)
Category:275
ko:275년
276
Events
- Sassanid Shah Bahram II succeeded Bahram I.
- Probus became Roman Emperor.
- Mani, a sage from Persia, is executed after preaching a religious belief that combines Zoroastrian dualism with Christian theology and Buddhist thought -- stirring conflict with the adherents of both religions.
Births
Deaths
- Marcus Claudius Tacitus, Roman emperor
- Florianus, Roman Emperor.
- Mani, Persian sage.
Category:276
ko:276년
Terni
Terni, (Latin: Interamna Nahars) an ancient town of Italy, capital of Terni province in southern Umbria, 42°33N, 12°39E, at 130 meters (427 ft) above sea-level in the plain of the Nera river. It is 104 km (65 mi) N of Rome, 36 km (23 mi) NW of Rieti, and 29 km (18 mi) S of Spoleto. Its population according to the 2003 census was around 106,000.
The city lies on the rail line from Rome to Ancona, and is the point of departure for the branch line to Rieti and L'Aquila. It is the seat of a university, and is one of the most important industrial towns of Umbria.
History
The city was probably founded in the 7th century BC by the Umbri or the Sabini. In the 3rd century BC it was conquered by the Romans and soon become an important municipium lying on the Via Flaminia. The Roman name was Interamna, meaning "acros two rivers". During the Roman Empire the city was enriched with several buildings, including aqueducts, walls, amphitheaters, temples and bridges.
After the Lombard conquest (755) Terni lost any role of prominence, reducing to a secondary town in the Duchy of Spoleto. In 1174 it was again destroyed by Frederick Barbarossa's general, Archbishop Christian of Mainz. In the following century Terni was one of the favourite seat of St. Francis' prayings.
In the 14th century Terni issued a constitution of its own and from 1353 the walls were enlarged, and new channels were opened. As well as much of the Italian communes of the Late Middle Ages, it was slained by inner disputes between Guelphs and Ghibellines, and later between the two parties of Nobili and Banderari. Later it become part of the Papal States. In 1580 an ironwork, the Ferriera, was introduced to work the iron ore mined in Monteleone di Spoleto, starting the tradional industrial connotation of the city. In the 17th century, however, Terni declined further due to plagues and famines.
In the 19th century Terni took advantage of the Industrial Revolution and of the large presence of water sources in the area. New industries included a steelwork, a foundry, as well as weapons, jute and wool factories. In 1927 Terni became capital of province. The presence of a strong industries concentration made it a favourite target for the Allied bombardments in World War II, totalling 108 raids. Many quarters and public edifices were destroyed.
Monuments
- The Roman amphitheater, once capable of 10,000 spectators, built in 32 BC.
- The small Roman gate of Porta Sant'Angelo, one of the four ancient entrances to the city, much restored.
- The Cathedral (Duomo) of S. Maria Assunta (17th century). Built over one of the most ancient Christian edifices of the city, it has today Baroque lines. In the interior is one organ designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. the belfry is from the 18th century. The façade has two mediaeval gates: one of them has the profile of a sabot once used to measure the citizen's shoes in order they do not exceed a fixed limit of decency.
- Church of S. Francesco.
- The Basilica of S. Valentino.
- Palazzo Mazzancolli is one of the few remains of the Middle Ages past of the city.
- Palazzo Gazzoli (18th century), housing the City's Gallery with works by Pierfrancesco d'Amelia, Benozzo Gozzoli, Gerolamo Troppa and Orneore Metelli.
- Palazzo Spada (16th century), by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger. It is the current Town Hall.
- The Lancia di Luce ("Lance of Light"), by the sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro.
- The Romanesque churches:
- S. Alò (11th century).
- S. Martino.
- S. Salvatore.
Notable natives of Terni
- The Roman emperor Tacitus
- Saint Valentine
- Francesco Angeloni
- Anastasio De Filis
- Giulio Briccialdi
- Alessandro Casagrande
- Libero Liberati
- Mario Umberto Borzacchini
- Orneore Metelli
- Cesare Bazzani
- Virgilio Alterocca.
The Roman historian Tacitus is often stated to have been born in Terni, but there is no evidence for the claim, which is circumstantially based on the probable birth there of the emperor of the same name, and on the attested fact that that emperor took care to have his namesake's works widely copied, in the apparent belief that they were related.
The case of St. Valentine is more complex, since there was undoubtedly an early bishop of Terni by that name, who is the city's patron. In late Antiquity, however, the name was a common one, and the bishop has become conflated with several other saints, the most important of whom, the soldier saint, was probably not from Terni.
External links
- [http://www.comune.terni.it/ Official Site]
- [http://www.aboutterni.com/ AboutTerni.com]
- [http://www.terniweb.it/ TerniWeb.it]
- [http://umbriatravel.com/terni.asp Terni at UmbriaTravel.Com]
- [http://www.italianvisits.com/umbria/terni/ ItalianVisits.com]
Category:Roman sites of Umbria
Category:Romanesque sites of Umbria
Category:Towns in Umbria
ja:テルニ
Umbria
Umbria is a region of central Italy, bordered by Tuscany to the west, the Marche to the east and Lazio to the south. The region covers 8,456 km² and has a population of 834,000 (2003 census).
The region is named for the Umbri tribe, who settled in the region in the 6th century BC. Their language was Umbrian, a relative of Latin. The modern region of Umbria, however, is essentially a different region of Italy than that bearing the same name in Roman times (see Roman Umbria), which extended through most of what is now the northern Marche, to Ravenna, but excluded the west bank of the Tiber — and thus for example Perugia — which was in Etruria, and the area around Norcia, which was in the Sabine territory.
Geography
Umbria is mostly hilly or mountainous. Its relief is dominated by the Apennines to the east — accounting for the highest point in the region at the summit of Mt. Vettore on the border of the Marche (2476 m = 8123 ft) — and the Tiber valley basin, accounting for the lowest point at Attigliano (96 m = 315 ft).
The Tiber forms the approximate border with the Lazio; although the remainder of its course northwards from its source just over the Tuscan border does lie in Umbria, the river is mercurial and thus over the centuries very few towns have been situated on it: the Tiber itself thus is not a major factor in the history and human geography of Umbria. The same cannot be said of the Tiber's three principal tributaries, each flowing in a generally southward course: they are responsible for much of the landscape of Umbria. Most of the course of the Chiascio takes it through relatively uninhabited areas until Bastia Umbra, and about 10 km later it flows into the Tiber at Torgiano. The Topino, cleaving the Apennines with passes that in Antiquity made the Via Flaminia possible and the main successor roads even today, makes a sharp turn at Foligno to flow NW for a few miles before joining the Chiascio below Bettona. The third river system is that of the Nera, flowing into the Tiber much further south, at Terni: its valley, called the Valnerina, is widely considered by Umbrians the most scenic area of Umbria. While the Nera flows more or less in isolation between rather high mountains, the lower course of the Chiascio-Topino basin widens out into a fairly large floodplain, which in Antiquity was actually a pair of shallow, interlocking, swamp-like lakes, the Lacus Clitorius and the Lacus Umber. They were drained a first time by the Romans over a span of several hundred years, but an earthquake in the 4th century and the political collapse of the Roman Empire resulted in the reflooding of the basin, which was drained a second time over a span of five hundred years: Benedictine monks from various abbeys in the region started the process in the 13th century, and it was completed on the private initiative of an engineer from Foligno in the 18th century.
The "green heart of Italy"
In tourist literature one sometimes sees Umbria called il cuor verde d'Italia (the green heart of Italy). The phrase, taken from a poem by Giosuè Carducci — the subject of which is not Umbria but rather a specific small place in it, the source of the Clitunno river, treasured since Antiquity as a beauty spot — is to a certain extent appropriate since the modern administrative region is the only one to have neither a coast nor a border with a foreign country, and, except for August and September, is notoriously green.
Provinces and towns
The regional capital is Perugia. The region is divided into two provinces: Perugia, with 59 comuni, and Terni, with 33 comuni.
Notable towns and cities:
- Amelia (Italy)
- Assisi
- Città di Castello
- Deruta
- Foligno
- Gubbio
- Montefalco
- Narni
- Norcia
- Orvieto
- Perugia
- Spoleto
- Terni
- Todi
External links
- [http://www.regione.umbria.it/ Official Site of the Region of Umbria]
- [http://www.umbria.org Umbria.org]
- [http://www.italy-weather-and-maps.com/maps/italy/tuscany.gif Map of Umbria]
- [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/Europe/Italy/Umbria/map.html Gazetteer of Umbria] (Bill Thayer's site)
- [http://cidoc.iuav.it/circe/igm/umb/img/umg0.htm IGM (Istituto Geografico Militare) Maps of Umbria]
- [http://global.umbria2000.it/ciecm/umbria.htm Umbria 2000]
- [http://www.bellaumbria.net/ BellaUmbria]
- [http://www.argoweb.it/umbria/umbria.it.html ArgoNet]
- [http://www.umbriaonline.com/ Umbria Online]
- [http://www.abcumbria.com ABC Umbria]
- [http://www.umbrialacarte.it Umbria A La Carte]
- [http://www.aboutumbria.com/ AboutUmbria.com]
- [http://www.umbriaeventi.it Umbria Eventi]
- [http://www.primitaly.it/umbria PrimItaly section on Umbria]
- [http://www.umbriaturismo.it Umbria Turismo]
- [http://cidoc.iuav.it/circe/igm/umb/img/umg0.htm IGM (Istituto Geografico Militare) Maps of Umbria]
- [http://www.umbriatourism.com/ Umbria Tourism]
- [http://www.umbriatravel.com/ Umbria Travel]
- [http://www.italianvisits.com/umbria/ ItalianVisits.com: Umbria]
- [http://www.slowtrav.com/italy/planning/where_umbria.htm SlowTrav section on Umbria]
ja:ウンブリア州
Consul
:For modern diplomatic consuls, see Consulate general.
Consul (abbrev. cos.) was the highest elected office of the Roman Republic and an appointive office under the Empire.
After the expulsion of Tarquinius Superbus and the ending of the Roman Kingdom, all the powers and authority of the King were given to the newly instituted Consuls. The office of Consul was believed to date back to the traditional establishment of the Republic in 509 BC, although the early history is partly legendary, and the succession of Consuls is not continuous in the 5th century. Consuls executed both religious and military duties; the reading of the auguries was an essential step before leading armies into the field.
Under the Republic, the minimum age of election to consul for patricians was 40 years of age, for plebeians 42. Two consuls were elected each year, serving together with veto power over each other's actions. The year of their service was known by their names: for instance, the year commonly called 59 BC was called by the Romans "the consulship of Caesar and Bibulus", since the two colleagues in the consulship were Julius Caesar and Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus (but Caesar dominated the consulship so thoroughly that year that it was jokingly referred to as "the consulship of Julius and Caesar").
In Latin, consules means "those who walk together". If a consul died during his term (not uncommon when consuls were in the forefront of battle), another would be elected, and be known as a suffect consul (cos. suff.).
According to tradition, the consulship was initially reserved for patricians; not until 367 BC did the plebeians win the right to stand for office, when the lex Licinia Sextia provided that at least one consul each year should be plebeian. The first plebeian consul, Lucius Sextius, was thereby elected the following year. Modern historians, however, have questioned the traditional account of plebeian emancipation during the Early Republic (see Conflict of the Orders), noting for instance that about thirty per cent of the consuls prior to Sextius had plebeian, not patrician, names.
During times of war, the primary criterion for consul was military skill and reputation, but at all times the selection was politically charged. With the passage of time, the consulship became the normal endpoint of the cursus honorum, the sequence of offices pursued by the ambitious Roman. Beginning in the late Republic, after finishing a consular year, a former consul would serve as a Proconsul and become the governor of one of Rome's provinces.
When Augustus established the Empire, he changed the nature of the office, stripping it of most of its powers. While still a great honor and a requirement for other offices, many consuls would resign part way through the year to allow other men to finish their term as suffects. Those who held the office on January 1, known as the consules ordinarii, had the honor of associating their names with that year. As a result, about half of the men who held the rank of praetor could also reach the consulship. Sometimes these suffect consuls would in turn resign, and another suffect would be appointed. This reached its extreme under Commodus, when in AD 190 twenty-five men held the consulship.
Under the Empire, Emperors frequently appointed themselves, protégés, or relatives without regard to the age requirements.
For example, Emperor Honorius was given the consulship at birth.
Holding the consulship was apparently such an honor that the break-away Gallic Empire had its own pairs of consuls during its existence (260–274). The list of consuls for this state is incomplete, drawn from inscriptions and coins.
One of the reforms of Constantine I was to assign one of the consuls to the city of Rome, and the other to Constantinople. Therefore, when the Roman Empire was divided into two halves on the death of Theodosius I, the emperor of each half acquired the right of appointing one of the consuls— although one emperor did allow his colleague to appoint both consuls for various reasons. As a result, after the formal end of the Roman Empire in the West, many years would be named for only a single consul. This rank was finally allowed to lapse in the reign of Justinian I: first with the consul of Rome in 534, Decius Paulinus, then the consul of Constantinople in 541, Flavius Basilius Junior.
For a complete list of Roman consuls, see:
- List of Republican Roman Consuls (before 33 BC)
- List of early imperial Roman consuls (33 BC‑AD 192)
- List of late imperial Roman consuls (after AD 192)
French consuls
In 1799, revolutionary France enacted a constitution that conferred supreme executive powers upon three officials that bore the title "consul". In reality, however, the state was de facto under control of the First Consul, Napoleon Bonaparte. Originally the consuls were to hold office for a period of ten years, although in 1802 Bonaparte was declared First Consul for life (lifetime consulate was introduced for Second and Third Consuls as well). The French consulate ceased to exist when Bonaparte was declared Emperor of the French in 1804.
See also
- List of Ancient Rome-related topics
- Political institutions of Rome
Category:Ancient Roman titles
Category:Military ranks
ko:집정관
ja:執政官
273
Events
- Under the command of Emperor Aurelian, the Roman Army sacks the city of Palmyra.
- Sassanid Shah Bahram I succeeded Hormizd I.
- Marcus Claudius Tacitus, future Roman Emperor, is consul in Rome.
- Tetricus I and Tetricus II are deposed as Gallic Emperors by Aurelian.
Births
Deaths
- Dexippus, Greek historian
Category:273
ko:273년
Roman Senate
The Roman Senate (Latin, Senatus) was a deliberative body which was important in the government of both the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire. The word Senatus is derived from the Latin word senex ("old man" or "elder"); literally, "Senate" is understood to mean something along the lines of Council of Elders.
Foundation
Tradition held that the Senate was first established by Romulus, the mythical founder of Rome, as an advisory council consisting of the 100 heads of families, called Patres ("Fathers") from which the term Patrician would later come. Later, when at the start of the Republic, Lucius Junius Brutus increased the number of Senators to three hundred (according to legend), they were also called Conscripti ("Conscripted Men"), because Brutus had conscripted. Thus, the members of the Senate were addressed as "Patres et Conscripti", which was gradually run together as "Patres Conscripti" ("Conscript Fathers").
Authority
The sum total of the Roman population was divided into two classes, the Senate and the Roman People (as seen in the famous abbreviation SPQR); the Roman People consisted of all Roman citizens who were not members of the Senate, such as the plebeians and proletarians. Domestic power was vested in the Roman People, through the Centuriate Assembly (Comitia Centuriata), the Tribal Assembly (Comitia Populi Tributa), and the Council of the People (Concilium Plebis). Contrary to popular belief, the Senate was not a legislature; a senatus consultum was only a recommendation of legal practice, not a law in and of itself. Actual legislation was vested in the aforementioned Roman assemblies, which acted on the Senate's recommendations and also elected the city's magistrates.
Nevertheless, the Senate held considerable clout (auctoritas) in Roman politics. As the embodiment of Rome, it was the official body that sent and received ambassadors on behalf of the city, that appointed officials to manage the public lands -- including provincial governors, that conducted wars, and appropriated public funds. The Senate also bore the prerogative of authorizing the city's chief magistrates, the consuls, to nominate a dictator in a state of emergency, usually military. In the late Republic, the Senate came to avoid the dictatorate by resorting to a senatus consultum de republica defendenda, the so-called senatus consultum ultimum which declared martial law and empowered the consuls to "take care that the Republic should come to no harm", according to Cicero's first In Catilinam oration.
Like the Centuriate Assembly and the Tribal Assembly, but unlike the Council of the People, the Senate operated under certain religious restrictions. It could only meet in a consecrated temple, usually the Curia Hostilia (the ceremonies of New Year's Day were in the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus and war meetings were held in the temple of Bellona), and its sessions could only proceed after an invocation prayer, a sacrificial offering, and the auspices were taken. The Senate could only meet between sunrise and sunset, and could not meet while any of the other assemblies were in session.
Membership
The Senate had around 300 members in the middle and late Republic, membership could be stripped by the censors if a Senator was thought to have committed an act "against the public morals." Customarily, all magistrates -- quaestors, aediles (both curulis and plebis), praetors, and consuls -- were admitted to the Senate for life, but not all senators had been magistrates; those who were not were called senatores pedarii and were not permitted to speak. As a result, the Senate was dominated by established families of patricians and plebeians, as it was much easier for these groups to climb the cursus honorum and acquire speaking rights.
Late Republican Senate
In the Late Republic, an archconservative faction emerged, led in turn by Marcus Aemilius Scaurus, Quintus Lutatius Catulus, Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus and Cato the Younger, who called themselves the boni ("The Good Men") or Optimates. The Late Republic was characterized by the social tensions between the broad factions of the Optimates and the nouveau riche Populares, which became increasingly expressed by domestic fury, violence and fierce civil strife; examples of Optimates include Lucius Cornelius Sulla, and Pompey the Great, while Gaius Marius, Lucius Cornelius Cinna and Julius Caesar were Populares. The labels Populares and Optimates are not, however, as concrete as sometimes assumed, and politicians could often change factions.
Hierarchy
The consuls alternated monthly as president of the Senate, while the princeps senatus functioned as leader of the house. If both consuls were absent (usually because of a war), the senior magistrate, most often the Praetor Urbanus, would act as the president. Among the senators with speaking rights a rigid order defined who could speak when, with a patrician always preceding a plebeian of equal rank.
Notable practices
There was no limit on debate, and the practice of what is now called the filibuster was a favored trick (a practice which continues to be accepted in the United States Senate today). Votes could be taken by voice vote or show of hands in unimportant matters, but important or formal motions were decided by division of the house; a quorum to do business was necessary, but it is not known how many senators constituted a quorum. The Senate was divided into decuries (groups of ten), each led by a patrician (thus requiring that there would be at least 30 patrician senators at any given time).
Style of dress
All senators were entitled to wear a senatorial ring (originally made of iron, but later gold; old patrician families like the Julii Caesares continued to wear iron rings to the end of the Republic) and a tunica clava, a white tunic with a broad purple stripe 5 inch (130 mm) wide (latus clavus) on the right shoulder. A senator pedarius wore a white toga virilis (also called a toga pura) without decoration excluding those explained above, whereas a senator who had held a curule magistracy was entitled to wear the toga praetexta, a white toga with a broad purple border. Similarly, all senators wore closed maroon leather shoes, but senators who had held curule magistracies added a crescent-shaped buckle. Senators were forbidden to engage in any business unrelated to the ownership of land, but this rule was frequently disregarded.
The Equestrian class
Until 123 BC, all senators were also equestrians, frequently called "knights" in English works. That year, Gaius Sempronius Gracchus legislated the separation of the two classes, and established the latter as the Ordo Equester ("Equestrian Order"). These equestrians were not restricted in their business ventures and came from a powerful plutocratic force in Roman politics. Sons of senators and other non-senatorial members of senatorial families continued to be classified as equestrians, who were entitled to wear tunics with narrow purple stripes three inch (75 mm) wide as a reminder of their senatorial origins.
Julius Caesar introduced a different kind of membership into the Senate during his dictatorate. He increased the membership to 900 and seated many Roman citizens of Latin and Italian background, as well as loyal adherents who had proven their competence and valor during the civil wars. Although intended to break the power of obstreperous reactionary factions like the Good Men, this reform contributed to turning the Senate into a mere cipher, as it became under the Principate and beyond. A remnant of its former self, it continued to figure in Roman politics, but never regained its previous dominance. The Senate survived the end of the Empire in the West, and its last recorded acts were the dispatch of two embassies to the Imperial court of Tiberius II Constantine at Constantinople in AD 578 and 580.
Eastern Roman Senate
Meanwhile a separate Senate had been established by Constantine I in Constantinople, which survived, in name if not importance, for centuries afterwards; see Byzantine Senate.
See also
- Senate
- cursus honorum
- Byzantine Senate
- consul
- praetor
- censor
- tribune
- aedile
- quaestor
- Pontifex Maximus
- Princeps senatus
- Interrex
- procurator
- Roman dictator
- Master of the horse
Category:Historical legislatures
ja:元老院
AlansThe Alans or Alani were an Iranian nomadic group among the Sarmatian people, warlike nomadic pastoralists of mixed backgrounds, who spoke an Iranian language and shared, in a broad sense, a common culture.
Early Alans
The first mentions of names that historians link with "Alani" appear almost at the same time in Greco-Roman geography and somewhat later Chinese dynastic chronicles of the 1st century BCE. The Geography (book 23, ch.XI.v) of Strabo, who was born in Pontus on the Black Sea, but was also working with Persian sources, to judge from the forms he gives to tribal names, mentions Aorsi that he links with Siraces and claims that a Spadines, king of the Aorsi, could assemble two hundred thousand mounted archers in the mid-1st century BCE. But the "upper Aorsi" from whom they had split as fugitives, could send many more, for they dominated the coastal region of the Caspian Sea
:"and consequently they could import on camels the Indian and Babylonian merchandise, receiving it in their turn from the Armenians and the Medes, and also, owing to their wealth, could wear golden ornaments. Now the Aorsi live along the Tanaïs, but the Siraces live along the Achardeüs, which flows from the Caucasus and empties into Lake Maeotis."
Secure identifications of names and places in the ancient Chinese chronicles are even more speculative, but some centuries later, the Later Han Dynasty Chinese chronicle, the Hou Han Shu (covering the period from 25 - 220), mentioned a report that the steppe land Yen-ts’ai was now known as Alan-liao. (阿蘭聊):
:"The Kingdom of Yancai (Yen-ts'ai, "Vast Steppe") has changed its name to the kingdom of Alanliao. Its capital is the town of Di. It is a dependency of Kangju (centered on Tashkent). The climate is mild. Wax trees, pines, and ‘white grass’ (aconite) are plentiful. Their way of life and dress are the same as those of Kangju."
In another section the Hou Han Shu reported :
:“It is said : “Some 2000 li (832 km) to the north-west from K’ang-chü is the state of Yen-ts’ai. The trained bowmen number 100,000. It has the same way of life as K’ang-chü. It is situated on the Great Marsh, which has no [further] shore [and which is presumably the Northern Sea].”
The "Great Marsh" may be the wetlands at the delta of the Danube, which were a formidable obstacle that slowed the westward drift of many nomads or even more impressive marshes of present day Belarus and north Ukraine. Thus at the beginning of the 1st century, the Alans had occupied lands in the northeast Azov Sea area, along the Don. The written sources suggest that from the second half of the 1st to 4th century the Alans had supremacy over the tribal union and created a powerful confederation of Sarmatian tribes. The Alans made trouble for the Roman Empire, with incursions into both the Danubian and the Caucasian provinces in the 2nd and 3rd centuries.
Herodotus describes Alans as tall, blond with men cutting their hair short unlike the Scythians. .
Ammianus Marcellinus considered the Alans to be the former Massagetae : "iuxtaque Massagetae Halani et Sargetae", "per Albanos et Massagetas, quos Alanos nunc appellamus", "Halanos pervenit, veteres Massagetas".
Archaeological finds support the written sources. Late Sarmatian sites were first identified with the historical Alans by P.D. Rau. Based on the archaeological material, they were one of the Iranian-speaking nomadic tribes that began to enter the Sarmatian area between the middle of the 1st and the 2nd century.
The Alani were first mentioned in Roman literature in the 1st century and were described later as a warlike people that specialized in horse breeding. They frequently raided the Parthian empire and the Caucasian provinces of the Roman Empire. In the Vologeses inscription [http://www.lostlanguages.com/parthian.htm] one can read that Vologeses, the Parthian king, in the 11th year of his reign, battled Kuluk, king of the Alani.
This inscription is supplemented by the contemporary Jewish historian, Josephus (37–100), who reports in the Jewish Wars (book 7, ch. 8.4) how Alans, (whom he calls a "Scythian" tribe) living near the Sea of Azov, crossed the Iron Gates for plunder and defeated the armies of Pacorus, king of Media, and Tiridates, King of Armenia, two brothers of Vologeses I for whom the inscription was made:
:"4.Now there was a nation of the Alans, which we have formerly mentioned somewhere as being Scythians, and inhabiting at the Lake Meotis. This nation about this time laid a design of falling upon Media, and the parts beyond it, in order to plunder them; with which intention they treated with the king of Hyrcania; for he was master of that passage which king Alexander shut up with iron gates. This king gave them leave to come through them; so they came in great multitudes, and fell upon the Medes unexpectedly, and plundered their country, which they found full of people, and replenished with abundance of cattle, while nobody durst make any resistance against them; for Pacorus, the king of the country, had fled away for fear into places where they could not easily come at him, and had yielded up everything he had to them, and had only saved his wife and his concubines from them, and that with difficulty also, after they had been made captives, by giving them a hundred talents for their ransom. These Alans therefore plundered the country without opposition, and with great ease, and proceeded as far as Armenia, laying all waste before them. Now Tiridates was king of that country, who met them, and fought them, but had like to have been taken alive in the battle; for a certain man threw a net over him from a great distance, and had soon drawn him to him, unless he had immediately cut the cord with his sword, and ran away, and prevented it. So the Alans, being still more provoked by this sight, laid waste the country, and drove a great multitude of the men, and a great quantity of the other prey they had gotten out of both kingdoms, along with them, and then retreated back to their own country."
Flavius Arrianus ('Arrian') marched against the Alani in the 1st century and left a detailed report (Ektaxis kata Alanoon or 'War Against the Alans') that is a major source for studying Roman military tactics, but doesn't reveal much about the Alans.
The 'western' Alans and Vandals
About 370 the Alans were overwhelmed by the Huns. They were divided into two groups. One group fled westward. These 'western' Alani joined the Germanic nations of Vandals and Sueves in their invasion of Roman Gaul. Gregory of Tours mentions that their king Respendial saved the day for the Vandals in an armed encounter with the Franks at the crossing of the Rhine (c. 407).
Following the fortunes of the Vandals into the Iberian peninsula (Hispania) in 409, the separate ethnic identity of the western Alans dissolved. Although some of the Alani settled in Iberia and Gaul-notably around Orléans and Valance- , most went to North Africa with the Vandals in 429. In 426, the western Alan king, Attaces, was killed in battle against the Visigoths, and this branch of the Alans subsequently appealed to the Vandal king Gunderic to accept the Alan crown. Later Vandal kings in North Africa styled themselves Rex Wandalorum et Alanorum (King of the Vandals and Alans).
In Hispania, the Alans were famous in retrospect for their massive hunting and fighting dogs, which they apparently introduced to Europe. A giant breed of dog still called Alano survives in the Basque Country. The dogs, which are traditionally used in boar hunting and cattle herding, are associated with the massive dogs that Alans and Vandals brought into Iberia.
Alans and Slavs
Alan tribes living north of the Black Sea may have moved northwest into what is now Poland, merging with Slavic peoples there to become the precursors of historic Slav nations (notably Serbs and Croats). Third-century inscriptions from Tanais, a town on the Don River in modern Ukraine, mention a nearby Alan tribe called the Choroatos or Chorouatos. The historian Ptolemy identifies the 'Serboi' as a Sarmatian tribe who lived north of the Caucasus, and other sources identify the Serboi as an Alan tribe in the Volga-Don steppe in the third century.
Accounts of these names reappear in the fifth century, with the Serboi, or Serbs, established east of the river Elbe in what is now western Poland, and the Croats in what is now Polish Galicia. The Alan tribes likely moved northeast and settled among the Slavs, dominating and mobilizing the Slavic tribes they encountered and later assimilating into the Slav population. In 620 the Croats and Serbs were invited into the Balkans by Eastern Roman Emperor Heraclius to drive away the Turkic Avars, and settled there among earlier Slavic migrants to become ancestors of the modern Serbs and Croats. Some Serbs remained on the Elbe, and their descendants are the modern Sorbs. Tenth-century Byzantine and Arab accounts describe a people called the Belochrobati (White Croats) living on the upper Vistu | | | |
