Roxolani = Russians?

[Amiculus]

As I'm always researching for new story ideas, I was wondering what anyone thought of this one: I came across a theory of the "anti-Normanist" historical set in Russia that the Roxolani, the offshoot of the Sarmatians who bedevilled every Roman emperor from Vespasian to Constantine could have been the ancestors of the Rus, and suggest their names mean the same thing. Does anyone know where I might find research to corroborate this, or is it a crackpot theory?

[Flavivs Aetivs]

It's a Crackpot theory, the Rus descend from Scandanavian vikings, and local Baltic/Slavic tribes. The Roxolani were an Alanic Group that came out of the Saka/Massagetae culture some time in the 1st or 2nd centuries A.D.

[Amiculus]

What???? I can never trust Wikipedia again! :wink:

Seriously, though, it did seem like a stretch, the sort of thing written by a historian with an ax to grind. Though I did see a thread somewhere on this site talking about the genetic ancestry of the Slavs...probably should check that out, too?

[Dan Howard]

Rus was orginally a Finnish term for Swedish vikings. The Finnish word for Sweden was Ruotsi.

[Michael Kerr]

Roxolani & other Sarmatian groups as well as Scythians lived in Ukraine/Crimea rather than Russia so maybe there are traces of Roxolani blood in a lot of Ukrainians. Ottoman sultan Suleiman the magnificent's wife Roxelana, future mother of Selim II was Ukrainian. I always thought that pressure from other Sarmatian tribes pushed the Roxolani into Wallachia & lower Danube & possibly into Hungary. Fellow RAT member Alanus knows his Roxolani/Alans so maybe he might be able to help but because of the nature of their lifestyle being cattle & horse breeders & following their herds they moved around & I don't think lived in Russia so I don't think there is a connection. I am not sure what "rox" meant but I think it refers to light or fair. Roxolani = fair,light or Shining Alans. I think by the time the Rus appeared on the scene via the Dnieper River, the Roxolani would have either moved on to Wallachia & Hungary or assimilated with other groups like Goths & Alans or maybe over generations a lot gave up their nomadic ways & lived a more sedentary lifestyle. It's funny how the Romans made a distinction between Iazyges & Roxolani up to Marcomannic wars but from then on lumped them together as Sarmatae so I think a lot of Roxolani moved to Hungary mixing with Iazyges filling the vacuum left by peace treaty with Marcus Aurelius where he demanded 8000 Iazyges horsemen to fight for Rome in 175 AD. They continued to trouble Rome for centuries.

ROXOLANOI A tribe probably deriving their name from the proto-Iranian Raokhshna, or “shining”.

Interesting that Alexander the Great's wife was Roxana & she was daughter of A Bactrian chief or king.

Btw Harry Turtledove's short story "Road Not Taken" set in 2039 features Roxolani as aliens fighting humanity & attempting to conquer Earth which is probably what the Romans thought of the real Roxolani. I apologise for straying off topic.
Regards
Michael Kerr

[Michael Kerr]

Although no reference to Roxolani in it I saw an entry in Wikipedia article on Scythians & how Byzantine sources wrongly referred to the Rus as Tauroscythians in 9th Century AD. I had to post separately to last one as I couldn't edit previous one. With regards to Roxolani I think in late Roman/Byzantine that all steppe people got lumped together as Scythians as they were the prime example of "savage & bloodthirsty barbarians" until the Huns came along & took that title off them. I read where Flavius Aetius was of Scythian descent but he could have been Sarmatian or Alan. But he must have been reminded constantly of his ancestry by stuck up Romans

In Late Antiquity, the notion of a Scythian ethnicity grew more vague and outsiders might dub any people inhabiting the Pontic-Caspian steppe as "Scythians", regardless of their language. Thus, Priscus, a Byzantine emissary to Attila, repeatedly referred to the latter's followers as "Scythians". But Eunapius, Claudius Cladianus and Olympiodorus usually mean "Goths" when they write "Scythians".

Byzantine sources also refer to the Rus raiders who attacked Constantinople around 860 AD in contemporary accounts as "Tauroscythians", because of their geographical origin, and despite their lack of any ethnic relation to Scythians. Patriarch Photius may have first applied the term to them during the Siege of Constantinople (860).

In the 17th and 18th centuries, foreigners regarded the Russians as descendants of Scythians. It became conventional to refer to Russians as Scythians in 18th-century poetry, and Alexander Blok drew on this tradition sarcastically in his last major poem, The Scythians (1920)

Regards
Michael Kerr

[Alanus]

Hello, All

Nothing like posting on a dead thread. :whistle:

You all seem to have a good handle on the Roxolani. By the 3rd century, they had combined with the non-Alanic Iaz to form what Ammianus called the "Sarmatians." Some Roxolani did move up into or through Poland but the majority settled pastorally in Hungary. These "Sarmatians" raided down into Illyricum where they continuously evaded Theodosius the Second until he was relieved and sent back to his home in Spain. So much for Theodosius the Great, the same man who couldn't beat Fritigern at a later date.

The second Alanic group to arrive in Roman consciousness was the Taifali, determinedly referred to by obsolete 20th century authors as "Germans." If they were Germans, they had exceedingly odd customs. The Aorsi and Sirices disappeared totally from the record, evidently swallowed by the major group of Alans proper (the so-called Late Sarmatian Culture). All of these tribes, after the Iaz, had Eastern roots with a significant Asiatic admixture... especially within the women. Aksakov even related them to the "Usun" (Wusun). If any of these people were related to the Rus it would have been through sporadic marriages.

[Michael Kerr]

In regards to the name Roxolani with Rox, fair, bright, shining that if some aristocratic Roxaolani refugees fled north from the Hunnic invasions & maybe settled in Belarus ie. White Russia. Mere conjecture on my part though.
Regards
Michael Kerr

[Flavivs Aetivs]

They still would have been overrun by Slavs and Avars before the Russians came down.

[Urselius]

There is also a theory that the names Serb and Croat - who seem to have been settled in the western Balkans under the auspices of Heraclius - have an Iranian (linguistic) origin. Some people imagine that it could indicate that the local Slavs were initially led by Sarmatian overlords, who became slavicised, much as the Turkic Bulgars were.

[Michael Kerr]

While on the Roxolani, finding information about them, other than Trajan's Column or Tacitus which just cover their military defeats, is not easy from Roman sources. Whatever the Rox component of their name means (bright, shining, light, fair or luminous) I wonder if Royal should be added to this list. Agusti Alemany in his sourcebook on the Alans mentions a medieval Iranian source Ibn Rustah who wrote (Book of precious ornaments) written ca. 903-913AD. Only the seventh part survives but it deals with mathematics, descriptive & human geography as well as history & a variety of other subjects. His main source seems to be the no longer extant "Book of Routes & Kingdoms" by the Samanid wazir Abu 'Abd Allah al-Gayhani. In his medieval work discussing the Alans, he mentioned the tribe of the Ruhs-As or Roxolani & adds

it is from this tribe from which Alan kings are chosen.

I have heard of Royal Scythians & Royal Sarmatians but not much information around about them either. Roxolani brides must have been popular with Alan nobles but I always thought that they would have been uneasy neighbours with the steppe love of raiding & rustling, there would be a lot of disputes to settle but if source is correct then their relationship with Alans must have been quite complex with marriages & treaty/alliances with prospective Alan nobles constantly seeking Roxolani brides & regular interaction. More than likely this tradition may have faded as Roxolani lost importance over time, however they must have had some influence in 260AD as the usurper Regalianus was murdered at the request of the Roxolani & with the consent of the army. (Scriptores Historiae Agustae) but could the tradition have been carried on?
Regards
Michael Kerr

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Well "Royal Scythians" actually refers mainly to the Scythians who had fled east in the 3rd century AD, Herodotus suggests this is where the Huns are from (Old Sythian Tribes) but it is mainly a classicization.He is right in that this is the Area the Huns are from, but they seemed to be proto-turkic (Onogur), not Iranian.

As to the Roxolani, they were conquered by the Alans along with several other tribes by the 2nd century AD, although I don't know if that's where Alan kings came from.

[Michael Kerr]

Speaking of Huns, I was reading that Procopius often refers to the Huns as Massagetae.
Regards
Michael Kerr

[Flavivs Aetivs]

It wasn't Herodotus who proposed the Huns were Scythian, it was some other guy in the 4th century who gave 4 theories of the origin of the Huns, and used Herodotus for his work.

The Massagetae and Saka we know became the first Alan confederation. That Alan confederation went on to conquer all other Sarmatian nad Scythian peoples with their 4-lath composite asymmetric bow.

The Huns introduced the 7-lath composite asymmetric bow, which gave them an edge ofver their conquerors. Most have tried to conclude on the origin of the Huns based on their language - which seems to be Onoghruric in nature. That language group has almost entierely died out, replaced by other forms of Turkic. Either way, the Huns were in the same language grouping as Bulgars and Slavs, but were neither Bulgar or Slavic. We know they had replaced the Scythians north of the Caspian and Aral sea by 70 AD, and we know they had conquered the Acatziri on the River Volga some time in the 3rd Century or 4th Century, so their first confederation originated far from the Proto-Slavs and Proto-Bulgars in East Europe (Northeast of Belarus).

All we con conclude is that the term "Hun" referred to a steppe nomad confederation. It is only in the period from 370 to 468 that we can tie the term Hun with an actual people, whom were unknown but probably Proto-Turkic mixed with other ethnic groups (notably Mongols, Iranians, and Finno-Ugrians).

The Kutigur, Utigur, and Onogur Huns that succeeded the huns themselves seem to have been Proto-Bulgar or Slavic mostly, and their steppe contingents were probably Avar or Magyar. The Later Khazars are said to have come from the Acatziri, but this is extremely unlikely.

[Alanus]

Speaking of Huns, I was reading that Procopius often refers to the Huns as Massagetae.

In his tomes, Procopius uses "Huns" and "Massagetae" almost interchangeably. He was actually referring to the White Huns, not the earlier Black Huns (the Atilla Huns). The White Huns lived to the south-east, and I believe the Avars were a sub-tribe under them. (At least that's the way I portrayed them in The Demon's Door Bolt. I also placed the Magyars upon the steppes just below the Urals, since the novel takes place in the year 499.) :unsure: