Everything about The Rhoxolani totally explained
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 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 first century BC-early
first century AD) described them as "
wagon-dwellers" (for example
nomads) (
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-first century AD, the Rhoxolani began making 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 Rhoxolani avenged themselves in AD 92, when they joined the
Dacians in destroying the Roman
Legio XXI Rapax.
During
Trajan's
Dacian Wars, the Rhoxolani 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 Rhoxolani territory. The Emperor
Hadrian reinforced a series of pre-existing
fortifications and built numerous
forts 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 of
Pannonia 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
Russian
anti-Normanist historians have attempted to link the Rhoxolani with the
Slavic Rus, who appeared in
Eastern 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, as
pseudo-science by most academics.
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