The nomadic horse people of Central Asia

A typology-scorecard synthesized from the Current Scholarship of Many Authors

by Stephen W. Richey

I. IRANIANS, 1st Wave

NOTE: By about 1300 BC, groups of Iranian people had migrated from central
Asia into what is now the country of Iran. They formed settled cultures there without
ever developing the horse nomad way of life. They had frequent, often violent
interaction with the horse nomads. The various sedentary Iranian groups who
established states at various times throughout the Middle East include the Medes,
Achaemenid Persians, Sassanid Persians, Safavid Persians, Buyids, Ayyubids and
others. See the following pages for how these settled, civilized Iranian cultures
became frequent peripheral players in the world of the horse nomads. These sedentary
Iranian peoples sometimes came into conflict with those kindred Iranian tribes who
had adopted the horse nomad culture such as the Scythians.
Scythians

1 2
3.Scythians with Amazon

1Parthians

2 The Battle of Carrhae

 Scythians (or Skythians or Scolotoi): The old story is that they called themselves
the "Scythians" after the name of their legendary first king, Scyths. A spelling
variation on "Scyths" is "Skoloxas." The current theory is that the word "Scythian"
is derived from the Proto-Indo-European word "skeud-o", meaning "shooter" or
"archer." The Scythians were the people who first raised the horse nomad culture to
its fullest potential. They thundered out of central Asia about 750-700 BC and drove
the nascently horse-mobile Cimmerian (Kimmerian) tribes out of what is now the
Ukraine. They ruled the Ukraine about 700-200 BC. The best reconstruction of events
historians and archaeologists are able to make is that the Scythians chased the
Cimmerians south through the Caucasus into the Middle East. The Cimmerians found
refuge in what is now Turkey, destroying the indigenous civilization of the Phrygians
in the process. This was the first example in history of the "chain reaction" paradigm
that would play out multiple times on the steppe over the next several centuries, as
described in the Introduction. Subsequent to their pursuit of the Cimmerians,
according to the ancient Greek writer Herodotus, the Scythians spent the next twenty-
eight years in the Middle East. By modern reckoning, these twenty-eight years took
place during the 7th Century BC. The Scythians spent their time in the Middle East
generally raiding, plundering, and terrorizing the settled cultures they found there.
Archaeologists have found Scythian arrowheads embedded in clay defensive walls
from that time in Mesopotamia, Syria and Egypt. The Scythians were led by their
King Partatua (also called Protothyes) during the first part of their time in the Middle
East. Partatua married an Assyrian princess, a union producing his son and successor,
King Madyes. Madyes led the Scythians to the border of Egypt, but they were bought
off with bribes from the Egyptian pharaoh. While in the Middle East, the Scythians
sometimes helped the Assyrians fight against the sedentary Iranian Medes and other
times they helped the Medes fight against the Assyrians. In any event, the Scythians
helped the Medes annihilate the Assyrian Empire in 612 BC. For a while, the
Scythians dominated the Medes but the Medes rebelled and treacherously murdered
the Scythian leadership. Then the Scythians returned home to the Ukrainian steppe.
The Scythians carried on thriving commerce with Greek colonial settlements on the
coast of the Black Sea. Apparently, some Scythians settled down in the southern
Ukraine and the Crimea to grow enormous quantities of grain for sale to the Greeks.
Or perhaps the grain farmers were indigenous Slavic underlings of the Scythians.
According to Herodotus, a group of people of mixed Greek and Scythian blood, called
the Geloni, built a wooden city called Gelonus in the forested far northern margin of
the Scythian realm. Archaeologists have confirmed the existence of this city of
Gelonus and of another, similar city at a place which today is called Kamenka.
Kamenka is on the lower Dnieper River in the southern part of what was the Scythian
realm. These two cities, and other smaller settlements, served the free-ranging
Scythian horse nomads as commercial and craft work entrepts. Today, the Scythians
are famous for the fabulous beauty and sophistication of their artwork. As wandering
nomads, their artwork was all portable: ornamentation for their weapons, horse gear,
tents, and clothing; also highly decorative cooking and eating utensils and jewelry for
their own persons. Their distinctive art style is called the "Scythian Animal Style,"
featuring highly stylized, somewhat abstract depictions of wild animals, typically
done in gold. The art the Scythians created all by themselves is superb; the artworks
they commissioned Greek artisans to create for them are extraordinary. A few
Scythians were hired as mercenaries and police officers by the Greek city of Athens.
Under the leadership of King Idanthyrsus, the Scythians successfully defended their
Ukrainian homeland against an invasion by the army of the Achaemenid Persian
Empire under King Darius I around 514-512 BC. The Scythians invaded Thrace (a
region north of the Aegean Sea) in 496 BC as a means to secure their position against
potential future Persian invasions. The Scythian King Atheas at least partly united the
Scythians into something resembling a fully formed state. He had coins minted with
his image on them. The Scythians were defeated in battle by the Macedonian Greeks
led by King Philip II in 339 BC. Atheas was killed in this battle at the age of ninety.
But this Macedonian success was transient; the Scythians retained their independence
and power. They destroyed an invading Macedonian force led by one of Alexander the
Great's generals in 330 BC. There was a Greek colonial state on the north shore of the
Black Sea called the Bosphoran Kingdom. In 310-309 BC there was a Bosphoran
civil war between rival claimants to the Bosphoran throne. The Scythians allied
themselves with one side of this war. The excellent fighting qualities of the Scythian
horse-mounted warriors brought victory to the side they supported at the Battle of the
Thatis River. Some experts believe that Scythian women rode horses and hunted and
fought alongside their men, giving rise to the Greek legends of the Amazons. The
Scythians were driven into the Danube River delta and into the Crimea by
the Sarmatians sometime shortly before 200 BC. They became at least partly
sedentary. Those Scythians who moved into the Crimea made war from time to time
on the Greek colonial cities there and later against Roman forces in the Crimea. The
last remnants of the Scythians were overrun by the Germanic Ostrogoth horse nomad
tribe about the middle of the 4th Century AD. The surviving Scythians lost their
distinct ethnic identity during the great migrations of tribal peoples that were
concurrent with the fall of the Roman Empire.

Dahae Confederation of some Scythian tribes:

Dahae "Proper": They lived east of the southern end of the Caspian
Sea:

Parni Tribe of the Dahae:

Parthian Clan of the Parni Tribe: They arose east of the

southern end of the Caspian Sea. Their first great leader was
Arsaces who reigned in approximately 247-214 BC. The
Parthians conquered the realm of the Seleucid Greeks in Iran
and Mesopotamia in a series of wars starting prior to 148 BC
and ending in 129 BC. (The Seleucid Greeks were one of
several Greek dynasties that ruled various parts of Alexander
the Great's empire after he died). They successfully defended
Iran against the Roman Empire. Their horse-mounted archers
destroyed an invading Roman army at the Battle of Carrhae, in
what is now Syria, in 53 BC. The modern phrase "parting
shot" comes from the phrase "Parthian shot," which refers to
the ability of Parthian horse archers to shoot arrows back over
their horses' tails as they sped away from their enemies. The
Parthians were overthrown by the Sassanid Persians in 224
AD:

Suren Family of the Parthian Clan: They were a dynasty

ruling over the eastern part of the Parthian Empire in what
 is now eastern Iran starting about 80 BC. They conquered
migrant Saka people in what is now Pakistan around 44
BC. Modern scholars call the Surens who ruled in
Pakistan the "Indo-Parthians." The Surens in Pakistan
were conquered by the Kushans by about 135 AD.

Massagetae Confederation:

Massagetae "Proper": They probably lived southwest of the Aral Sea. In

530 BC, under the leadership of Queen Tomyris, they destroyed an invading
army of Achaemenid Persians led by King Cyrus the Great. Cyrus was
killed. Tomyris took possession of his head.

Sakas (or Sakae): They stayed home in central Asia, east of the Aral Sea,
when their Scythian kin moved west to the Ukraine. They were defeated by
the Achaemenid Persian Empire of King Darius I in 520-519 BC. The
Persians made a prisoner of the Saka king, Skuka. The Sakas were driven
into what is now Pakistan by the Greater Yue-chi tribe around 130 BC.
During their flight to Pakistan, the Sakas destroyed two little kingdoms in
Afghanistan and Pakistan that were ruled by the Greek descendants of
Alexander the Great's generals. They also inflicted significant, but
temporary, damage on the Parthians killing two Parthian kings in battle.
After arriving in what is now Pakistan, they were conquered by the Parthian
Surens around 44 BC:

NOTE: The people whom the Persians called the "Western Sakas" were the
Scythians.

Haumavarga (or Amyrgians): They lived in the Ferghana region and

tended toward a sedentary lifestyle. They may be the same as the people
called the "Sakaravaks."Along with the Tigraxuanda they made war
on the Greco-Asiatic state of Seleucus, circa 293-292 BC.

Tigraxuanda (or Orthocorybantians): They lived in the Sogdia region

and beyond the Syr Darya (Jaxartes) River as well as in the Semirechye
region (though some scholars place them in what is now Turkmenistan).
Along with the Haumavarga they made war on the Greco-Asiatic state
of Seleucus, circa 293-292 BC.

Apasiakoi: Called "Marsh" or "Water" Sakas, they had a culture

tending toward the sedentary in the delta of the Syr Darya (Jaxartes)
River on the northeast shore of the Aral Sea.

Khotanese: They were descendants of the nomadic Sakas. They

became Buddhist and settled down around the oases on the Silk Road.

NOTE: Several eastern Iranian groups settled down to form sedentary urban
cultures around the oases in the desert of what is now northwestern China. They
established rich, autonomous trading cities along what became the Silk Road, which
connected Rome and China. The Chinese and various steppe nomad tribes spent
centuries fighting over possession of these cities.

Chorasmians (or Khwarezms): They had a settled culture southeast of the

Aral Sea.

Sauromatians (or Sauromatae): They were horse nomads living in the northern
Caucasus in the 6th-4th Centuries BC. They were allies of the Scythians in their
war against the Achaemenid Persians of King Darius I around 514-512 BC.
Some experts believe it was Sauromatian, not Scythian, real-life warrior
horsewomen who were the basis of the Amazon legend. The Sauromatians were
conquered by the Sarmatians.

Sarmatians
Sarmathians with Amazon

1
Sarmatians 3 (Sword Worship)

Sarmatians 4 (In Britain)

 Ostrogoths

Sarmatians: They arose in the foothills of the southern Ural Mountains during the
4th Century BC. They conquered the Sauromatians. The Sarmatians drove
their Scythian kin from the Ukraine sometime shortly before 200 BC. The Sarmatians
were also famous for their warrior women who inspired legends about Amazons.
They wore heavy armor and used lances as weapons. Their artwork was a more
austere variation of the Scythian Animal Style. By about 200 AD, some Sarmatians
served as auxiliary horse soldiers in the Roman Army, with some of these serving in
Britainwhere they may have become the basis for the legends of King Arthur and
the Knights of the Round Table! The basis of the so-called Sarmatian-Arthurian
connection can be summarized as follows. Before the Sarmatian troops arrived in
Britain in Roman service, there was no established practice in Britain of fighting from
astride a horse with a lance while wearing heavy armor; and, of course, the image of
the lance-wielding equestrian knight-in-shining-armor is the central motif of
Arthurian legend. The Sarmatian practice of worshipping before a sword thrust into
the ground obviously suggests the "Sword in the Stone" story from the larger Arthur
story. And one of the Roman commanders of the Sarmatian troops in Britain was
named Artorius. All these coincidences are enough to make romantically inclined
people swoon and to give even the most cynical and jaded analyst pause. The
Hollywood movie King Arthur, released in 2004, plays up the Sarmatian-Arthurian
connection with gusto.

The Sarmatians were categorized as follows by ancient authors:

"Royal" Sarmatians: We may assume these were the ruling clans of the
greater Sarmatian nation.

Issedones: The location of these people in central Asia is uncertain but may
have been northeast of the Aral Sea. According to the ancient Greek writer
Herodotus, they practiced ritual cannibalism on their elderly males.
Herodotus also said Issedone women had high social status and could have
several husbands.
 Urgi: They are thought to have lived in the north-central Ukraine. Today,
"Urgi" is the name of a town in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan.

Aorsi: They were the largest of the Sarmatian tribes. They lived in what is
now Kazakhstan for centuries before being driven west. They formed an
alliance with the Romans to defeat the Siraces and the Bosphoran allies of
the Siraces in 40-45 AD. They were eventually absorbed by the Alans.

Siraces (or Siraki): They moved into the northwestern Caucasus shortly
before 300 BC and lived there until about 200 AD. They allied themselves
with the Bosphorans but they and the Bosphorans were defeated by an
alliance of the Romans and the Aorsi in 40-45 AD. After this defeat, the
Siraces sank into obscurity.

Saii: Presumably, they lived in the south-central Ukraine. But in the

confusion that inevitably attends ancient sources, this supposedly Sarmatian
tribe could in fact have been a Thracian tribe living on the northern shore of
the Aegean Sea.

Iazygians (or Jazyges): They lived in the western Ukraine. They were
pushed into what is now Hungary by the Roxolani by 80 AD. They then
made war on the Romans with some success until they were finally
suppressed by the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius in 175 AD. They
became the Sarmatian tribe most famous for providing military units for the
Roman Army. They were forced to provide 8,000 horse warriors for Roman
service, of which, 5,500 were shipped to Britain where they may have
formed the basis of the Arthurian legends. They were absorbed by the
Germanic Asding Vandal tribe by 230 AD and disappeared as a distinct
group.

Roxolani: They lived in the eastern Ukraine. After being pushed westward
by the Alans, they in turn pushed the Iazygians out of the western Ukraine
by 80 AD. They made frequent war on the Romans, sometimes winning and
sometimes losing. They also provided a number of troops for service in the
Roman Army. They were conquered by the Germanic Ostrogoth horse tribe
during the 4th Century AD.

NOTE: There were many Germanic tribes living in central Europe. Of these, only
the easternmost of them, the Ostrogoths, developed a true horse nomad culture as
they expanded into the Ukraine during the 4th Century AD, conquering the Roxolani,
the last of the Scythians and the Bosphoran Kingdom on the way. Their great warrior
chieftain in this adventure was named Ermanaric. Their steppe realm was destroyed
by the Black Huns in 372-375 AD. Ermanaric committed suicide. According to
legend, there were two famous Ostrogothic female warriors named Hervor who were
grandmother and granddaughter to each other. Their title was "shield maiden." The
story is told that the younger Hervor died heroically in battle fighting against the
Black Huns. Both she and her "shield maiden" title may be seen as a prototype for the
character of owyn of Rohan in the Lord of the Rings books and movies.
 Alans (or Alani): They were probably descended from the Massagetae.
They arose northeast of the Aral Sea sometime before 100 BC. By 80 AD,
they had migrated into the Caucasus and pushed against the Roxolani who in
turn pushed against the Iazygians. They assimilated the Aorsi along the way.
They served as mercenaries for the Roman Empire. They were the last
existing tribal grouping of the Sarmatians. During the 3rd Century AD, they
made a common practice of cranial deformation, which was the deliberate
elongation of their own living human skulls for aesthetic or group
identification reasons, by binding the heads of their infants between stiff
surfaces. Their homeland in the Caucasus was conquered by the
Asiatic Black Huns about 370 AD. One clan of Alans joined with the
Germanic Vandal tribe in their migration from Germany, across France and
Spain, to north Africa, about 390-439 AD. Some Alans joined the Black
Huns as allies. Another force of Alans fought as allies of the Romans and the
Germanic tribes in France against Attila the Hun (leader of the Black Huns)
in 451 AD. This meant there were Alans fighting on both sides in the war
between the Romans and the Black Huns. Small groups of Alans settled all
over Western Europe, where they may have formed part of the seed of the
horse-mounted knights of the Middle Ages. Those Alans still in the
Caucasus recovered their freedom after the Black Huns were broken up in
454 or 455 AD. Those Alans still on the steppe survived being briefly
overrun by the Avars in the 6th Century AD. The Alans still in the Caucasus
were conquered by the Khazar Turks around 650 AD. They became
Christian in the early 900s AD. They gained their freedom from the Khazars
when the Khazars were destroyed by an invasion of allied Russians and
various western Turkic Oghuz tribes in 965 AD. The resurgent Alans
reestablished their realm in the Caucasus. The Alans in the Caucasus were
conquered by the Asiatic Mongols of Ogedei Khan by about 1240.

The Christian Ossetians living in the Caucasus today are descended from the
Alans. Their little district of present-day Russia was officially called "North
Ossetia," but they liked to call it "Alania." In 1994, they officially renamed
themselves the "Republic of North-Ossetia-Alania." Their touring folk dance
groups are highly regarded. South Ossetia was one small part of the former
Soviet Republic of Georgia. Ethnic conflict between Georgians and South
Ossetians became open war in 1991-92. The result was that most of South
Ossetia became a de facto independent state with Russian support although it
received no recognition from the international community. In 2008, the
Georgian military invaded South Ossetia, an act which brought on war
between Georgia and Russia. Thanks to overwhelming Russian military
might defeating the Georgians, the result of this extremely brief war lasting
several days was the confirmation of South Ossetia as an independent state.
Tensions remain high and border incidents continue to occur as of this
writing.

Yue-chi (or Yeh-chih): They originated on the north-western borders of China.

They were defeated by the Hsiung-nu around 206 BC. They suffered a second
and decisive defeat at the hands of the Hsiung-nu in 175 BC. They fled to the
west, splitting into the "Greater" and "Lesser" Yue-chi as they went:
Greater Yue-chi (or Greater Yeh-chih): They suffered yet another defeat
at the hands of Hsiung-nu in 162 BC and resumed their flight to the west.
They found refuge east of the Aral Sea, driving the Sakas south into what is
now Pakistan around 130 BC:

Kushans (or Kusana): They became the ruling tribe of the Greater
Yue-chi. They conquered the Surens in what is now Pakistan by about
135 AD. They absorbed the Lesser Yue-chi around the same time. They
became a nomad dynasty ruling over a settled civilization that was
notable for its prosperity and cultural sophistication. They facilitated the
spread of Buddhism. They were subjugated by the Sassanid
Persians around 225 AD. Briefly resurgent Kushan principalities were
overrun by the White Huns in the late 400s AD.

Lesser Yue-chi (or Lesser Yeh-chih): After fleeing from the Hsiung-
nu following the great defeat of 175 BC, they found refuge in the region to
the east of their "Greater" kin. They were absorbed by the Kushans by about
135 AD.