Roxolani

The Roxolani were a Sarmatian people, who are believed to be an offshoot of the Alans, although according to Strabo they were the most remote of Scythian peoples.

Name

Ruxs in Alanic means "radiant light", thus, the ethnonym could be understood as "bright Alans". It has been theorized that the name Roxolani is constituted by two tribal names, the Rus and Alans. Rus were closely associated with the Alans in the Sarmatian period.

Jordanes (fl. 551) mentions them as Rosomones in Getica. The ethnonym of Rus' has been connected to this name.

Geography

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.

History

1st century BC

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.

1st century AD

In the mid-1st century AD, the Roxolani began 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 Roxolani avenged themselves in AD 92, when they joined the Dacians in destroying the Roman Legio XXI Rapax.