Roxolani and Iaziges

[Michael Kerr]

Childeric wrote:
I’m after info on Iazage fighting tactics

 Cassius Dio mentions the battle on the ice between a Roman force of unspecified size who were pursuing an Iazyges raiding party on the frozen Danube river. His description of the battle was that some of the Iazyges staged a frontal attack while the rest rode around and attacked the flanks. It seems the Romans formed a compact square “facing all their foes at once”, using their shields for footing on the slippery ice. He wrote that the Iazyges had shields and spearshafts (lances) but makes no mention of the use of the bow. Tacitus also does not mention the bow in the defeat of the Roxolani on the lower Danube in 69 AD. Maybe in both cases where raids occurred in winter, the cold, wet and slippery conditions didn’t suit the use of the bow.

 Eszter Istvánovits and Valéria Kulcsár in their paper “Sarmatians through the eyes of strangers: The Sarmatian Warrior” have a few interesting insights and theories about the Iazyges through some images from Trajan’s column even though the Roxolani retreating from the Roman cavalry seems the most famous image of Sarmatians taken from the column. In the Sarmatswords image they calculate that in the image on the left, the Roxolani horseman’s sword is about 60-70 cm long while in the right image the Iazyges diplomat or bodyguard’s sword is about 80-90 cm long.  Maybe the Iazyges warrior was rich or an eminent person. I am no expert on swords but Eszter Istvánovits seems to know a bit about Sarmatian swords so I am interested what Alanus thinks.

In the other image Iazygesdiplomats2 in which many emissaries or diplomats were waiting for an audience with Trajan. The Iazyges warrior on the left seems to have his arm resting on a quiver which would indicate that the Iazyges still used the bow even as a secondary weapon. Both men are holding onto horses which are not your average steppe pony that seems to be associated with Iazyges and again indicates that the Iazyges, like all Sarmatians and steppe people in general, were excellent horse breeders and trainers who could produce quality horses for warfare, hunting and herding livestock. The authors also think that the warriors are wearing spangenhelm type helmets although it is hard to tell from the image. If they are indeed Iazyges horsemen then they are not heavily armoured like the Roxolani horsemen which we see depicted on the column and probably fought as medium to light cavalry. I suppose not every Iazyges could afford a horse, armour or swords so I think the bow was still an important weapon. It seems that the Iazyges and the Quadi/Suebi have had close economic and military ties from the time of the Suebic/Iazyges wars of Domitian when the Iazyges and Suebi/Quadi fought the Lugii and Rome in 89AD and were still fighting the Romans off and on up to 394AD when the Sarmatians nearly captured Gratian's bride to be. The Suebi even joined the great Alan/Vandal coalition, which possibly included Sarmatians as well as Alans in its invasion of Gaul and later on Spain beginning in 406. We never hear of Sarmatians in Pannonia again after that.

Harmatta mentioned in his paper about the lack of iron for tools & weapons so the Hungarian plain seemed to lack natural resources & this seemed confirmed in an old out of copyright book I read online which was written in 1836 called "Steam Voyage down the Danube with Sketches of Hungary, Wallachia, Servia and Turkey" by Michael J Quin. When writing about Hungary the author mentioned that in the mid 19th Century the great plains of Hungary were called Cumania and Jazyga, probably from the Cumans and Jaz or Iazyges. He added that these plains lack iron, stone, fuel, timber, salt and grain although there was plenty of grass and wetland areas for herding, hunting and fishing. So trade was important to the Iazyges. Just as an aside the book was written in 1836 before Buda and Pest were joined by a permanent bridge (Chain Bridge built in 1849) and the author while visiting Budapest wrote that both banks were joined by a bridge of 47 large boats joined together by chains and floored with planks. It was said to be three hundred yards in length (plenty of room for a battle on the ice,and was constructed in such a way that two or three boats with their flooring may be separated from the rest to let vessels pass whether they are going up or down the Danube. In winter it was necessary to take away the bridge all together bringing communications between the two towns to a standstill till the river is frozen over. He also mentioned that there still was a famous horse market in Budapest in 1836.

Regards

Michael Kerr