Sarmatian Cavalry

[Alanus]

What type of helmet do you use yourself? You've got me leaning towards Alan now, I'm still in the research stage and I'm finding a bit more on Alan's at this moment.

Hi Matthew,

I started off wearing a Roman Aquincum, but I pull my bow-draw back to the bottom of my ear (right where my jaw connects to my cranium). This gives me a full 30 inch draw. With any helmet having cheek-guards I can't do this, so I went to a simple "pot" helmet shaped like the one at the Sofia museum. It's not "right" for Sarmatian and would be better if the leather strips were replaced with brass ones. The studs came from Roman belt danglies. What we need is a real Roxolanic "spangenhelm," but nobody makes one yet. I think Deepeeka's Improved Archer's Helmet is almost "there," but it's still not right and I'd have to remove the cheek-guards.

The best original source on the Alans is Ammianus Marcellinus (Loeb Library, Harvard, publishers). But Ammianus does give a few wrong impressions. For instance, they were all blue-eyed blondes, and discounting individuals with Asiatic features. He claimed they always lived in wagons, no "houses," but he viewed them during migration, not realizing that once settled in an adopted territory they actually had towns, perhaps even "cities" in the sense of a trading center. Chinese sources record the towns. Herodotus ("The Histories") records the Alani when they were still known as the Massagetae, probably the world's finest cavalrymen, including an interesting monograph of Queen Tomyris defeat of Cyrus the Great. And Julius Frontinus gives us pert details of that battle, how she drew the Persians into a ravine and then turned on them. Josephus gives some early info, as does Tacitus.

The later Alans were Christianized by Bishop Amantius around 380 in Pannonia, then incorporated enmass into the Roman cavalry. They were used by Gratian as his Household guard. A palatine unit-- the Comites Alani-- was used by Flavius Stilicho against Alaric, and the Alan commander Saul was Magister Equite for one day. The largest settlement of Alans was around Orleans, and the federate king Eothar was employed to squash a rebellion in Brittany. Other Christian Alans settled in the Caucacus, and a group of 30,000 Alans were mercenaries for the Kubli Khan, all living near the Pacific coast across from Formosa. Their history is a long one, spanning three continents, and distinguished. I'm not saying they were better fighters than others, and I try to avoid the term "ethnicity." They were a cavalry culture fighting under general-kings, both Europoid and Asian in their physicality.:wink: