The Sarmatians

The Sarmatians were a nomadic people who lived in the Black Sea steppe (modern-day Ukraine) at the time of the Roman Empire. They spoke an East Iranian language and lived on horseback and in covered wagons. Renowned warriors, the Sarmatians inspired legends as far as England and Greece.

Sarmatians and their predecessors the Scythians shared a similar culture. Both smoked cannabis, scalped their enemies and drank horse milk from human skulls. They were taller than their settled neighbours, and allegedly had red hair and light eyes.  Herodotus claimed women held equal social status to men and fought in battle alongside them. Modern historians denied his claims as fanciful until 20^th century grave discoveries revealed Sarmatian women buried with armour and weapons.

According to legend, the Sarmatians were born of Scythian fathers and Amazon mothers. Herodotus claimed when the Greeks defeated the Amazons – a mythical nation of warrior women – they loaded prisoners onto a ship in the Black Sea. The captives mutinied and escaped into the marshes of Crimea. Here they met the Scythians, the land’s nomadic inhabitants. A group of Scythian men interloped with the escaped Amazons and their children became the Sarmatians.

According to the archaeological record, the Sarmatians originally lived east of the Scythians in modern-day Kazakhstan. Around the 3^rd century BC, they migrated west and absorbed the Scythians, now ‘softened’ by sedentary Greek culture.

The Sarmatians were not a single nation but a collection of nomadic tribes sharing a common culture. These included the Roxolani, Iazeges and Alans. Sarmatian warriors often raided the Roman Empire and were later part of the migrations which brought Rome to her knees.

Unlike other steppe nations such as the Scythians and Huns, Sarmatians favoured armoured lancers over mobile horse archers.  Their cavalry dominated ancient battlefields. Hippocrates, a Roman doctor, claimed Sarmatian women could not marry until they killed three men in battle.

In the winter of AD 171, Emperor Marcus Aurelius defeated a Sarmatian army on the frozen Danube. As tribute, 5,500 Sarmatian horsemen joined the Roman army. The emperor resettled the Sarmatian recruits to the frontier of Roman Britain to hold back the Celts beyond Hadrian’s Wall. These mounted warriors may have inspired the legend of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.

When the Huns invaded the Sarmatian homeland, only the Alan tribe survived. One group headed west, the other south. The first group joined Goths, Huns and Vandals as they moved into the Roman Empire, with some travelling as far as North Africa. Sarmatian cavalry were critical in the defeat of Attila the Hun at the Battle of Catalaunian Plains in AD 451.

Some Sarmatians forged a small kingdom in Central Europe, ruling over Slavic peasants. Their descendants are the Sorbs (or Wends), a West Slavic minority who still live in Germany today. The old Polish aristocracy also claimed descent from Sarmatian conquerors. Ultimately, the western Sarmatians assimilated into the developing Slavic and western European nations. The Spanish region of Catalonia is named after the Alans, as is the English name Alan.

The second group settled in the defensible Caucasus Mountains, where they became the Ossetians, an ethnic group who still speak an East Iranian language today.

Sources: Culture.pl, Herodotus – The Histories, Iranica Online, John Man – Amazons: the Warrior Women of the Ancient World

See Also:

• Steppe People
• Attila the Hun

Venus, the Queen of Heaven and the Dying God

Venus is the first or last star to appear in the sky each night depending on its orbit.  As either the Evening or the Morning Star it is visible in daylight when the sun is rising or falling. Ancient cultures associated the planet with the goddess of love and war and told myths to explain her place in the night sky.

Venus is the closest planet to Earth and the hottest in the solar system.  Though a similar size and mass, its surface is thick with carbon dioxide and burning sulphur.  Venus is therefore the most vibrant body in the night sky after the moon and is often visible from earth when the sun is rising or setting.

The planet’s name is Roman but the goddess it represents is far older. Since the third millennium BC, Mediterranean cultures associated her with the Queen of Heaven archetype.  As she was the most beautiful of all the gods, Venus was the brightest of all the stars.

The ancient Sumerians were the first people to study the night sky. They recognised the Morning and Evening Stars were the same planet and explained why she rose and fell through story.

Later cultures thought the stars were different bodies. A common myth developed in the ancient Mediterranean around the Evening Star. The Morning Star was the Queen of Heaven, and the Evening Star was her lover, the Dying God. Different cultures gave them different names, but the story remained more or less the same.

The Queen of Heaven

• Sumerian: Innana
• Babylonian/Assyrian: Ishtar
• Egyptian: Isis
• Phonecian: Astarte
• Greek: Aphrodite
• Roman: Venus

The Dying God:

• Sumerian: Dummuzid
• Babylonian/Assyrian: Tammuz
• Egyptian: Osiris
• Phonecian: Adonai
• Greek/Roman: Adonis

The Queen of Heaven takes the Dying God as her lover. In the Egyptian myth, he is an existing god, in the Tammuz/Adonis tradition, he is a beautiful mortal. When he dies, the Queen of Heaven weeps and descends into the underworld to bring him back.  The oldest form of this myth is the Sumerian text ‘Innana’s Descent into the Underworld’ (c.2000 BC), which appears in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (AD 8) as the tale of Aphrodite and Adonis. The Osiris Myth (c.2400 BC) is even older.

The Evening Star represents the Dying God, destined to burn brightly at evening then fade into the night sky to be reborn again. As Venus closely orbits the sun, the Evening Star ‘falls’ into the horizon a few hours after sunset.

Pythagoras rediscovered the Evening and Morning Stars were the same in the 6^th century BC. Despite this, they retained their mythical significance.

The Latin name for the Evening Star was Lucifer. When the Romans became Christian, they reinterpreted the falling star as an angel. Lucifer fell from heaven and thus was associated with the Devil. Over a thousand years later, English Poet John Milton expanded on this idea in his epic poem ‘Paradise Lost’ which details Lucifer’s rebellion against God and his becoming Satan.

Though the cult of Adonis died out, Venus retained its association with the Morning Star and the Queen of Heaven archetype. The alchemical symbol for Venus is the modern symbol for the female gender.

Sources: Jeff Cooley – Inana Sukelatuda, Inana’s Descent into the Underworld, Universe Today

See Also: 

• The 1769 Transit of Venus
• The Epic of Gilgamesh
• The Historical Babylon
• Myths and Legends

Second Temple Judaism

Second Temple Judaism is the period of Jewish history between the reconstruction of their temple by Cyrus and its destruction by the Romans in AD 71. Rabbinic Judaism took shape in this time.

In 515 BC, King Cyrus of Persia allowed the Jewish elite to return from their 70-year exile in Babylon. Under Persian rule, they rebuilt the temple the Babylonians had destroyed and resumed their religious practices. In exile, the Jewish religion changed. New writings joined their holy book and new beliefs developed:

• Only one God. Before the Babylonian Exile Jews believed other deities existed but only worshipped one.
• Individuals, not entire nations, are held accountable for their sins.
• There is an evil angel who rules in Hell.

Some of these ideas may have come from Zoroastrianism, the religion of the Persians which worships one god.

Jews accepted and tolerated Persian rule but not the Seleucids or Romans who followed. They rebelled many times and refused to recognise kings who called themselves gods. Judea became notoriously difficult to control.

In 160 BC, fundamentalist Jews gained independence after a long guerrilla war and cleansed the country of Greek and pagan influences.

The Book of Maccabees describes this war and the origin of Hannukah. Whilst a part of Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Bibles, it is seldom included by Protestants. The Romans annexed Judea in 63 BC.

By the first century AD there were six Jewish political movements:

• The Pharisees were the largest and most popular among the common people. They believed in the Exile teachings and followed not priests but ‘teachers of the Law’ or rabbis. Pharisees believed everyone should follow Jewish dietary restrictions, not only priests. Saint Paul was originally a Pharisee.
• Sadducees belonged to the Greek-speaking elite that supported foreign rule. The high priesthood and puppet kings like Herod were of this sect. They rejected most of the Exile teachings and did not believe in life after death.
• Essenes lived in remote rural areas and were obsessed with cleanliness and ritual purity. We know of them mainly through the Dead Sea Scrolls. John the Baptist may have been one.
• Zealots violently resisted Roman rule. They believed the Kingdom of God was imminent. Their Sicarii (dagger-men) murdered Roman officials, tax collectors and collaborators.
• Nazarenes followed Jesus of Nazareth, a 1st-century preacher. By the 2nd century, they would break with Jewish tradition.

The First Jewish-Roman War (AD 70 – 74) began when the Jews rebelled over heavy taxes. In AD 71 Romans captured Jerusalem and burned the Second Temple to the ground. The Zealots made their final stand at the fortress of Masada. Using earthen ramps and siege ladders the Romans scaled the desert fortress until its 960 defenders killed themselves rather than surrender.

Most of the Judean sects died out by the 200s. Pharisee beliefs became the basis of modern Judaism while the Nazarenes evolved into a new religion altogether – the Christians.

The last Jewish revolt was in 132-136 under Simon bar Khokba, who claimed to be the messiah. By this point, the Romans had had enough. In its aftermath, Emperor Hadrian slaughtered the rebels, renamed both Judea and Jerusalem and expelled the Jewish people from its borders. They did not return en masse until the 19th century.

Sources: Ancient History Encyclopedia, Live Science, Livius

See Also:

•  Cyrus the Great
• The Allegorical Babylon