Agathyrsi

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Offering pot from a Scythian grave from Alba Iulia, Romania, 6th century BC. In display at National Museum of the Union, Alba Iulia

Agathyrsi (Scythian: *Haxāθrᵃušᵃ;[1] Ancient Greek: Ἀγάθυρσοι Agáthursoi;[2] Latin: Agathyrsi[2]) were a people of mixed Iranian Scythic and Geto-Thracian origin[3] whose bulk were Thracian while their aristocracy was closely related to the Scythians.[4] In the time of Herodotus, the Agathyrsi occupied the region around the source of the Maris river, in the mountainous part of ancient Dacia now known as Transylvania in present-day Romania.[5]

Name[edit]

The name Agáthursoi (Ἀγάθυρσοι) is a Hellenized form of the Scythian name *Haxāθrᵃušᵃ meaning "prospering the friend/socius", with the final part possibly modified into -θυρσος, the composite vegetal wand of Bacchus, in Greek because the ancient Greeks associated Scythian peoples with Bacchic rites.[1]

History[edit]

The Agathyrsi were the oldest Scythian-related Iranian population[5] to have dominated the Pontic Steppe.[3] This origin was reflected in the genealogical myth of the Scythian peoples, according to which Agathyrsus was the eldest son born of the union of the god Targitaos and the Anguipede Goddess.[3] Since both the 1st century CE Roman geographer Pomponius Mela and the 4th century CE Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus, basing themselves on earlier ancient Greek sources, located the Agathyrsi near the Lake Maeotis, it is therefore likely that the original homeland of the Agathyrsi was in the region of the Sea of Azov.[3] In the 8th to 7th centuries BCE, the migration of the Scythians from the east into the Pontic Steppe pushed the Agathyrsi westwards, away from the steppes,[5] following which the relations between the Agathyrsi and the Scythians remained hostile.[3]

Herodotus world map

After being expelled westwards from the steppe, the Agathyrsi settled in the territories of present-day Moldavia, Transylvania, and possibly Oltenia, where they mingled with the indigenous population who were largely Thracians.[3][5] In the 5th century BCE, Herodotus mentioned the presence of the Agathyrsi in the area of present-day Moldavia, to the north of the Danube and the east of the Carpathian Mountains, by which time they had become acculturated to the local Getic populations[5] and they practised the same customs as the Thracians, although the names of their kings, such as Agathyrsus and Spargapeithes, were Iranian.[3][4]

When the Achaemenid king Darius I attacked the Scythians in 513 BCE, the Scythian king Idanthyrsus summoned the kings of the peoples surrounding his kingdom to a meeting to decide how to deal with the Persian invasion. The kings of the Budini, Gelonians and Sarmatians accepted to help the Scythians against the Persian attack, while the kings of the Agathyrsi, Androphagi, Melanchlaeni, Neuri, and Tauri refused to support the Scythians.[6] When the armies of the Scythians fled to the territories of their neighbours in front of the advancing Persian army, the Agathyrsi refused to provide refuge to the Scythians, which forced them to retreat back into their own territory.[7][6]

Later at some point in the 5th century BCE and according to Herodotus, the Agathyrsian king Spargapeithes treacherously killed the Scythian king Ariapeithes.[6]

Scythian artefacts originating from sites in Transylvania, in display at Aiud History Museum, Aiud, Romania.

The Agathyrsi were barely ever mentioned again by ancient writers after Herodotus and were last mentioned as a still existing people by Aristotle in the 4th century BCE,[8] after which they disappeared from history[3] due to having later become completely assimilated by the Geto-Thracian populations;[3] thus, the fortified settlements of the Agathyrsi became the centres of the Getic groups who would later transform into the Dacian culture, and an important part of the later Dacian people was descended from the Agathyrsi.[3]

A section of the Agathyrsi might also have migrated more southwards into Thrace proper, where a group of the Agathyrsi was located on the Haemus Mons by Stephanus of Byzantium,[3] who also suggests that a section of the Agathyrsi were present on the Rhodope Mountains by his mention of the Greeks calling the Trausi tribe who lived there as Agathyrsi.[9]

Scythian artefacts originating from sites in Transylvania, in display at Aiud History Museum, Aiud, Romania.
Scythian artefacts originating from sites in Transylvania, in display at Aiud History Museum, Aiud, Romania.

Culture[edit]

The acculturation of the Agathyrsi into the Geto-Dacian culture of the area they settled in is evidenced by how they practised the same customs as the Thracians, although the names of their kings, such as Agathyrsus and Spargapeithes, were Iranian.[3][4] Thracian customs of the Agathyrsi included their nobles practice of tattooing themselves and dyeing their hair dark blue to distinguish themselves from the common people,[10][9] as well as their memorisation of their laws in song form.[11][12]

Other aspects of the culture of the Agathyrsi recorded by Herodotus include the fact that they were used to living in luxury and wore golden jewellery, and their custom of having wives in common so that all the Agathyrsi would be each other's brothers and members of a single family living together without jealousy or hatred.[3]

Archaeology[edit]

To the archaeological presence of the Agathyrsi belongs a cemetery from the 8th to 7th centuries BCE at Stoicani, as well as the Stincesti-Cotnari type fortified settlements which first appear in the 6th century BCE.[3]

Legacy[edit]

An old theory of 19th century writers (Latham, V. St. Martin, Rambaud, Newman) which, according to the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, is based on 'less convincing proof', suggested an identification of the Agathyrsi with the later Hunnic Akatziri tribe first mentioned by Priscus. According to E.A. Thompson, the conjecture that connects the Agathyrsi with Akatziri should be rejected outright.[13]

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ a b Schwartz & Manaster Ramer 2019, p. 3.
  2. ^ a b Smith, William (1854). The Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. Bostin: Little, Brown and Company. p. Agathyrsi.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Olbrycht 2000.
  4. ^ a b c Sulimirski, T. (1985). "The Scyths". In Gershevitch, I. (ed.). The Cambridge History of Iran: The Median and Achaemenian Periods. Vol. 2. Cambridge University Press. p. 183-184. ISBN 978-1-139-05493-5. “Scythian” remains have been found in various regions west of Scythia, in West Podolia, central Transylvania, Hungary, Slovakia, etc.; they mostly form distinct groups of Scythian culture, but also appear scattered in parts of Romania and Bessarabia. They probably represent the various tribes of the Agathyrsi who, according to most authorities, were of Thracian stock, although their ruling class seems to have been of Scythian origin, as suggested by the Iranian name of their king, Spargapeithes, and by various remarks of Herodotus (IV. 25, 49, 78, 100); moreover, the name of the people appears in one of the legends about the origins of the Scyths. These groups, formed mostly around the mid-6th century B.C., exhibit a specific character due to the local Thracian elements absorbed by the Scythian invaders.
  5. ^ a b c d e Batty 2007, p. 202-203.
  6. ^ a b c Herodotus & Godolphin 1973.
  7. ^ Fol, Alexander; Hammond, N. G. L. (1988). "Persia in Europe, Apart from Greece". In Boardman, John; Hammond, N. G. L.; Lewis, D. M.; Ostwald, M. (eds.). The Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. 4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 241. ISBN 978-0-521-22804-6.
  8. ^ Maenchen-Helfen, Otto J. (1973). The World of the Huns: Studies in Their History and Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 451. ISBN 978-0-520-01596-8.
  9. ^ a b Hrushevsky 1997, p. 97.
  10. ^ Choureshki, Stefan (1995). "An Observation on the Getic-Schythian Ethnic and Cultural Interactions in the 8th-5th Century BC : Contact in Motion". Thracia. 11: 181–189.
  11. ^ Fol, Alexander; Marazov, Ivan (1977). Thrace & the Thracians. New York City: St. Martin's Press. p. 59. ISBN 978-0-304-29880-8.
  12. ^ Hrushevsky 1997, p. 101.
  13. ^ Thompson, E. A. (1948). A History of Attila and the Huns. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 95. ISBN 978-0-837-17640-6.

References[edit]

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