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Costoboci

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Map of the Roman empire in 125 AD, 20 years after the Roman conquest of Dacia. The Costoboci resided roughly where the rubric "Carpi" is shown

The Costoboci (Latin variants: Costobocci, Costobocae, Coisstoboci or Castabocae; Ancient Greek: Κοστοβῶκοι or Kostobokai) were an ancient group of tribes which resided, during the Roman imperial era, scattered over the northern Black Sea region, between the Carpathian Mountains and the river Don. One of these tribes, called the "Carpathian Costoboci" in this article, is recorded as resident, from not later than AD 130 until at least AD 170, in the areas known today as northern Moldavia and south-western Ukraine.[1]

Although Romanian historians have classified the Carpathian Costoboci as ethnic-Dacians, the evidence of ancient writers suggests that they may have been a Sarmatian tribe, at least originally.

The Carpathian Costoboci were either annihilated or subjugated by a branch of the Germanic Vandal people, who invaded their territory in AD 170, and disappeared from extant history. Other Costobocan tribes are recorded as still resident in the region between the rivers Dniester and Don in ca. AD 400.

Territory

Pliny the Elder locates the Costoboci as residing around the river Tanais (southern river Don) in ca. AD 60, in the Sarmatian heartland of the southern Russia region, far to the East of Moldavia.[2] Ammianus Marcellinus, writing in ca. 390, also lists the gentes Costobocae ("Costobocan tribes") among the "Alans and innumerable other Scythian tribes" in the region of Sarmatia lying between the Tyras (Dniester) and Tanais rivers.[3]

As regards the Carpathian Costoboci, the Greek geographer Ptolemy indicates that in ca. AD 140 these inhabited both northern Dacia (i.e. the northern Carpathians) and western Sarmatia, in the region of the upper Tyras river i.e. northern Moldavia/Bessarabia.[4][5]

Ethno-linguistic affiliation

Traditional Romanian historiography classifies the Costoboci (at least the Carpathian branch) as ethnic-Dacian, with a common language and culture as the Dacians left in the Roman province of Dacia and as the Carpi, their neighbours in Moldavia. But neither of these identifications are secure.[6] The origin of the Costoboci remains uncertain.[7]

The Costoboci are classified as an ethnic- Sarmatian people by Pliny the Elder, writing in AD 60. Thus, the Costoboci might have been a Sarmatian people, some of whom may have migrated westwards during the period 60-140, while the main group of tribes remained in central Sarmatia.[8] However, they may have been a Dacian tribe which moved eastwards during the expansion of Burebista's kingdom, which included in his borders territories as far as Olbia (near Crimea).[opinion][citation needed]

The Carpathian Costoboci have been linked by scholars who studied the cultures in the area with the Lipiţa culture of northern Romania and western Ukraine.[9] This culture offers a reasonable match, in both geographical extent, and historical era, with the Carpathian Costoboci as defined in the ancient sources.[10] However, Batty argues that Lipiţa, a sedentary culture, is a poor match for the Costoboci, whom he considers a semi-nomadic "mobile" people. Instead, he suggests that Lipiţa could represent the culture of a substrate population, possibly subject to the Costoboci.[11]

The culture is considered to display mainly Dacian characteristics, with some non-Dacian influences (esp. Roman and Sarmatian). On this basis, many Romanian archaeologists claim that the population of this region was always, and remained, predominantly Geto-Dacian.[12] However, determination of ethnicity by the typology, or by the relative quantity, of finds has been criticised as pseudo-scientific by Niculescu.[13] , a view not held by mainstream historyography. Batty concurs that the presence of Dacian-style pottery and other artefacts is an indicator of the material level attained by the indigenes, but in no way proves their ethnicity. Batty further notes that the Lipiţa domain was shared by the Bastarnae, a Celto-Germanic federation of tribes.[14] It was also shared by the Anartes and Taurisci, according to Ptolemy.[15] But inhumation rits show clearly a Dacian origin of Costoboci [16]

The presence of the Carpathian Costoboci among the tribes listed by Ptolemy as resident inside Dacia cannot be regarded as conclusive proof of Dacian ethnicity, as the other two tribes located by Ptolemy in the northernmost part of Dacia, the Anartes and Taurisci, were probably Celtic, not Dacian.[17] CIL VI.1801, a Roman imperial-era funerary inscription found in Rome, dedicated to "Zia, daughter of Tiatus, Dacian wife of Pieporus, Costobocan king" has been taken as evidence of the Carpathian Costoboci's possible Dacian ethnicity.[18] Scholars consider that Pieporus is a name of Dacian origin, as are those of Pieporus' named grandchildren, Natoporus and Drilgisa, as well as the name of a later Costobocan king, Bithoporus.[19] But a Sarmatian origin for these names cannot be excluded.[20] [dubios/discuss] There is too the possibility of "name-drift", the phenomenon by which ethnic groups adopt names from neighbouring or influential cultures (e.g. the adoption of Hebrew names by Greek converts to Christianity in the later Roman empire) but this is not substantiated in this case.

Thus, there is no definitive proof of a clear ethnic or linguistic affiliation of the Carpathian Costoboci, nor if these were always the same or had a linear evolution. Ethnic/cultural miscegenation might have resulted in a new identity, which was itself "original". The affiliations to Dacian or Sarmatian stems are neither definitive nor clear-cut. Both terms are broad and do not reflect concepts similar to modern nations.

Material culture

There are two distinctive cultures documented as cohabiting in the Costoboci region during this time. One was the sedentary Lipiţa culture considered as clearly Dacian by some scholars who research it. The other traces of a nomadic culture of Scytho-Sarmatic characteristics.

Lipiţa culture settlements have been discovered in several sites. It was a cremation culture, with burial of the deceased's ashes and personal belongings in plain or tumular tombs, a usual Dacian type. The culture disappeared during the 3rd century AD, considerably after the invasion and elimination, or at least subjugation, of the Carpathian Costoboci by the Vandals in 171.

The nomadic culture consists of inhumation graves. Many buried individuals have artificially deformed skulls, achieved by tightly binding an infant's skull during its early growth phase. This is a custom associated with the steppe nomads of central Eurasia, including the Sarmatians. Such burials also commonly include grave-goods, including mirrors engraved with tamgas, clan or tribal symbols also associated with steppe nomads.[21]

Conflict with Rome

In AD 170, during the rule of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (r. 161-80), the Costoboci launched a massive invasion of Roman territory South of the Danube.[22] They were taking advantage of the denuding of the Roman garrison in Moesia Inferior to reinforce forces on the middle Danube, where the emperor was engaged in the Marcomannic Wars (167-80) a vast and protracted struggle with powerful Germanic and Sarmatian tribes (Marcomanni, Quadi and Iazyges). The Costoboci broke through the Roman defences on the Danube and defeated and killed the governor of Moesia Inferior, the experienced general Claudius Fronto. The barbarians then swept through Thracia and ravaged the provinces of Macedonia and Achaea (Greece), reaching as far as Eleusis, near Athens, where they destroyed the famous Sanctuary of the Mysteries. The emperor, although hard pressed by a simultaneous Marcomanni invasion of Noricum (Austria), responded by forming an emergency strike-force from legionary and auxiliary detachments under general Vehilius Gratus Iulianus, which rushed to Greece to intercept the Costoboci.[23]

The success of Iulianus' campaign is undocumented, but by implication of succeeding events, the Costoboci invaders were crushed and the tribe greatly weakened. The following year (171), the governor of Dacia, Cornelius Clemens, was faced by the arrival on his borders of a massive migration of the Hasding Vandals. Previously resident in modern SW Poland,[24] these had probably been driven out of their territory by hostile neighbouring tribes. The Hasdings formally requested permission to settle in the province. This Clemens refused, but, presumably to avert the danger that the Hasdings might invade his province (and doubtless to punish the Costoboci for their invasion the previous year), he suggested that the Hasdings settle in the territory of the Costoboci. He offered a temporary safe-haven in the province for their accompanying women and children, while the Hasding warriors subjugated the Costoboci. The Hasdings accepted, invaded Costobocia and quickly crushed the Carpathian Costoboci, who disappear from extant recorded history. However, no sooner were their families settled in their new domain, than the Hasdings began raiding the Roman province. Clemens responded by inviting a rival of the Vandals, the Lacringi, to attack the Hasdings in their turn. It appears that the Lacringi succeeded in taking control of Costobocia and proved more faithful in observing their treaty obligations to the Romans.[25]

The fate of the Carpathian Costoboci who survived the Vandal invasion is uncertain. Bichir argues that many remained in their territory as serfs of the Vandals, pointing to the persistence of the Lipiţa culture into the 3rd century. He also speculates that many would have found refuge in the territory of their "fellow-Dacian" neighbours, the Carpi.[26] But the evidence he adduces in support, a fruit-stand and a few other "Lipiţa-style" artefacts found in "Carpic" teritory, is considered inadequate by some other scholar.[27] Dio Cassius records that in AD 180, 12,000 "neighbouring" Daci, who had been driven out of their own territory, were admitted by the emperor Commodus (r. 180-92) into the Roman province of Dacia, to prevent them joining the enemies of Rome.[28] It has been speculated that these were Costoboci refugees from the Vandal invasion of their homeland. But this event occurred nearly a decade after the Vandal invasion and may have involved Free Dacian elements unconnected with the Costoboci.

Citations

  1. ^ Barrington Atlas Map 22
  2. ^ Pliny VI.7
  3. ^ Ammianus XXII.8.42
  4. ^ Ptolemy III.8.3 and III.5.9
  5. ^ Barrington Map 22
  6. ^ Batty (2008) 378
  7. ^ CAH XI 171
  8. ^ Batty (2008) 374
  9. ^ Bichir (1976) 161
  10. ^ Batty (2008) 248 (map)
  11. ^ Batty (2008) 375
  12. ^ Bichir (1976) 164
  13. ^ Niculescu Online Paper
  14. ^ Batty (2008) 378
  15. ^ Ptolemy III.8.3
  16. ^ http://www.scritube.com/istorie/Romanitatea-fara-imperiu-sec-I83752.php
  17. ^ Batty (2008) 374
  18. ^ CIL VI.1801
  19. ^ Mommsen (1909)
  20. ^ Justi (1897) 166, 235, 345
  21. ^ Bichir (1976) 162-4
  22. ^ Historia Augusta M. Aurelius 22
  23. ^ CAH XI 172
  24. ^ Tacitus G.
  25. ^ Dio LXXII.12.2
  26. ^ Bichir (1976) 161
  27. ^ Batty (2008) 378
  28. ^ Dio LXXIII.3

References

Ancient

Modern

  • Barrington (2000): Atlas of the Greek & Roman World
  • Batty, Roger (2008): Rome and the Nomads: the Pontic-Danubian region in Antiquity
  • Bichir, Gh. (1976): History and Archaeology of the Carpi from the 2nd to the 4th centuries AD
  • Cambridge Ancient History Vol. XI 2nd Ed (2000): The High Empire (AD 70-192)
  • Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL)
  • Georgiev, Vladimir (1960): Raporturile dintre limbile dacă, tracă şi frigiană, in "Studii Clasice" (periodical) II (39-58)
  • Justi, Ferdinand (1897): Iranisches Namenbuch
  • Mommsen, Theodor (1909): The Provinces of the Roman Empire from Caesar to Diocletian (Translated with the author's additions, by William P. Dickson), London, Macmillan

See also

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