The ancient Greeks traveled the width and breadth of the Mediterranean world. They saw strange things and, when they returned to their own rocky shores, told even stranger stories. Yet none would capture the imagination more so—or for longer, it would appear—than tales from the vast steppe land, just north of the Caucasus Mountains. There, according to the Greeks, resided a tribe of warrior women. We know them today—whether or not they ever really existed—as Amazons.
According to Herodotus and others, the Amazons were a race of warrior women who, requiring men in order to procreate (duh!), would take them as captives in battle and force them to copulate. They only raised daughters, either killing or returning boys to their biological fathers. Let me pause right there and say that, if true, I can easily see a very long line of ancient men carrying breath mints and wild flowers, waiting their turn to surrender…but I digress. According to legend, these warrior women eventually camped opposite a Scythian tribe, enticing the men to join them. This Cinemax late night special, according to Herodotus, that is, resulted in the birth of the Sauromatian or Sarmatian people.
See, I told you history can be fun! That’s quite the story, right?
Problem is, of course, none of it is likely true. Yet the Greek merchants and adventurers who told such stories probably weren’t creative enough to make them up out of whole cloth. The reality is, just like elsewhere, they saw something they couldn’t explain … and their imagination filled in the gaps. And with days and weeks-long sea voyages or endless tracks of steppe to cross, one can easily see how those gaps began to be filled with ever more fanciful details.
You see, the Sarmatians were indeed related to the Scythians just like the legend stated, but not in the way the Greeks fantasized about. It’s thought today that the Sarmatians derived from an eastern branch of the wide range of peoples considered “Scythian” but eventually came to see themselves as somehow different. Remaining, initially, to the East of the Don River in southern Russia, the Sarmatians may have simply grown apart from their kin to the west. Those Scythians “over there” as it were, met German, Thracian, and Macedonian tribes in the Balkans. The proto-Sarmatians, on the other hand, were running with the likes of the Persians and Bactrians. Both would have been influenced by habitual contact with their neighbors. Over time, then, it’s easy to see how they might have grown not to recognize each other as stemming from the same culture at all.
The Scythians, for their part, became famous for both their resistance to and joining with the mighty Achaemenid Persians. The Eastern Scythians, the Saka, allied themselves with the Persians and served the King of Kings well. The Western Scythians, on the other hand, were not in such a cooperative frame of mind, and King Darius I spent a good deal of treasure, manpower, and dignity trying to subdue the nomadic horse tribes in 513 B.C. In fact, it was during this Persian campaign that we first encounter the Sarmatians, allied to the Scythians in their resistance to Darius. Those of you who’ve read “Persian Blood” will recognize this as the background story to my first published novel.
Yet the Scythians, and so it is thought, the Sarmatians themselves, were closely related to the Persians and Medes, all of whom originated in the vicinity of what is today Iran. More importantly, perhaps, the Scythians slowly lost their hold over southern Russia and the Ukraine, having run afoul of Alexander the Great in 329 at the Battle of the Jaxartes River in modern Kazahkstan. Alexander, for his part, was merely following in the footsteps of his able father, Phillip II, who in 340 accomplished the impossible, pinning down and destroying an entire Scythian army, largely using infantry. These losses, and the reparations which followed, seem to have hastened Scythian decline, to the great benefit of those waiting in the wings. This included their cousins, the Sarmatians.
Thus, as Sarmatian power grew, that of the Scythians—a people who’d dominated the steppe and struck fear into innumerable Mesopotamian civilizations for over 400 years—was rapidly eclipsed. Eventually, it’s thought the Sarmatians simply absorbed their long-lost cousins into their own, very similar culture. Yet there were differences between the two which made for—shall we say—interesting, if not downright titillating Greek bedtime stories.
Sarmatian women did indeed hunt and fight as mounted warriors. It was said that all Sarmatian women who were still virgins were required to fight just like their men. Further, that they were only allowed to marry once they’d proven themselves in combat—this being accomplished by killing a man. Masters of both horse and the composite bow, these women must have seemed like goddesses to the patriarchal Greeks, even if only encountered in passing. Maybe especially if only encountered in passing! All the better to hint at a real foundation upon which myths and legends might be constructed.
Yet their dangerous women aside, the Sarmatians built a significant presence along the lines of their Scythian forebears and gave the Macedonians and, eventually, the Romans, a real run for their money. On two separate occasions Roman armies crossed the border into Sarmatia only to be destroyed by the mounted archery and elite cavalry of the fearsome nomads. Eventually, with both Rome and Sarmatia realizing they were only weakening themselves to the benefit of others, a treaty was struck in 175 A.D. at the behest of Emperor Marcus Aurelias. One of the terms of this treaty was the provision of some 8,000 Sarmatian horsemen to Rome, over 5,000 of whom ended up serving along the frontier in the Roman province of Britannia. Movie buffs will recognize the background story of the 2004 action flick “King Arthur” which casts the knights of the round table of English legend in the novel mold of Sarmatian knights serving their Roman master.
Oh, did I forget to mention that? What made Sarmatian armies so unstoppable was a critical innovation, armored cavalry. Whereas the Scythians were reliant upon nimble horse archers to wear down an enemy, the Sarmatians, at a certain point, would charge with armored horse and rider, carrying lances and fight hand-to-hand … sound familiar? It should, these are thought to have been the inspiration behind Parthian and Byzantine Cataphracts and, eventually, Western European knights.
During their thousand years in the limelight, The Sarmatians had born witness to the rise and demise of the Achaemenid Persians, the Greeks, the Macedonians, and the Western Roman Empire. They’d fought the Huns as Roman clients, then joined them in their violent romp across Europe until the fearsome Attila passed his expiration date in 453. By the end of the fifth century, however, the Sarmatians had been vastly reduced in power, and were slowly absorbed by endless numbers of Slavic peoples moving into the region from the East.
A truly memorable performance on the stage of world history, it remains incredible to me that so few people know of the Sarmatians at all. Rather, what people do “know” appears to have been the result of bored Greeks traveling distant lands and making up stories to help explain the warrior women they found along the shores of the Black Sea. So, another 1,500 years later, more people have heard of the Amazons—feel free to enjoy any of the “Wonder Woman” movies or binge watch seasons of “Xena: Warrior Princess”—than the real life, flesh-and-blood people that inspired such stories to begin with.
This is at once both sad and instructional, I think. For truth is indeed stranger than fiction, though sometimes, it appears, fiction has a longer shelf life.
M. G. Haynes
* If you’re interested in learning more about any of these civilizations, I highly recommend “Forgotten People of the Ancient World” by Phillip Matyszak. Available in both paperback and ebook formats, it provides a wonderful introduction to many of the ancient world’s most fascinating disappeared civilizations.
** Artwork courtesy of the talented Evgeny Kray.