‘KING ARTHUR’, ARTHURIAN LEGEND AND THE

SARMATIANS

Periklis Deligiannis
© 2006 Periklis Deligiannis, All rights reserved

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 In 175 CE the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius settled thousands of

Sarmatian cavalry mercenaries in Britain. Two centuries later, the Western Roman

Empire withdrew its troops from the island. It seems that the independent “Romano-

British kingdom” preserved its unity and coherence but soon after, it was struck by

the ruthless Anglo-Saxon invasion. The Sarmatians were now merged with the Celtic

and Romano-Briton population, taking the lead in checking the barbarians. There is a

strong possibility that this Sarmatian presence in Britain provides the historical

background of the legend of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.

Britannia after the Roman withdrawal

The Romans conquered modern England and Wales during the 1st century CE.

The tribes of Caledonia (Caledonii, Cornovii, Venicones and others) which

corresponds to the modern Scottish Highlands, remained independent. By the 4th

century, most of her peoples had been incorporated into the tribal confederation of the

Picts (Picti, Pictae). Their name meant the “painted ones” in Latin because of the

ancient Celtic custom of tattooing which they maintained. Actually they were calling

themselves Cruthni. The Romans held Britannia for more than three centuries, but the

Christianization and Latinization of its population were confined only to the cities and

in a few south-eastern rural regions. The grand majority of the population remained

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Celtic in language and in cults. Especially the rural populations were greatly

influenced by the Christian heresy of Pelagianism. In the late 4th century CE, the

original Roman province of Britannia was split into four provinces: Caesaresia

Magna, Caesaresia Flavia, Britannia I and Britannia II. The tribes of Caledonia and

Ireland were raiding the Romano-British territory for centuries.

The Irish were crossing the Irish Sea with their light vessels, the Celtic

curraghs. The Caledonians/Picts were attacking the Romano-British population by

land and sea, using the same type of ship. Caledonia and Britannia were separated by

a “neutral zone” – actually a buffer zone – between Antoninus’ and Hadrian’s Walls,

which is almost equivalent to the modern Scottish Lowlands. The tribes of this buffer

zone between Britannia and Caledonia (the Damnonii, the Selgovae and others) had

lived for two decades of the 2nd century CE under direct Roman control that had

reached Antoninus’ Wall (Vallum Antonini). When they revolted, the Romans

evacuated this region and restored the line of their defense in Hadrian’s Wall (Vallum

Adriani). Eventually the Romans made allied vassals (foederati) the tribes of Lowland

Scotland, using them as a buffer zone against the Caledonians/Picts. However, their

fidelity was always questionable and the gradual weakening of the Empire led them to

raiding the Romano-British territory.

In the 4th century, the Roman decline brought about the increase of the

barbarian attacks and the emergence of a new invader: the Anglo-Saxons. The term

‘Anglo-Saxons’, or sometimes simply ‘Saxons’, is a modern conventional name for of

group of Germanic and a few Slavic invaders in Britain, originating from modern

northern Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Jutland (Denmark). This group

included the Saxons (the more numerous tribe), Engles (mostly known as Angles, in

Germanic: Engeln, in Byzantine Greek: Inglinoi), Frisians, Jutes (a tribal offshoot of

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the Geats of Sweden?), Proto-Danes, Franks, Thuringians, Wangrians and a few

Proto-Norwegian tribesmen (North-western Scandinavians) and Slavs. The Anglo-

Saxons were crossing the North Sea with long boats – the Nordic predecessors of the

Viking longships – and were attacking Britannia looting and capturing its inhabitants.

In the early 5th century the Western Roman Empire was undergoing collapse.

The Romans had begun to withdraw their troops from Britain since the 4th century, in

order to check the barbarian pressure on the continental border of the Rhine. In 383,

the Hispano-Roman general Maximus, governor of Britannia who coveted the throne

of Ravenna, landed in Gaul with many troops: the legionaries that he withdrew were

never replaced. The protection of Roman Britain was now a financial burden for the

crumbling Empire. The departure of the Roman troops went on, and along with them

departed a great part of the noble and wealthy castes, whose members had already

understood that very soon Britannia would not be a safe place to live. Urban life had

already been reduced significantly and the economy had been shrunk. In 407, the

Empire withdrew its last regular troops from the island, probably along with most

imperial administrators and employees. The soldiers who remained were essentially

some Romans and foreign mercenaries who had families with native women or other

footholds on the island, and the few British auxiliaries who supported the legions. The

same applies to the remaining imperial officers and employees.

A number of Latin-speaking Germanic soldiers called gentiles, descendants of

old mercenaries of Rome, remained mostly in Eastern Britain. They initially fought

their Anglo-Saxon brethren, however it is possible that later many of them joined the

invaders on the basis of their common Germanic ancestry and of course common

interests in raiding and conquering. The well-known Gewissae are most likely such a

case. Finally, many of the Sarmatian mercenaries to whom we shall refer in detail

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below, remained in the island as well. After 407, Britain south of Hadrian’s Wall

although was accounted for as a part of the Roman world, became virtually

independent. The rise of the barbarian raids and invasions after the Roman

withdrawal, embarrassed the Briton leadership. Its members sent a message to the

Roman emperor, with a request for military aid against the raiders (Gemitus

Britannorum, “Groans of the Britons”, 410 CE). The emperor could do nothing,

advising them to organize their own defence.

Despite the departure of the imperial army and administration from Britain,

the Roman-style organized life went on. The shrunken Roman cities continued to

exist, but the way of life, language, cults and other Roman/Latin elements were

steadily giving ground to the regenerated Celtic ones. The remaining Romanized

aristocracy of south-eastern Britain undertook the organizing of the defence of this

region against the Saxons. The stably Celtic in civilization nobility of the

mountainous and hilly western Britain undertook the repulse mainly of the Irish

raiders. The remaining former commanders of the Roman guards of Hadrian’s Wall

and the local nobles became the hereditary ruling class of the northern Briton

territories, mainly undertaking the repulse of the Picts.

Considering the ethno-cultural conditions, the Northern British rulers were in

an intermediate situation between the ‘authentic Celts’ of the western regions and the

Romano-Britons of the south-eastern regions of the island. It is probable that the three

mentioned groups were in rivalry during the Roman period; however the common

external threat of the barbarians joined them.

The former Roman Britain was gradually divided into small autonomous

Celtic or Romano-Celtic states, led by military leaders who tried to maintain unified

the “British kingdom” as they seem to have perceived their common territory. An

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action of their unifying policy was the election of a warlord (Dux) as their supreme

political and military leader, who was leading the war efforts against the invaders and

preventing internal conflicts. In the medieval chronicles, the supreme leader is

referred as the ‘Supreme Ruler’ of the island, but his original title or his military one

was the Dux Bellorum. Probably this office was the continuity of the Roman office of

the Dux Britanniarum.

The Britons resisted the barbaric invasions, led by a series of inspirational

supreme leaders like Voteporix, Vortigern and especially the legendary Arthur – his

historicity being always under dispute. Under their leadership, they crashed the Picts

and the Irish overthrowing the Irish colonies in Wales and Lowland Scotland, and

managed to check the Anglo-Saxons. In 429, the Romano-Britons crashed a horde of

Saxon and Pict invaders.

The British defense was successful until 442 CE, when it was shaken by two

fatal scourges (Gildas’ Chronicle). Vortigern, possibly one of the warlords of the

Ordovices tribe in Wales, was at that time the Duke of Britannia (Supreme Ruler). His

name is possibly not a personal name because it can be analyzed in Brythonic Celtic

as the ‘Great King’, being probably a popularized rendering of the title Supreme

Ruler. Vortigern had hired some Jute mercenaries in order to repel the Anglo-Saxon

invasions. Their rebellion around 442 against him was Gildas’ first “scourge”. The

Jutes began to raid eastern Britain, capturing or murdering the inhabitants. The second

“scourge” was a plague that occurred on the island around 446 and mainly affected

the urban centers, decimating the remaining Romanized population living primarily in

them. It was a severe blow for the Romano-British administration and military

organization, because they were staffed mainly by the Latinized population. In 446,

the Romano-Britons asked for the military aid of the potent Roman general Aetius.

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Aetius who was meant to repel Attila in 451 at the battle of Campus Mauriacus (or the

Catalaunian Fields), was in Gaul; the Briton request was rejected again.

Vortigern’s preference to Germanic mercenaries was his great blunder. He

possibly did not trust the native officials and warriors, aiming on the consolidation of

his power through the formation of his own “Praetorian guard” composed of

Germans. Unfortunately, he “fixed” his error of the recruitment of the Jutes with a

bigger mistake: around 450 he settled a group of Saxon mercenaries under their

warlords Horsa and Hengist in the land of the Kantii (modern Kent). Their duty was

to suppress the rebellion of the Jutes. The Saxons managed to defeat them but

thereafter they also turned against Vortigern with atrocities and looting on the Britons

from their base at Kent. At the same time they called their brethren to come from their

cradle in northern Germany.

These newcomers landed on the shores of Britain and in a few decades they

managed to conquer the south-eastern part. But the Anglo-Saxon march was restricted

because of the efforts of the new Briton Duke (Supreme Ruler) Ambrosius Aurelianus

and then it was withheld by the legendary “King” Arthur. It has not been established

yet whether Arthur was a mythological hero or an actual historical figure, but the

archaeological discoveries of the last decades and a review of the chronicles support

his historicity. The literary, historical, archaeological and other relevant evidence

suggests strongly that a powerful warlord did live during the verge of the 5th-6th

centuries, uniting most of the Celtic tribes and Romano-Briton states, and fending the

invaders. He could not be other than Arthur of the Celto-British oral tradition and of

the “History of the Kings of Britain” by Geoffrey of Monmouth (1133 CE). We

believe that it does not really matter if his name was actually ‘Arthur’ or something

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like that or something different: what really matters is his historical existence and his

politico-military achievements.

In any case, it is obvious in the literary sources that Arthur or the historical

figure that this mythical hero possibly represents, as a military leader did not depend

on foreign mercenaries as Vortigern did, but on a domestic army comprised of Briton

Celts, Romano-Britons, Romano-Germanics and Romano-Sarmatians. He inflicted

heavy losses to the Anglo-Saxons, forcing some of them to return disappointed to

Germany as it has been proved by archaeology.

Evidence on the possible Sarmatian origins of the Arthurian Legend

The Roman army in Britain comprised many Sarmatian mercenaries, most of

whom probably remained on the island after 407 CE. The Sarmatians were a large

group of nomadic tribes of Northern Iranian stock (2). The cradle of the Sarmatians

was in Central Asia, possibly at modern northern Kazakhstan. Since the 3rd century

BCE, some of their tribes started a migration to the Chinese regions while the bulk of

their people gradually invaded the modern Ukrainian steppes (today delivered to

agriculture) destroying the Scythian state in Europe. The Sarmatian tribes were

independent and very often were fighting each other. The most important were the

Sauromatae, the Roxolani, the Iazygae, the Siracae, the ‘Royal Sarmatians’, the Aorsi

later known as Alans, the Aspourgi and others.

The Sarmatians fought primarily as armoured cavalry using the kontos as their

main weapon, a strong lance probably originated from the ancient Macedonian xyston

via Central Asia (used by Alexander the Great’s heavy cavalry). The kontos is the

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ancestor of the Roman/Byzantine kontarion. The Romans of the Later Empire

evaluated the martial spirit of the Sarmatians and recruited them massively as

mercenaries. They ultimately adopted themselves the Sarmatian mounted warfare.

The Goths, the Huns, the Vandals and other peoples did the same, and they also

included in their tribal federations and their ranks large numbers of Sarmatian allies.

The formidable Sarmatians were dispersed and settled in many European regions,

where they were finally assimilated by the local populations.

The Iazygae, a tribe of the Sarmatian vanguard, settled for some time in

Pannonia, that is the modern Hungarian and Croatian plains, and from there they were

raiding the neighbouring Roman territories. In 175 CE, the Roman emperor Marcus

Aurelius defeated them and exiled 8,000 Iazygian horsemen – most of the surviving

warriors of the tribe – in Gaul and Britain, where they were obliged to serve as

mercenaries of the Roman army: 5,500 of them were settled in Britannia. The most

important part of their story is that according to an honorific Roman tombstone, the

commander of the Legio VI Victrix in which they enrolled, was an officer called

Lucius Artorius Castus, who had served in Dalmatia – a region adjacent to Pannonia.

The enrolment of the Iazygian mercenaries in the Sixth Legion was not accidental.

The Sarmatians undoubtedly welcomed a commander familiar with their homeland,

possibly familiar with their customs and their Iranian language as well. When their

twenty-year term of office ended, the Romans forbade them to return to Pannonia

resettling them at Bremetennacum (modern Ribchester, near Lancaster) and at two

other sites in Britain. Later, these three Sarmatian settlements/sites were identified

with three of the twelve sites of victories achieved by Arthur (Nennius: History of the

Britons, late 8th century).

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 In the end of the 3rd century, a military unit of 500 Sarmatian cavalrymen is

reported to have been based at Bremetennacum, and they are considered to have been

the descendants of the Iazygian captives-mercenaries. The personal name Arthur

possibly derives from a Celtic corruption of the Latin Artorius and it has been

suggested that the legendary Arthur, Duke of Britain in the 5th-6th centuries, was a

descendant of the Roman Artorius of the 2nd century. Another modern theory

suggests that the Latin personal name Artorius became the Celtic title Arthur; like the

Roman personal name Caesar was converted to the German title Kaiser and the

Russian title Tsar. However if Arthur was indeed a historical figure, he was

undoubtedly a Celt even if he was a distant descendant of the Roman Artorius.

The number of the Sarmatians in Britain was not inconsiderable. The Romans

settled on the island 5,500 Iazygian warriors. The Sarmatians used to move along with

their families who lived in the typical heavy carriages of the nomads, thereby it is

certain that many of the Iazygae settlers had their women and children with them. On

the other hand, many would be young unmarried men who got married with Briton

women. The usual ratio of combatants to non-combatants, used to calculate ancient

populations is 1:3. Therefore, a ratio of 1:2 is acceptable for the Iazygae mercenaries

in Britain and so we can assume a total figure of 16-17,000 including the women and

children. If we add to them the rest of the Sarmatian mercenaries who settled in

Britain, mainly Alans, the total Sarmatian population would number a few tens of

thousands (possibly 20,000-30,000). The number of the Germanic gentiles in the

island was higher. The total population of Britannia was around 1,000,000-1,500,000

(1). The total figure of the Germanics and Sarmatians (men, women and children) did

not exceed 5 % of this population.

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 According to some modern scholars, the history of these Sarmatian

mercenaries is the background of the Arthurian legend.

Arthur’s warriors are described as knights. Some scholars believe that this

description is due just to the fact that in the time of Geoffrey of Monmouth, every

hero had to be a knight. But this view is rather superficial and incorrect because there

is enough archaeological, literary and other evidence that in the 5th-6th centuries the

Romano-Britons had at their disposal a potent heavy cavalry, which possibly had been

their main military striking force. The Sarmatian cataphracts (in Latin: equites

cataphractarii) were actually the first knights of the European history and the

founders of European Chivalry according to a popular view.

The Sarmatian armies included among other types of cavalrymen/horsemen,

many cataphracts protected along with their horses as well, with nearly full-length

metal armour; usually scale armour. They also included many horse-archers and

horse-spearmen with partial armour or without any cuirass. The cataphracts fought

mainly as lancers with the long heavy kontos, essentially a lance (like the subsequent

European knights) as their main offensive weapon. They were also carrying a

composite bow, a long sword and a dagger. The familiar nowadays figure of the Late

Medieval European knight was created when the East Germanics (Goths, Vandals,

Burgundians), the Suebi tribes (Marcomanni, Longobards, Quadi) and the Romans

adopted the full Sarmatian cavalry equipment. The decimation of the Roman army by

the Gotho-Sarmatian cavalry at the battle of Adrianople in 378, established the

dominance of the cataphract cavalryman, or in other words the knight, during the

Middle Ages. The Normans of North France were the ones who shaped the final form

of Chivalry (3).

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 Returning to the Arthurian Era in Britain, the “knights” of Arthur probably

consisted of Latinized and Celtisized descendants of the Sarmatian mercenaries, and

of Celtic cavalrymen who fought in the Sarmatian way. The Iazygae of

Bremetennacum are mentioned in the early 5th century as “the army of the Sarmatian

veterans“. They probably survived until then as an ethnic entity, even speaking Latin

instead of their native language. Furthermore, almost all the Sarmatians of the Roman

Empire were already linguistically Latinized. It is also certain that many Alans, being

the most populous Sarmatian tribe, settled in Britain as mercenaries. Some modern

scholars have theorized that the modern British personal name Al(l)an and the French

or generally Neo-Latin Alain/Alen derive from the Alans. When members of this

people settled en masse in Western Europe and were assimilated by the natives, their

ethnic name was turned to a personal name: Alanus in Latin (modern Alan, Allen,

Alain, Alen). Large groups of Alans settled as local nobilities in North Spain, North

Africa, North Gaul (giving their name also to the region of Alencon) and other

regions (4).

In the 10th century, the Normans fully adopted cataphract warfare from the

local Alani nomads who were settled in northern France centuries ago (see again note

3). In reality, the Normans partially adopted heavy cavalry warfare also from the local

Franks, but actually Frankish heavy cavalry had again exclusively Sarmatian origins.

The Normans won the battle of Hastings (1066) using the ancient nomadic tactic of

feigned retreat, executed by the left wing of their cavalry. That wing was manned by

Breton Celt cavalrymen of north-western Gaul who were also partly of Alanic origins.

The commander of the left wing was the Count of Brittany, Alan the Red (redhead), a

name possibly characteristic of his origin. Considering the Count’s red hair, it should

be noted that some Chinese and Greco-Roman chronicles describe the Alans of

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Central Asia as having largely blond or red hair – for example the Roman historian

Ammianus Marcellinus in his Roman History, Book XXXI, II. 21: "Proceri autem

Halani paene sunt omnes et pulchri, crinibus mediocriter flavis, oculorum temperata

torvitate terribiles et armourum levitate veloces". But the Celts are also frequently

red-haired and actually they have the largest rate of redheads in Europe.

The standard of the Dragon used by Arthur’s army was a Saka/Sarmatian

symbol, officially adopted by many peoples and empires stretching from the Chinese

world to the Roman Empire. The Sarmatian cavalrymen brought with them their

‘ethnic banner’, the Dragon, made as an airbag mounted on a wooden shaft. The

standard of the dragon had a metal head and red fabric body, which was swelling

when the wind was entering it through the dragon’s jaws (which happened at the

galloping of the horse). This banner and the arms and armour of the Sarmatians and

their horses, are strikingly similar to most of the respective characteristics of Arthur

and his knights, as they are described in the late medieval sources. The Romano-

Briton army had adopted them from the Late Roman army, which however had

adopted them from the Sarmatians. The annomination/last name Pendragon of Uther

(Arthur’s father from whom he inherited it) is rather Romano-Sarmatian as well.

Pendragon is analyzed in Brythonic Celtic as ‘ap-(en)-dragon’ meaning the “son of

the dragon” referring to the Sarmatian standard. In essence it means “he who fights

under the banner of the dragon“, perhaps a nostalgic remembrance of the Sarmatian

cavalry which formerly protected Britannia from the invaders. In general the symbol

of the dragon has an important role in the Arthurian legends.

The name of Lancelot, an important knight of Arthur coming from Gaul, has

been analyzed as “Alan-s-Lot” meaning “the Alan of Lot” (a river of Gaul). The

majority of Arthur’s friends and enemies (Merlin, Morgana, Bors, Mordred and

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others) have personal names of Celtic etymology: for example the name Morgana is

the female equivalent of Morgos, an ancient Celtic wizard-god. But specifically the

names of Arthur’s companions Percival (Perceval, Parsifal, Parzival)) and Balin

have satisfactory Iranian etymologies and on the other hand their proposed Celtic

etymologies are rather problematic. The Sarmatian language was Iranian. It seems

that the name Parsifal/Percival comes from the same verbal root that gave the ethnic

and geographical names Pars (Fars, Persis), Persians (Parshua), Parthians (Parsi in an

earlier form), Parni and others. According to another view, also in favour of the

Sarmatian etymology of Balin, this name comes from a phonetic corruption of the

Alani ethnic name (B-Alan). Furthermore, Balin’s brother was called Balan.

The proponents of the Sarmatian theory on the origins of the Arthur’s Epic

Cycle, attach its origins in a distant saga of the Sarmatians which they “transplanted”

in Britain. Judging by the nomads of the medieval and modern times, it is certain that

the Scythians, Sarmatians, Huns and other nomadic peoples had a highly developed

epic tradition. The great West and Central European epics such as the Epic Cycles of

Nibelungen, Dietrich, Arthur and others, were based on the lives of heroes of the 5th

century CE, the exact period of the high dispersion of Sarmatian and Hunno-

Sarmatian tribes in Central and West Europe. The German epic poem Waltharious,

the English Parsifal, and the Anglo-French Sir Balin probably derive from the same

nomadic saga source. The last two mentioned heroes originally had their own epic

poems, which later were integrated along with their heroes into the Arthurian Epic

Cycle.

The same applies to other heroes or knights of the same Cycle who originated

in the epics of other peoples. For example, Tristan, a well-known knight of the Round

Table, derives from the integration of the Pictish epic of Dunstan into the Arthurian

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Epic Cycle. Dunstan was an historical figure, a hero of the Caledonian Picts who

managed to temporarily repel the Scots who had invaded his homeland: Dunstan was

actually a North British ‘equivalent’ of Arthur. But the Irish-originated Scots finally

conquered Pictland thus establishing Scotland.

It should be emphasized that Parsifal, Balin and probably Lancelot are the

only heroes of the Arthurian Cycle whose names have Sarmatian etymologies; a

feature that will be proved very useful as we will see immediately below.

Additionally, a medieval chronicle mentions that Parsifal was Lancelot’s son (and

therefore brother of Galahad); that is more evidence of Lancelot’s Alanic origins (due

to the rather Sarmatian etymology of Parsifal’s name).

The aforementioned hero Waltharious is described in his epic as being armed

“in the way of the Pannonians”, that is bearing two swords. The oldest populations of

Pannonia were mixed North Illyrian, Halstatt and La Tene Celtic, and Iranian

(Cimmerian and Scythian). During the Early Medieval Great Migration of Peoples,

the country had a Sarmatian ethnic majority. We have seen that Pannonia was the

homeland of the Iazygae of Britain. It is probable that the arming “in the way of the

Pannonians”, with two swords, was a typical Sarmatian habit. Indeed, archaeologists

are discovering in the Sarmatian tombs gold plates almost always in pairs, which

come from sword-sheaths. This evidence confirms that the typical Sarmatian warrior

was armed with two swords. The important thing is that Parsifal and Sir Balin are

described as also bearing two swords each. After Balin’s death, one of his swords is

nailed to a marble or a rock by Merlin. We shall see that the medieval references of

swords that are nailed to earth or to a rock are directly related to the Sarmatian

religion.

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 Additionally, Parsifal and Balin are heroes associated with the search of the

Holy Grail. The presence of the Holy Grail Legend in the Arthurian Cycle is usually

considered to be related to the sacred pots and sacred boilers and craters of the ancient

Celtic religion. This scenario is very likely. Nevertheless, the Sakas (ancestors of the

Sarmatians) and their Scythian brethren, as evidenced by their tombs, used special

ceremonial craters and boilers to burn opium on hot stones at their rites and inhale the

smoke “shouting of joy” as the Greek historian Herodotus describes in his History.

These Iranian-Sarmatian elements of the figures of Parsifal and Balin enhance the

likelihood of the Sarmatian origin of their ‘personal’ Epics, as well as the same origin

of the general Legend of Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. The Magyar epic

Anna Molnar and the Turkish Targhyn have certainly the same nomadic origins. The

name of the hero Targhyn has the same etymology as the aforementioned

“Pendragon” of the Arthurian Cycle. Finally, the medieval myth of Saint Ladislaus of

Hungary has the same steppe peoples’ origins. The Magyars and the Turks are not

Iranians but they were among the nomadic inheritors of the same North Iranian steppe

culture and saga legacy.

Arthur’s legend mentions the existence of two “magical swords”. The one was

the sword of Uther, Arthur’s father, which was nailed to a rock. Arthur was

proclaimed king when he dragged it off the cliff, while the other candidates for the

throne had failed. It is characteristic that the Sarmatians were worshiping their main

deity in the form of a sword nailed to earth or to rock. The second “magic sword” of

the legend is the well-known excalibur, which Arthur received from the “Lady of the

Lake” (5).

The episode of excalibur is almost identical to the reports of ‘magic swords’ in

the saga of Batradz, a hero of the Ossetians of the Caucasus, and also in the episode of

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Krabat’s death which is included in a popular story of the modern Sorbs of eastern

Germany. The modern Ossetes (Ossetians) are considered to be the last surviving

Sarmatians, being descendants of an Alanic group which found refuge in the

Caucasus. They are divided among the Russian Federation and Georgia (Autonomous

Republics of North and South Ossetia respectively). The Sorbs, a people numbering a

few tens of thousands which are surrounded by many millions of Germans, are Slavs

but they bear a Sarmatian tribal name. The same applies to the Serbs of Serbia and

other former Yugoslavian republics, brethren of the Sorbs of Germany. The modern

ethnologists and linguists consider very probable that the Serbs/Sorbs and the

Chrovates (Croats) were originally Sarmatian tribes which became the ruling nobility

of many hitherto unorganized Slavs, whom they enrolled in their tribal federations.

They were scant in number comparing to their numerous Slavic ‘partners’, therefore

they were Slavicized and formed the “state ancestors” of the modern Serbs and

Croats. The northern branch of the Sarmatian Serbs/Sorbs was dwelling in Slavic

Lusatia (in modern eastern Germany) ruling their Slavic vassals. The Germans

conquered (actually reconquered this ancestral Germanic land) and Germanized the

Sorbian territory during the Late Middle Ages, therefore only a few tens of thousands

of Sorbs are left in the 21th century in this “Northern Serbia”. The Sorbs retained the

epic poems of their old Sarmatian aristocracy, among them the saga of Krabat’s death.

According to Geoffrey, Arthur halted the Anglo-Saxon invasion. Nennius

mentions that he did it by fighting twelve victorious battles against them.

Archaeology confirms the repulse of the barbarians who did not conquer any new

Briton territories for more than fifty years. German archaeologists also found out that

a number of disappointed Anglo-Saxons returned to their homelands where they

refounded their villages. However, the battles that Arthur gave, are often located by

18
scholars in sites covering almost the entire Great Britain. Thereby some researchers

question the validity of Nennius’ reference, because they believe that Arthur could not

move his army as rapidly as was necessary in such large distances. These researchers

are probably wrong: it is almost certain that the core of the army consisted of

cavalrymen and horsemen.

The Sarmato-Briton cavalry of the Arthurian period was not as heavily

armoured as the primeval Sarmatian because its horses were mostly not armoured. It

must be considered certain that there were no cataphracts in Britain at that period, just

heavy cavalry (that is to say with unarmoured horses). But this Sarmato-Briton

cavalry without the burden of the heavy horse armour, could cover large distances in

high speed in order to reach any place of the former Britannia where the Germanic,

Irish or Pict raiders were suddenly appearing, and fight them. Moreover, Arthur or the

duke or commander that he represents, could move quickly his infantry as well, taking

advantage of the excellent Roman road system of Britain. Although the Roman

administration had left since the early 5th century, the roads remained in a good

condition and they provided an important military advantage to the Britons because

they knew them very well. Using this knowledge of the road system, they could also

ambush the invaders. After all, the Romans had constructed those roads mainly for

military use.

According to legend, Arthur being abandoned by many British warlords who

envied his power, was killed in the battle of Camlann (537 or 539). Soon afterwards,

the Celts faced new hardships. The new pestilence which had occurred in the

Mediterranean around 542/543 and killed nearly half the population of

Constantinople, reached the island through maritime trade. The Britons had more

victims than the Saxons, because they used to trade with the Mediterranean countries.

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On the contrary, they had very limited contacts with the invaders who thus were not

exposed to serious infection. The Briton military strength was weakened by Arthur’s

death and the plague, and thereby collapsed. A century later, the advancing Anglo-

Saxons had conquered almost the entire modern England (excluding Cornwall and

Cumbria which were conquered later).

By inference, it is difficult to ascertain the relationship between the Sarmatians

of Britain and the Arthurian Epic Cycle. It is very likely that the medieval Britons

gave legendary dimensions to the deeds of the descendants of the Sarmatian

cavalrymen who for four centuries had defended their country, and in this way the

Arthurian Legend was born. Arthur was not a Sarmatian but he was possibly a

descendant of the Roman officer Artorius Castus or a bearer of his name as a title.

The victories of the Sarmatians in the island became legendary because of their

thrusting warfare, which differed radically from the Briton warfare of that era

(depending mostly on infantry), and because of its impressive results at the expense of

the barbarians. After all, the Empire used to hire the Sarmatian mercenaries exactly

for these military qualities of them. In any case, it must be considered a certainty that

the Sarmatians and their descendants had played a fundamental role in the defence of

Roman and Sub-Roman Britain.

NOTES

(1) Frere in his work on Roman Britain estimated its population in around

2,000,000. Collingwood had previously assumed, rather arbitrarily, a

population of 500,000. Hollingsworth, an expert in ancient/medieval

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 demography rejects both of these estimates – the first as too high and as the

second as too low – considering that the figure of the Romano-Briton

population was somewhere in the middle. Following his view, an estimate of a

population of 1-1.5 million Britons in the 3rd-4th centuries CE is very possible.

In the late 5th century the figure of 1,000,000 seems the most likely, due to the

Roman decline.

(2) The Northern Iranian group of steppe peoples was known collectively as the

Saka in Iran proper, and as the Scythians in the Greco-Roman world.

(3) Ι have to make a remark on the origins of the Normans which possibly justifies

their familiarity with mounted warfare in relation with their Alanic legacy.

The Normans are usually described as the descendants of Danish Vikings, but

actually they had little to do with them. Danish ancestry was rather limited

among the Normans as a whole. The common Norman people were mainly the

descendants of the Latinized Aulerci and Belgae Gauls of the mouth of the

Seine who adopted through their Danish overlords a Scandinavian ethnic name

(Normans, People of the North) and also a few Scandinavian elements of

culture and warfare. The primary historical donation of the Danes to the

Normans was their complete independence from France and the subsequent

making of the Norman ethnic identity. The Sarmatian Alans settled in the

region long before the Vikings, was another important ethnic component of

the later Norman nobility and common people providing the local legacy in

mounted warfare.

(4) But we do not really consider possible the theory that the modern name of

Catalonia comes from the fusion of the ethnic names of the Goths and the

Alans (Goth-Alania ~ Catalunia).

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 (5) The earliest verbal form of the word excalibur is the Latin caliburnus

originated in the Greek word chalybs (χάλυβ(α)ς) meaning the steel. The word

“chalybas” originated in the tribal name of the Chalybes, a tribe of ironsmiths

in ancient Transcaucasia encountered by the ancient Greek explorers.

According to an older theory, this is evidence for the Sarmatian origins of the

Legend of Excalibur supposedly because the Chalybes were a Sarmatian tribe.

But actually the Chalybes were not a Sarmatian but a native Kartvelian people.

SOURCES

• Nennius: Historia Britonnum, Translated by J. A. Giles.

• Gildas: The ruin of Britain and other works, translated by M. Winterbottom.

• The Annals of Wales (B), translated by John Spear.

• Arrian: Order of Battle against the Alans, Loeb Classical Library.

MODERN BIBLIOGRAPHY

• The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia, Vol. 1, Cambridge University

Press, 1990.

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 • Bernard S. Bachrach, A History of the Alans in the West, from their first

appearance in the sources of classical antiquity through the early Middle

Ages, University of Minnesota Press, 1973.

• Waldman C. and Mason C: Encyclopedia of European Peoples, New York

2006.

• Sulimirski Tadeusz: The Sarmatians, London, 1970.

• Frere Sh., Britannia: A History of Roman Britain, Harvard University Press,

1967.

• Nickel H.: From the Lands of the Scythians: Ancient Treasures from the

Museums of the U.S.S.R., 3000 B.C – 100 B.C., Metropolitan Museum of Art,

New York 1975

• Russell J. C., Late Ancient and Medieval Population, Philadelphia,

Pennsylvania: American Philosophical Society, 1958.

• Brzezinski R. and Mielczarek M.: The Sarmatians 600 BC-AD 450, Oxford,

2002.

• Collingwood R. G., Myres J. N. L., “Roman Britain and the English

Settlement”, The Journal of Roman Studies Vol. 29, 1939.

• Ashe G., The discovery of King Arthur, London, 1995.

• J. Harmatta: Studies on the History and language of the Sarmatians, Szeged,

1970.

© Periklis Deligiannis

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