Agathyrsi


Agathyrsi were a people of Scythian, or mixed Dacian-Scythian origin, who in the time of Herodotus occupied the plain of the Maris, in the mountainous part of ancient Dacia now known as Transylvania in present-day Romania. Their ruling class seems to have been of Scythian origin.

Archaeology

The Scythian arrival to the Carpathian area is dated to 700 BC.
The Agathyrsi existence is archaeologically attested by the Ciumbrud inhumation type, in the upper Mureş area of the Transylvanian plateau. In contrast with the surrounding peoples who practiced incineration, the Ciumbrud people buried their dead. These tombs, containing Scythian artistic and armament metallurgy, have moreover been dated to 550-450 BC — roughly the timeframe of Herodotus' writing. Archaeologists use the term "Thraco-Agathyrsian" to designate these characteristics, owing to the evident Thracian elements. At the time of Herodotus they were already absorbed by the native Dacians.

History

Antiquity

Fifth century BC

, writing after 450 BC, localizes the Agathyrsi to Transylvania and the outer parts of Scythia, to the proximity of the Neuri.
Later passages of Herodotus' text, related to Darius' campaign against the Scythians, again indicate that Agathyrsi dwelled next to the Neuri, i.e. even east of the Carpathians, somewhere in the western part of today's Ukraine.
Herodotus himself distinguishes the Agathyrsi from the Scythians, but he implies that they are mutually closely related. He recorded a Pontic Greek myth that the Agathyrsi were named after a legendary ancestor Agathyrsus, the oldest son of Heracles and the monster Echidna.
Herodotus also mentions that in other respects their customs approach nearly to those of the Thracians. This is to say that Agathyrsi Scythians were completely denationalized at that time.
The description of the pomp and splendor of the Agathyrsi of Transylvania is most strikingly confirmed by the discoveries made at Tufalau – though this pomp is itself really pre-Scythian in character.
Agathyrsi also appear in Herodotus' description of the expedition of Darius I of Persia against the Scythians in the N. Pontic.
Agathyrsi, Neuri, Androphagi, Melanchlaini and Tauri refused to participate in the war against Persians, claiming that "the Persians have come not against us, but against those who were the authors of the wrong".
In the second part of his campaign, Darius turned westwards and pursued two Scythian divisions at speed at a day’s distance, first through Scythian lands, then into the lands of those people who had refused alliance – Melanchlaini, Androphagi, Neuri - and finally to the border of the Agathyrsi, who stood firm and caused the Scythian divisions to return to Scythia, with Darius in pursuit.
Herodotus further records the name of Spargapeithes, a king of the Agathyrsi who killed the Scythian king Ariapeithes, in consequence, no doubt, of some border squabble or political rivalry in the lands lying between the Carpathians and the Tyras.
, in display at Aiud History Museum, Aiud, Romania.

Fourth century BC

mentions their practice of solemnly reciting their laws in a kind of sing-song to prevent their being forgotten, a practice in existence in his days, also found at Gallic Druids.
They tattooed their bodies, degrees of rank being indicated by the manner in which this was done, and colored their hair dark blue.
Aristotle was the last author to mention them as a real people. O. Maenchen-Helfen in his World of the Huns maintains that since then they had led a purely literary existence.

Roman period

First and second century AD

The Roman geographer Pomponius Mela and the historian Pliny the Elder, writing in the first century AD, also list the Agathyrsi among the steppe tribes. Pliny alludes to their "blue hair."
"Leaving Taphrae , and going along the mainland, we find in the interior the Auchetae, in whose country the Hypanis has its rise, as also the Neuroe, in whose district the Borysthenes has its source, the Geloni, the Thyssagetae, the Budini, the Basilidae, and the Agathyrsi with their azure-coloured hair. Above them are the Nomades, and then a nation of Anthropophagi or cannibals. On leaving Lake Buges , above the Lake Mæotis we come to the Sauromatæ and the Essedones".
This reference indicates that during the 1st century AD, the Agathyrsi lived somewhere in the western part of today's Ukraine. The 2nd century geographer Claudius Ptolemy lists the Agathyrsi among the tribes in 'European Sarmatia', between the Vistula and the Black Sea.

Fourth century AD

In the 380s AD, the Agathyrsi are still mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus in his Res Gestae Ch. 22.
Servius on Aeneid 4.v.146 also relates that the Agathyrsi of Scythia were known for coloring their hair blue. The slightly later, expanded text known as "Servius Danielis" further distinguished them from the Picts of Scotland who he said colored their skin blue; but some later mediaeval traditions recounted by Bede and Holinshed dubiously purported to connect the Agathyrsi of Scythia directly with the Picts of Scotland.

Legacy

The gloss preserved by Stephen of Byzantium explains that the Greeks called the Trausi the Agathyrsi and we know that the Trausi lived in the Rhodope Mountains.
In the 19th century, Niebuhr regards the Agathyrsi of Herodotus, or at least the people who occupied the position assigned to them by Herodotus, as the same people as the Getae or Dacians.

Acatziri

An old theory of 19th century writers which, according to the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, is based on 'less convincing proof', suggested an identification of the Agathyrsi with the later Agatziri or Akatziroi first mentioned by Priscus in Vol XI, 823, Byzantine History, who described them leading a nomadic life on the Lower Volga, and reported them as having been Hunnic subjects before the time of Attila. This older theory is not mentioned at all by modern scholars Helfen or Golden. According to E.A. Thompson, the conjecture that connects the Agathyrsi with Akatziri should be rejected outright.
The Acatziri were a main force of the Attila's army in 448. Attila appointed Karadach or Curidachus as the Akatzirs' chieftain..
Jordanes, who quotes Priscus in Getica, located the Acatziri to the south of the Aesti — roughly the same region as the Agathyrsi of Transylvania — and he described them as "a very brave tribe ignorant of agriculture, who subsist on their flocks and by hunting."
The Encyclopædia Britannica 1897 and 1911 editions consider the Acatziri to be precursors of the Khazars of later antiquity, although modern scholars like Professor Peter Golden, E.A. Thompson and Maenchen-Helfen consider this theory to be nothing more than conjecture and Thompson has rejected it outright. There does not seem to be any modern reputable scholar that holds such a theory as factual though no reasons have been given.