page_title: Alans
section_title: Early Alans
hierarchical_section_title: Alans / History / Early Alans
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of the Roman Empire in 125 during the reign of emperor Hadrian. Projection Lambert azimuthal-equal area. Central latitude: 45° N, central longitude: 20° E. X, Y origin offset - 0 Datum: ETRS89 Sources The physical map was made using the following public domain sources: Topography: NASA Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM30) data Shoreline, lakes and rivers: derived from Natural Earth data Additional references for the map content: Tacitus, Germania (ca. 100) Ptolemy, Geographia (ca. 140) Atlante storico DeAgostini, Instituto Geografico DeAgostini, 1998. pg. 35-41. Historischer Weltatlas, Dr. Walter Leisering, Marix Verlag, 2011. pg. 26-27 Történelmi világatlasz, Cartographia Kiadó, 2005. pg. 20-21. The Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Rome by Christopher Scarre, Penguin Historical Atlases, 1995. pg. 81. Software used GIS: Open JUMP GIS (open source): http://www.openjump.org/ GRASS GIS (open source): http://grass.osgeo.org/ Graphics editors: Inkscape (open source): http://inkscape.org/ GIMP (open source): http://www.gimp.org/
context_page_description: The Alans were an Iranian nomadic pastoral people of antiquity.
  The name Alan is an Iranian dialectal form of Aryan. Possibly related to the Massagetae, the Alans have been connected by modern historians with the Central Asian Yancai and Aorsi of Chinese and Roman sources, respectively. Having migrated westwards and become dominant among the Sarmatians on the Pontic Steppe, they are mentioned by Roman sources in the 1st century AD. At the time, they had settled the region north of the Black Sea and frequently raided the Parthian Empire and the Caucasian provinces of the Roman Empire. From 215–250 AD, their power on the Pontic Steppe was broken by the Goths.
  Upon the Hunnic defeat of the Goths on the Pontic Steppe around 375 AD, many of the Alans migrated westwards along with various Germanic tribes. They crossed the Rhine in 406 AD along with the Vandals and Suebi, settling in Orléans and Valence. Around 409 AD, they joined the Vandals and Suebi in the crossing of the Pyrenees into the Iberian Peninsula, settling in Lusitania and Carthaginensis. The Iberian Alans were soundly defeated by the Visigoths in 418 AD and subsequently surrendered their authority to the Hasdingi Vandals.
context_section_description: The first mentions of names that historians link with the Alani appear at almost the same time in texts from the Mediterranean, Middle East and China.
  In the 1st century AD, the Alans migrated westwards from Central Asia, achieving a dominant position among the Sarmatians living between the Don River and the Caspian Sea. The Alans are mentioned in the Vologeses inscription which reads that Vologeses I, the Parthian king between around  51 and 78 AD, in the 11th year of his reign, battled Kuluk, king of the Alani. The 1st century AD Jewish historian Josephus supplements this inscription. Josephus reports in the Jewish Wars (book 7, ch. 7.4) how Alans (whom he calls a "Scythian" tribe) living near the Sea of Azov crossed the Iron Gates for plunder (72 AD) and defeated the armies of Pacorus, king of Media, and Tiridates, King of Armenia, two brothers of Vologeses I (for whom the above-mentioned inscription was made):
  4. Now there was a nation of the Alans, which we have formerly mentioned somewhere as being Scythians, and living around Tanais and Lake Maeotis. This nation about this time laid a design of falling upon Media, and the parts beyond it, in order to plunder them; with which intention they treated with the king of Hyrcania; for he was master of that passage which king Alexander shut up with iron gates. This king gave them leave to come through them; so they came in great multitudes, and fell upon the Medes unexpectedly, and plundered their country, which they found full of people, and replenished with abundance of cattle, while nobody dared make any resistance against them; for Pacorus, the king of the country, had fled away for fear into places where they could not easily come at him, and had yielded up everything he had to them, and had only saved his wife and his concubines from them, and that with difficulty also, after they had been made captives, by giving a hundred talents for their ransom. These Alans therefore plundered the country without opposition, and with great ease, and proceeded as far as Armenia, laying waste all before them. Now, Tiridates was king of that country, who met them and fought them but was lucky not to have been taken alive in the battle; for a certain man threw a noose over him and would soon have drawn him in, had he not immediately cut the cord with his sword and escaped. So the Alans, being still more provoked by this sight, laid waste the country, and drove a great multitude of the men, and a great quantity of the other booty from both kingdoms, along with them, and then retreated back to their own country.
  The fact that the Alans invaded Parthia through Hyrcania shows that at the time many Alans were still based north-east of the Caspian Sea. By the early 2nd century AD the Alans were in firm control of the Lower Volga and Kuban. These lands had earlier been occupied by the Aorsi and the Siraces, whom the Alans apparently absorbed, dispersed and/or destroyed, since they were no longer mentioned in contemporaneous accounts. It is likely that the Alans' influence stretched further westwards, encompassing most of the Sarmatian world, which by then possessed a relatively homogenous culture.
  In 135 AD, the Alans made a huge raid into Asia Minor via the Caucasus, ravaging Media and Armenia. They were eventually driven back by Arrian, the governor of Cappadocia, who wrote a detailed report (Ektaxis kata Alanoon or 'War Against the Alans') that is a major source for studying Roman military tactics.
  From 215 to 250 AD, the Germanic Goths expanded south-eastwards and broke the Alan dominance on the Pontic Steppe. The Alans however seem to have had a significant influence on Gothic culture, who became excellent horsemen and adopted the Alanic animal style art. (The Roman Empire, during the chaos of the 3rd century civil wars, suffered damaging raids by the Gothic armies with their heavy cavalry before the Illyrian Emperors adapted to the Gothic tactics, reorganized and expanded the Roman heavy cavalry, and defeated the Goths under Gallienus, Claudius II and Aurelian).
  After the Gothic entr
caption: Europe, AD 117–138. The Alani at the time were concentrated north of the Caucasus Mountains (centre right).
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