Where Did Rausimod Come From?

• Authors: Doležal Stanislav
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

In his New History, Zosimus narrates that some time before 324, Sarmatian warriors led by king Rausimod and coming from an area near the Sea of Azov, had crossed the Danube and laid waste to Roman territory before being pursued by Constantine and utterly destroyed on barbarian soil. I argue that their home was probably the Bosporan kingdom, which was then largely Sarmatian in its culture, and that the province which suffered from their incursion was Scythia minor, and not Moesia or even Pannonia, as scholarly accounts tend to claim. Other Sarmatian attacks on the Danubian frontier, recorded by the poet Optatianus, and a Gothic invasion, mentioned by the Origo Constantini imperatoris, were in all probability different events and should not be conflated with Rausimod’s Sarmatian invasion, although the king himself may have been a Goth or a Sarmatian with a Gothic name. The year of both invasions seems to be 323, the Gothic invasion preceding the Sarmatian one. On the verge of the civil war, Constantine encroached upon Licinius’ territory to destroy Rausimod, to defy Licinius, and to show the world that he was now in control of the whole Danubian frontier.

Keywords

EN

Constantine the Great; Sarmatians; Goths

Discipline

• HISTORY: HISTORY
• PHILOLOGY_&_LINGUISTICS: PHILOLOGY & LINGUISTICS

• Publisher: Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Eirene. Studia Graeca et Latina
• Year: 2018
• Volume: 54
• Issue: 1-2
• Pages: 155-167

Contributors

author

Doležal Stanislav

• University of South Bohemia, Faculty of Philosophy, Institute of History, Branišovská 1645/31a, 370 05 České Budějovice, Czech Republic