The Getae: The noblest and the just of the Thracian tribes (according to Herodotus)

Every time I read something about the Getae, I envision the skull wearing savage warriors depicted in the opening battle scenes of the Starz series "Spartacus." But according to Herodotus, the Getae were "the noblest as well as the most just of all the Thracian tribes."  When Lysimachus tried to subdue the Getae he was defeated by them. The Getae king, Dromichaetes, took him prisoner but he treated him well and convinced Lysimachus there is more to gain as an ally than as an enemy of the Getae and released him. According to Diodorus, Dromichaetes entertained Lysimachus at his palace at Helis, where food was served on gold and silver plates. The discovery of the celebrated tomb at Sveshtari (1982) suggests that Helis, the capital of the Getae, was located perhaps in its vicinity, where remains of a large antique city are found along with dozens of other Thracian mound tombs.

The Getae were several Thracian-related tribes that once inhabited the regions to either side of the Lower Danube, in what is today northern Bulgaria and southern Romania. Their proximity to Greek colonies on the Black Sea coast brought the Getae into contact with the Greeks at an early date. 

There seems to be disagreement among scholars whether the Getae and Dacians were separate peoples. In his Geographic (c. 7 BC – 20 CE), Strabo said the Dacians lived in the western parts of Dacia, "towards Germania and the sources of the Danube", while the Getae lived in the eastern parts, towards the Black Sea, both south and north of the Danube but both cultures spoke the same language as the Thracians. Justin, the 3rd century CE Latin historian, wrote in his "Epitome of Pompeius Trogus" that Dacians are spoken of as descendants of the Getae.  In his Roman History, Cassius Dio observes "I call the people Dacians, the name used by the natives themselves as well as by the Romans, though I am not ignorant that some Greek writers refer to them as Getae, whether that is the right term or not..."  According to Herodotus, the Getae differed from other Thracian tribes in their religion, centered around the god (daimon) Zalmoxis whom some of the Getae called Gebeleizis.

Herodotus says the Getae were one of the conquered tribes of the  Scythian campaign of Darius I in 513 BCE. But by the 5th century BCE through the 3rd century BCE,  the Getae were mostly under the rule of the flourishing Odrysian kingdom. During this time, the Getae provided military services and became famous for their cavalry. 

After the disintegration of the Odrysian kingdom, the Getic principalities began to consolidate themselves. By about 200 BCE, strong Getic princes such as Zalmodegicus had extended their domain as far as Histria near the mouth of the Danube River. They minted their own coins and practiced a ruler cult.

In 72–71 BCE Marcus Terentius Varro Lucullus became the first Roman commander to march against the Getae. This was done to strike at the western Pontic allies of Mithridates VI, but he had limited success. A decade later, a coalition of Scythians, Getae, Bastarnae and Greek colonists defeated C. Antonius Hybrida at Histria. This victory over the Romans allowed Burebista, the leader of this coalition, to organize a kingdom consisting of descendants of those whom the Greeks had called Getae, as well as Dacians, or Daci, the name applied to people of the region by the Romans and he ruled independently from 60–50 BCE.

Meanwhile, Augustus aimed at subjugating the entire Balkan peninsula, and used an incursion of the Bastarnae, a Celtic or Germanic people depending on which ancient source you accept, who crossed the Danube, as a pretext to devastate the Getae and Thracians. He put Marcus Licinius Crassus in charge of the plan. In 29 BCE, Crassus defeated the Bastarnae with the help of the Getic prince Rholes. Crassus promised him help for his support against the Getic ruler Dapyx. After Crassus had reached as far as the Danube Delta, Rholes was appointed king and Crassus returned to Rome. In 16 BCE, the Sarmatae invaded the Getic territory and were driven back by Roman troops. The Getae were placed under the control of the Roman vassal king in Thrace, Rhoemetalces I. In 6 CE, the province of Moesia was founded, incorporating the Getae south of the Danube River. The Getae north of the Danube continued tribal autonomy outside the Roman Empire.

Skull-wearing Getae warrior of Starz series "Spartacus".

Getae warrior (Thracians related to the Dacians) armed with two specimens of the fearsome falx, courtesy of artist Mariusz Kozik.

A Geto-Dacian helmet dating from the 4th century BCE known as the Helmet of Iron Gates, Mehedinţi County, Romania, now in the collections of the Detroit Institute of Arts, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Codrin B.

Gilded silver Getae-Dacian helmet found in Peretu at the National Museum of Romanian History in Bucharest, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Sailko.

Detail of a Gilded silver Getae-Dacian helmet found in Peretu at the National Museum of Romanian History in Bucharest, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Cristian Chirita

Gilded silver Getae-Dacian helmet, part of the Aghighiol treasure of Getae-Dacian artifacts at the National Museum of Romanian History in Bucharest, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Cristian Chirita.

Detail of Getae-Dacian horseman on a helmet, part of the Aghighiol treasure of Getae-Dacian artifacts at the National Museum of Romanian History in Bucharest, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Cristian Chirita.

Getae aristocratic portrait in gilded silver from Peretu 5th-4th century BCE now in the National Museum of Romanian History in Bucharest, courtesy of https://romanianhistoryandculture.webs.com/

Beaker with birds and animals, Thraco-Getian, 4th century BC, silver, height: 18.7 cm (7.4 in), Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor, Marie-Lan Nguyen.

Bottom of a Silver Getae-Dacian beaker depicting mythical beasts, part of the Aghighiol treasure of Getae-Dacian artifacts at the National Museum of Romanian History in Bucharest, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Cristian Chirita.

Gilt silver tableware from the princely burial of Peretu, Getae, 310-290 BCE, at the National Museum of Romanian History in Bucharest, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Sailko.

Aghighiol treasure of Getae-Dacian artifacts at the National Museum of Romanian History in Bucharest, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Cristian Chirita.

Tropeum Traiani Metope commemorating the Battle of Adamclisi, Roman, showing Dacian warriors wielding a two-handed falx, , courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Cristian Chirita.

A Geto-Dacian Rhyton dating from the last half of the 4th century or the first half of the 3rd BCE at the National Museum of Romanian History courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Cristian Chirita.

Closeup ​of a gold disc embossed with a helmeted head of Athena recovered from the Great Tumulus of Sveshtari in the Getae Capital, courtesy of https://aktuelarkeoloji.com.tr/kategori/guncel-kazilar/getae-baskenti-buyuk-sveshtari-tumulus

Gold ​applique depicting a female head, Getae, Athena recovered from the Great Tumulus of Sveshtari in the Getae Capital, courtesy of https://aktuelarkeoloji.com.tr/kategori/guncel-kazilar/getae-baskenti-buyuk-sveshtari-tumulus

Gilded Getae-Dacian Greave, part of the Aghighiol treasure of Getae-Dacian artifacts at the National Museum of Romanian History in Bucharest, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Cristian Chirita.

Getae-Dacian Greave, part of the Aghighiol treasure of Getae-Dacian artifacts at the National Museum of Romanian History in Bucharest, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Cristian Chirita.

Getae-Dacian animorphic gilt silver disk , part of the Aghighiol treasure of Getae-Dacian artifacts at the National Museum of Romanian History in Bucharest, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Cristian Chirita.

The Thracian Tomb of Sveshtari, 3rd century BCE, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Interact-Bulgaria.

 

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Sarmatians: Descendants of the Amazons?

Herodotus (4.110–117) tells us some Amazons were captured in battle by Greeks in Pontus (northern Turkey) near the river Thermodon, and the captives were loaded into three boats. They overcame their captors while at sea, but were not able sailors. The boats were blown north to the Maeotian Lake (the Sea of Azov) onto the shore of Scythia near the cliff region (today's southeastern Crimea). After encountering the Scythians and learning the Scythian language, the Amazons agreed to marry Scythian men, but only on the condition that they move away from Scythia and not be required to follow the customs of Scythian women.

Hippocrates described these warlike women.

"Their women, so long as they are virgins, ride, shoot, throw the javelin while mounted, and fight with their enemies. They do not lay aside their virginity until they have killed three of their enemies, and they do not marry before they have performed the traditional sacred rites. A woman who takes to herself a husband no longer rides, unless she is compelled to do so by a general expedition. They have no right breast, for while they are yet babies their mothers make red-hot a bronze instrument constructed for this very purpose and apply it to the right breast and cauterize it, so that its growth is arrested, and all its strength and bulk are diverted to the right shoulder and right arm."

Their descendants settled beyond the Tanais (Don) river and became the cultural group known to the Romans as Sarmatians. Strabo said the Sarmatians extended from above the Danube eastward to the Volga, and from north of the Dnieper River into the Caucasus and at some point had intermarried with the Thracians (7.3.2).

These "wagon-dwellers" and "milk eaters" wore long flowing robes similar to those of the Persians according to Tacitus and by the third century BCE, the Sarmatian name appears to have supplanted the Scythian in the plains of what now is south Ukraine.

With iron a rare commodity on the steppes, the eastern Sarmatians used bone and wood for weapons and armor made of horse's hooves. Pausanius, who found a Sarmatian breastplate among votive offerings near the Athenian Acropolis in the 2nd century CE, describes the process:

"Each man keeps many mares, since the land is not divided into private allotments, nor does it bear any thing except wild trees, as the people are nomads. These mares they not only use for war, but also sacrifice them to the local gods and eat them for food. Their hoofs they collect, clean, split, and make from them as it were python scales. Whoever has never seen a python must at least have seen a pine-cone still green. He will not be mistaken if he liken the product from the hoof to the segments that are seen on the pine-cone. These pieces they bore and stitch together with the sinews of horses and oxen, and then use them as breastplates that are as handsome and strong as those of the Greeks. For they can withstand blows of missiles and those struck in close combat."

They also used lassos during combat in which they would lasso an enemy then turn quickly to unseat the rider. Their weapons and tactics were formidable enough to defeat two Roman legions in Pannonia in late 374 CE as recorded by Ammianus Marcellinus. This was in spite of the fact that Sarmatians had previously served in the Roman army. In the fourth and fifth centuries when the Huns expanded and conquered both the Sarmatians and the Germanic tribes living between the Black Sea and the borders of the Roman Empire, the Sarmatians fought with the Huns against a combination of Roman and Germanic troops but their alliance was shattered at the brutal  Battle of the Catalaunian Plains in 451 CE followed by the death of Attila two years later.  The Sarmatians returned to their traditional homeland and were eventually assimilated and absorbed by Proto-Slavic tribes during the early Middle Ages.

I have greatly condensed key points in the rise and fall of the Sarmatians. I highly recommend reading much more about them here:  https://weaponsandwarfare.com/2017/10/14/the-sarmatians/

Gold diadem with amethyst, almandine, garnets, turquoise, coral and glass inlays, Sarmato-Alanian Culture, 1st century CE, found near the modern city of city of Novocherkassk, Russia, now in the collections of the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia, image courtesy of the museum.

Gold bridle ornament depicting a stag, Sarmatian, 5th-3rd century BCE, now in the collections of the Cleveland Museum of Art, image courtesy of the museum.

Reconstruction of Sarmatian chieftain. Araltobe mount, Kazakhstan, III-II cc. BC. Excavation of Z. Samashev. "Heritage of the Great Steppe" exhibition, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Аимаина хикари.

Disc brooch, Sarmatian, c. 150-100 BC, gold, chalcedony, carnelian, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Daderot.

Sarmatian cataphracts (who fought for the Dacians) during the Dacian Wars as depicted on Trajan's Column, 113 CE, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Oval brooch with intaglio of Athena, Sarmatian, c. 100 BC, gold, carnelian, garnet, rock crystal, glass, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Daderot.

Battle between the Slavs and the Scythians (Sarmatians) — painting by Viktor Vasnetsov (1881), courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

 

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Barbarians in Roman art

From the 1st century BCE onwards, the Roman army began to deploy "barbarians" to protect Roman frontiers. This trend continued into the Imperial Period and the expanded borders necessitated the use of increasing numbers of foederati to defend the empire.  By the 4th century CE, of more than 75,000 troops stationed in Gaul, most hailed from Germania, an area stretching as far north as Scandinavia and as far east as the Vistula River.  

Fortunately for historians, the grave goods of these Germanic warriors both in and outside the empire have provided a treasure trove of information about the money, gifts, and often elaborately decorated military insignia these men acquired during their service to Rome.  

"Promises of Roman citizenship and military and economic support encouraged barbarian leaders to assist their wealthy neighbor, primarily by providing troops," observes Melanie Holcomb in her paper, Barbarians and Romans, published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  "Such arrangements permitted barbarians of high status to accumulate great wealth, in the form of direct gifts of jewelry from the empire and payments in gold coin. These, in turn, could be used to commission luxury objects of personal adornment from local artists."

However, although Rome depended on these "others," Roman citizens and the state itself wished to distinguish themselves which they perceived as civilized from their more barbarous residents not only in social situations but in art.  They did this through words, customs, clothing, and the use of colored marbles and brightly painted patterns in statues of barbarians or easterners in Roman art.

"The clothing we wear, and imagine others wearing, is an important way we signal who we are, and aren’t," points out Sarah Bond and Sean Burrus in their paper 'Barbarians and Sculpture's Color Barrier in Ancient Rome'.  "When Romans wanted to depict other non-Roman peoples, whether on statues, reliefs, mosaics, or frescoes, they often used clothing as a way to visually signal differences between them. For example, Romans typically depicted barbarians clothed in trousers. Although we take them for granted today, pants were once highly controversial indicators of the difference between the barbarian and the Roman citizen. "

In the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE at Dura-Europas, Roman soldiers in the local garrison are portrayed in military dress while local civilians are depicted in tunics and trousers. Parthian dress including trousers, a tunic, and a Phrygian cap associated with the followers of Mithras and easterners in general, adorn depictions of individuals in the local mithraeum.

The use of distinguishing color in sculpture included colored marbles to accentuate the difference between native Romans and local residents. By so doing, sculptors could not only take advantage of the stone's ability to add a dynamic aspect to the work but communicate social context to the viewer.

In addition to clothing and color, artists used gestures and poses to transmit the subordinate nature of the conquered peoples.  The vanquished are often depicted kneeling or supporting objects or structures.

Read more about it: https://hyperallergic.com/440466/barbarians-and-sculptures-color-barrier-in-ancient-rome/

 

Closeup of The Ludovisi Gaul thought to be a Roman copy of Greek original by Epigonus commissioned by Julius Caesar 1st century BCE that I photographed at the Palazzo Altemps in Rome

The Ludovisi Gaul thought to be a Roman copy of Greek original by Epigonus commissioned by Julius Caesar 1st century BCE that I photographed at the Palazzo Altemps in Rome

Statue of a conquered barbarian, likely a Dacian. He is wearing a Phrygian cap. The statue dates to the second century CE, perhaps during the reign of Trajan, and it may come from Forum of Trajan in Rome. It is made of green breccia marble from Egypt and is now at the Louvre Museum in Paris (image by Carole Raddato, CC-BY-SA-2.0)

Closeup of Seated Captive in Phyrgian Cap Roman 1st-2nd century CE Green Egyptian Marble that I photographed at The Louvre in Paris.

Closeup of Heroic Head of a Barbarian (probably a Gaul) 2nd century CE Roman copy of 250-180 BCE Greek original reportedly from Trajan's Forum that I photographed at "The Body Beautiful in Ancient Greece" exhibit at the Portland (Oregon) Art Museum.

Closeup of Heroic Head of a Barbarian (probably a Gaul) 2nd century CE Roman copy of 250-180 BCE Greek original reportedly from Trajan's Forum that I photographed at "The Body Beautiful in Ancient Greece" exhibit at the Portland (Oregon) Art Museum.

Statue of “Capitoline Gaul” also known as "Dying Gaul" From a Pergamene original Marble that I photographed at the Capitoline Museum in Rome.

Grand Ludovisi Battle Sarcophagus depicting Roman conquest of Barbarians 2nd - 3rd century CE Proconnesian Marble  that I photographed at the Palazzo Altemps in Rome.

Closeup of Colossal statue of a Dacian Roman 2nd century CE that I photographed at the Palazzo Altemps in Rome.

Portrait Head of a Barbarian (probably a Dacian) Roman Trajanic Period  1st - 2nd century CE Marble that I photographed at the Seattle Art Museum

Roman bronze statuette of a barbarian, 1-100 CE, now in the collections of the Cleveland Art Museum in Cleveland, Ohio, image courtesy of the museum (CC0 1.0)

The ‘Kneeling Barbarian’ sculpture from the Palatine Hill in Rome, dates to the first century CE, made of pavonazzo marble and nero antico, in the Naples National Archaeological Museum (image by Carole Raddato, CC-BY-SA-2.0)

Front seated figure from the Mithraeum at Dura-Europos wearing a Phrygian cap (image courtesy of the Yale University Art Gallery and is in the public domain)

Julius Terentius Performing a Sacrifice, paint on plaster, from Dura-Europos and dating to the third century CE (image courtesy of the Yale University Art Gallery and is in the public domain)

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