Istvánovits Eszter: International Connections... (Jósa András Múzeum Kiadványai 47. Aszód-Nyíregyháza, 2001)

Andrea Vaday: Military system of the Sarmatians

BaaiÀsiçôsuTspoç suggests that the Sarmatians had undergone an internal transformation since -68/69 and that the king of the Jazygian main body already ruled over the tribal leaders. The question remains as to what kind of power function the name BaaiÀsiç ôsurepoç conceals.

9 We have no firm data to determine if it refers to the nomadic dual sovereignty of sacral king - military king, although A. Alföldi (ALFÖLDI 1942,174, note 26) has favoured this idea.

10 The taciturn description recounts how Viceroy Banadaspos was captured and made a scapegoat by the Jazygians who appeared before the Romans to conclude peace, shifting the responsibility of the war upon him. It cannot be ascertained if they sacrificed him to the Romans to rescue the main king, whose name is not even mentioned, or if he was indeed solely responsible for the military events. The term used for Banadaspos's rank, however, unquestionably implies that his place in the Sarmatian order of ranks was somewhere between the main king and the aristocracy. We do not have definite data to tell when the rank of Jazygian viceroy was established, but the picture seems to have been significantly more complex than the internal tribal structure of more than a hundred years before. It is possible that the appearance in the region of the larger part of the Jazygian tribe, led by the king, caused a change during the course of which the smaller local tribal group found itself at a disadvantage in terms of numbers yet strengthened by its knowledge of local circumstances (contacts with the Romans and the neighbouring Quadi). Most likely, the larger and stronger tribal unit took over the leadership, but the smaller group used its familiarity with local conditions to retain an important role in the governing of Sarmatia. It thus seems probable that the viceroy was elected from among the principes of the Jazyges Metanastae and charged with the development of the relationship with the Roman and the barbarian allies. He may also have been the military commander of the barbarian army. R

ex == BaatÀsiç Subregulus = BacTiÀsiç âzurspoç Optimates = bt xpcûTOt It is difficult to ascertain the extent of Roman control over the Hungarian Plain in the times following the Marcomannic Wars. Only a single military establishment is known, at Mezőzombor on one of the northern roads.

11 Roman military belt mounts and other objects related to the army are better interpreted as objects plundered during the war than evidence of the actual presence of the Roman army (Tiszafüred-Lipcsey kert: VADAY 1989A, Kat. 324, Taf. 112). From the end of the 2

nd c, the region entered a period of economic growth that ended only with the surrender of the province of Dacia. The literary sources say nothing about the social order of the Sarmatians. The uniformity of the find material and its relatively even distribution suggest, however, that the Sarmatian populational fragments arriving in 9 Cassius Dio uses the singular, which allows two interpretations: 1. There is only one viceroy; 2. The author did not think it necessary to use the genitivus partitivus since he was just mentioning the event and the exact rank of the barbarians was not important to him. The question cannot be decided here, since the data of the event history of the 4

th c. cannot be automatically related back to the 2

nd c. 10 Alföldi did not differentiate between the scattered data with regard to chronology, although the immigration waves of the Sarmatian tribes and tribal fragments arriving one after the other caused a change in the social stratification and the inner power system of the Carpathian Basin. 11 Excavation by Katalin Simán. I thank her for the information.