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

Andrea Vaday: Military system of the Sarmatians

of where it touched Usafer's territory. We can only suppose that it must have been east of the Tisza, since the present state of research is not sufficient to draw a clear picture of the ethnic-political situation in the northern part of the Hungarian Plain or of the shared border of the Quadi and the Vandali. Nor do we know exactly where the southern border of the retreating Free Sarmatians was, but as the Csörsz Ditch divided the Vandalian territory from Sarmatia, they were probably able to find refuge to the north or northeast of the entrenchment.

26 Following the Roman campaign against the Sarmatians in April 358,

27 punitive military campaigns were launched from Brigetio against Viduarius, probably from the Aquincum region against Araharius and Usafer, from Pannónia Secunda against Zizais, and from Bononia/Acumincum and perhaps from the Pincum region against the Sarmatae Servi, which shows that the Roman campaigns were adjusted to the tribal situation on the left bank of the river. Observing the subsequent military behaviour of the Romans allows us to define the territory of the Sarmatae Servi more precisely. Ammianus Marcellinus wrote that their western border was the Tisza, which protected them from other barbarians, while the Danube provided protection against the Romans (Ammian. XVII. 13. 4). But Ammianus discussed the Sarmatae Servi in two groups, using distinctive tribal names: the Amicenses and the Picenses.

2% After having defeated the Amicenses, the Romans, together with the Sarmatae Liberi and the tribe of the Taifali, attacked their western neighbours, the tribe of the Picenses. The description is unambiguous: the defeated Amicenses were the western neighbours of the tribe along the river named after the Roman Pincum; they had common borders with the Taifali in the east and with the Sarmatae Liberi to the north.

29 The Roman troops attacked from the direction of Moesia in the punitive campaign, the Taifalian auxiliary troops invaded the territories adjacent to their own, and the Sarmatae Liberi "occupied the lands directly opposite to them" (Ammian. XVII. 13. 20). Ammianus also referred to 26 The interpretation in the archaeological literature reflects the uncertainties of the territorial units. NAGY 1973, 109, for example, described how "some [of the expelled Sarmatians] fled to the Vandalian Viktovalians who had settled north of the Körös River, east of the Quadi." This implies that the Vandalian territory was next to that of the Quadi and also that it contained the whole territory east the Tisza except for the Banat. It contradicts, at the same time, the statement that the Sarmatian entrenchment enclosed the Sarmatian territory as an ethnic-political unit. The "German" quality of the territory bound by the Körös, the Maros and the Tisza in the 4

th c. has been treated as a truism in the archaeological research (since the publication of PARDUCZ-KOREK 1946/48). (I would not like to dwell on the debate between Párducz and Bona, which started in consequence of Párducz's further research. I would only like to mention that it was related to the Gothic Marosszentana-Cherniakhov traits of the Tápé-Malajdok-Csongrád "Group".) The problem is that the "Germanic elements" appear with characteristic Sarmatian rites and material elements, and only scattered attempts have been made to refine the inner chronology of the group with reference to some grave assemblages. It remains a task for future research to determine if the appearance of alien elements among the Sarmatians means the appearance of new ethnic elements as well, or if it was only an instance of general cultural influence, which was characteristic of the period and can be observed in other regions as well. 27 According to MÓCSY 1990, 48, the punitive campaigns started from Sirmium in April 359 and 358 were one and the same, since they are described identically. He thought that the Sarmatians "must have fled into the mountains in the eastern part of the Banat" after they had lost the battle. 28 MÓCSY 1990, 47 explained the Amicenses > Acunincum, Picenses > Pincum Roman names by the fact that military control over them fell to the commanders of these two camps. He writes in the same passage that "we learn about these two groups only with regard to later events, when we also learn that they could only solve the affair of the rebelling Limigantes by settling them in two groups in the southern part of the Hungarian Plain: Amicenses and Picenses" (MÓCSY 1990, notes 47 and 19). He referred in the cited notes to Ammianus Marcellinus (XVII, 12-13- sic!). It was common in the Archaeological Manual of Pannónia to cite the sources only in general terms. Mócsy followed the same technique and did not give the numbers of the sentences within the chapters. In the cited chapters, however, there is not a word about the Romans settling the Sarmatae Servi in the description of either the battles or the peace negotiations. In the given part of the text we can read a reference to their settling farther away from the Roman borders after the termination of the punitive campaigns. This does not exclude, of course, that the Romans wanted to practise some kind of military control at Acimuncum and Pincum over the Limigantes who lived near their borders and who were involved in a feud with the Sarmatae Liberi, the allies of the Romans. 29 T. Nagy construed this in a different way. He misinterpreted Ammianus's description when he wrote (NAGY 1973, 109): "The Romans attacked them from three sides in confederation with the Taifali from Oltenia and the Sarmatians in the Danube-Tisza Interfluve." His misunderstanding must have been rooted in the fact that he marked the Tisza as the western border of the entire Limigans territory, which overlaps the border of the Amicenses but is not identical with that of the Picenses.