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

Mark B. Shchukin: Forgotten Bastarnae

"Zarubintsy fibulae" with triangular foot can be found only on the territory of the Balkans where the Bastarnae took part in the events of 179-168 B.C. (KASPAROVA 1981). As to the Peucini, archaeological research is difficult in the Danube delta because the river constantly changes its course. However, a settlement with PoieneçtiLukashevka pottery has been excavated in Dobruja (IRIMIA-CONOVICI 1989). Now, however, we are confronted with a very strange situation. PoieneçtiLukashevka Culture came to an end around the middle or second part of the 1

st c. B.C. (MACHINSKIJ 1966; BABES 1993), with Zarubintsy Culture ending a little later, during the first half and not later than the middle of the 1

st c. A.D. (KASPAROVA 1976; SHCHUKIN 1972; SHCHUKIN 1989, 302-314), yet the name of the Bastarnae did not disappear from the history of the period. Dio Cassius described how the Bastarnae tried to cross the Danube in 29 B.C. and settle on the territory of the Roman Empire but were defeated by the governor of Macedonia, Marcus Crassus (Dio Cass. LI, 23-25), who organised a campaign against the Bastarnian lands. They were also known to Pliny the Elder, who described the distribution of various Germanic tribes in the 1

st c. A.D. According to him, the Bastarnae were one of five large Germanic groups and inhabited the territories somewhere to the eastnortheast of the Carpathians (Plin. H.N. IV, 80-81; SHCHUKIN 1989, 276-286). Pliny must have known the situation in the North Pontic region and in the Carpathian Basin rather well, since he was a close friend of the governors of the Roman province of Moesia in the Lower Danube basin, Flavius Sabinus and Plautius Silvanus. He also discussed several issues with the imprisoned king of the Bosporan Kingdom, Mithridates VIII, in Rome (SKRZHÏNSKAIA 1977). Given their positions, these individuals must have been well informed regarding the political and geographical situation in the region. Pliny the Elder wrote: "From this point (north of the Lower Danube - M.S.) all the races in general are Scythian, though various sections have occupied the lands adjacent to the coast, in one place the Getae, called by the Romans Dacians, at another the Sarmatae, called by the Greeks Sauromatae... The higher parts between the Danube and the Hercynian Forest as far as the winter quarters of Pannónia at Carnuntum and the plains and level country of the German frontiers there are occupied by the Sarmatian Jazyges, while the Dacians whom they have driven out hold the mountains andforests as far as the river Pathissum (Tisza). From the river Maro, or else the Duria if is that which separates them from the Suebi and Kingdom of Vannius, the opposite side of the country is occupied by the Basternae and then other German tribes" (Plin. H.N. IV, XII, 80-81). Pliny's description corresponds fully to the archaeological evidence (SHCHUKIN 1994, 226-228): the kingdom of Vannius was situated in the southwestern part of modern Slovakia near Bratislava. Some cemeteries of his subjects (Sládkovicevo and others) were excavated by T. Kölnik (KOLNÍK 1980). Dacians truly did reach the Upper Tisza basin, where their fortified settlement at Malaia Kopania was excavated by Kotigoroshko (KOTIGOROSHKO 1981; KOTIGOROSHKO 1983). Further eastward, perhaps beyond the Carpathian Mountains, some territories were inhabited by the Bastarnae.