ROMANS IN RUSSIA

The Bosporan Kingdom and the neighbouring Roman Provinces

Regnum Bospori: a large Client State of the Roman Empire.

Боспорское царство - великое «государство-сателлит» Римской империи

Il Regnum Bospori, un importante satellite dell' Impero Romano

Le Royaume du Bospore, un important état client de l' Empire Romain

Konigreich Bosporus, ein wichtiger Satellit des Roemischen  Kaiserreichs.

Asander and Dynamis were the ruling monarchs of the Regnum Bospori until Caesar commanded a paternal uncle of Dynamis, Mithridates, to declare war on the Bosporan Kingdom and claimed the kingship for himself. Asander and Dynamis were defeated by Caesar’s ally and had gone into political exile. However after Caesar’s death in 44 BC, the Bosporan Kingdom was restored to Asander and Dynamis by Octavian . Asander ruled as an Archon and later as King until his death in 17 BC. After the death of Asander, Dynamis was compelled to marry a Roman called Scribonius, but the Romans under statesman Marcus Agrippa  set Polemon I(16 BC - 8 BC) as King of Pontus  in his place. Polemon married Dynamis in 16 BC and she died in 14 BC. Polemon ruled as King until his death in 8 BC. After the death of Polemon, Aspurgus, the son of Dynamis and Asander, succeeded Polemon.

The Bosporan Kingdom of Aspurgus was a "Client State" of the Roman Empire, helped by Roman garrisons. Aspurgus (8 BC - 38) founded a line of kings which endured with certain interruptions until 341. Aspurgus adopted the Roman names "Tiberius Julius" because he received Roman citizenship and enjoyed the patronage of Augustus and Tiberius. All of the following kings adopted these two Roman names followed by a third name, mostly of Pontic or Thracian origin , but also of local origin .

The kings adopted the "Pontic Era" introduced by Mithridates VI, which started with 297 BC; this era was used to date coins. Bosporan kings struck coinage throughout the kingdom period .  Their kingdom covered the eastern half of Crimea and the Taman peninsula, and extended along the east coast of the Azof Sea  to the mouth of the Don, a great market for trade with the interior.

They carried on a perpetual war with the native tribes, and in this were supported by their Roman suzerains, who even lent the assistance of garrison and fleet. The Bosporan Kingdom was incorporated as a part of the Roman Province of Moesia Inferior from 63-68. In 68, the new Roman Emperor Galba had restored the Bosporan Kingdom 

At one of these periods (255) the Goths and Borani were able to seize Bosporan shipping and raid the shores of Anatolia.

Besides influencing the Regnum Bospori, Romans controlled the town of Tyras (present days Tiraspol, capital city of the Republic of Transdnistria) .

Latin influence is strongly felt in the Romanian and Moldovan languages spoken in that area. Moreover, Russian rulers often were pleased in making reference to Roman cultural and political traditions, which is self evident in the denominations “Tsar’” (“Caesar”),Tsar’stvo “Kaiserreich”),Tretij Rim”Third Rome” (“Translatio Imperii”), “Imperator”, “Imperija” (“Imperium”), and, even, by constrast,”Respublika” (“Res Publica”).

Paradoxically, Roman words are present in Russian more than in many other Slavonic languages ( the names of the months;  “avion” instead of “zrakoplov”;"aeroport" instead of "aerodrom"; “kanikuli” instead of “odmor”; “Italija” instead of “Wlochy”; “Germanija”  instead of “Njemacka”; "President" instead of "predsedvik"; "Universitet" instead of "Sveuciliste", a.s.o.).

Plan twój gotycko-sarmacki Podoba się mi lepiej niż spór adwokacki (I like your Gothic and Sarmatic project better than a lawyer's lawsuit).

Roman-Sarmatian Draconarii

Sarmatism: a deeply  rooted tradition in Center-Estern Europe. Сармати́зм-коренная традиция средне-восточной Европы. Il sarmatismo, una tradizione radicata nell' Europa centrale e orientale. Le Sarmatisme, une tradition bien enraciné dans l'Europe Centre-Orientale. Sarmatismus, eine tief  gewuerzelte Tradition in Mittel-osteuropa.

That strong kinship, perceived by Herodotus, between the Greeks, from one part, and the Scythians, from the other, was still more visible for what concerns the Sarmatæ, or Sauromates, a people which should have been, to a certain extent, the “missing link” between the Greeks and the Scythians. In fact, according to the myths of Jason and the Argonauts and Theseus, the Sarmatæ had been generated by the intermarriage between the Greeks and the Amazons, a people of single women living among Scythians, although Jordanes traces a mythical descent from Goths. The Sarmatians are very similar, on the other side, to ancient Alans or Jasians (and today Ossetians), which have preserved the ancient traditions of Indo-Europeans peoples to such extent, that Georges Dumézil utilized their national epos for illustrating some of the permanent features of all Aryan civilizations.  The Sauromates and the Alans lived in an area, between Southern Ukraine, Crimea and Caucasus, which had been heavily colonized by the Greeks. An echo of such colonization is constituted by the myth of Iphigenia in Taurid, illustrated by Greek tragedies. According to Goethe and Adorno, Iphigenia constitutes the best personification of transcultural humanism, which overcomes hatred and violence.

The Regnum Bospori, created by Scythians/Sarmatians around Crimea and the Azov Sea (an area linked also to the myths of ancient German Gods, called Æsir –“Iasians”?- and Vanir, which, according to Norse Sagar, had migrated into Sweden from Asgard, in Scythia), after having been the stronghold of the arch-enemy Mitridates, was, for a long time, a satellite of the Roman and of the Byzantine Empires. According to ancient Russian historiography, already the Apostole Andrew and St. Clement should have reached in these territories (where Christendom is reported to be present already in very ancient times). Sarmatians have also been reported to have served with Roman Legions in Brittany along the Vallum Hadrianum, to have had, as their symbol, the Iranian and Chinese “drake”, similar to the one find in the Perm Gubernija in Siberia (“Draconarii”), and, finally, to be the ancestors of King Arthur.

As it is well known, also the Poles attributed a large interest to the cultural heritage of the Sarmatæ, being, the latter,  a warlike people of steppes, influenced by Greco-Roman civilization, and, hence, similar to the aristocracies of the “Republic” of Poland and Lithuania. During the XVI, XVII and XVIII Century, these Polish and Lithuanians aristocracies (“Szlachta”) vindicated their  origins from ancient Sarmatæ (“Sarmatizm”), so justifying the claim of the Kingdom of Poland to stretch eastwards, alongside the Northern bank of the Black Sea, which, at those times, was a Tatar Khanate under growing Turkish influence.

Together with "Golden Liberty" it formed a central aspect of the Commonwealth's culture. It is notv a case that the Polish officials of those times wore anachronistic neo-hellenistic weaponry, that they claimed to be Thraco-Sarmatian, together with flags fixed on the horsebacks, deived probably, by the tenure of old Han Chinese herals (probably imitated by steppes peoples like the Huns). In civil life, Szlachta wore a long coat, trimmed with fur, called a Zupan, and thigh-high boots, and carried a saber (szabla). Even in battle, they used tho wear the armor under the zupan. Mustaches, like the ones of Lech Walesa, were also popular (“oni z wlasami”), as well as varieties of plumage in the menfolk's headgear. Poland's "Sarmatians" strove for the status of a nobility on horseback, for equality among themselves, and for invincibility in the face of other peoples Sarmatism considerably influenced the noble cultures of other contemporary states — Moldova,Transylvania,Wallachia, Hungary,  Croatia, and even Muscovy- . 

     The term was first used  by Jan Dlugosz in his 15th century work on the history of Poland. Mickiewicz, in his “Pan Tadeusz”, in protraying Polish-Lithuanian aristocracy during Napoleon wars, utilizes ironically the words “ Gotycko-Sarmacki ”. Sarmatism enjoyed a triumphant comeback with The Tilogy  of Henryk Sienkiewicz, Poland's first Nobel Laureate(1905).