HISTORY 15 ALANS

Alans (Alani / Geloni)
Incorporating the Alauni and Roxolani

The Alans were an Iranian steppe people with Indo-European origins, just like their regional neighbours, the Mannaeans,Medians, Persians, Scythians, and others. In the fourth century BC they effected a reverse of the Indo-European migration pattern to settle in Scythia, displacing various Scythian groups in the process (their now-distant cousins who had not taken part in the proto-Indo-European migration). Scythia consisted of the Pontic-Caspian steppe, those plains which stretch from the north coast of the Black Sea over to the Caspian Sea but, given the locations of some Alan elements in later centuries, it seems likely that their main group splintered along the way.

The name 'Alan' or 'Alani' is an altered form of the Indo-European 'Arya', meaning the 'civilised' or 'respectable. Their East Indo-European cousins were documented as calling themselves Aryans when they entered India from around 1500 BC (although the rather tainted 'Aryan' term has been replaced by modern scholars with the more accurate 'Indo-Aryan'). This rather elitist naming was presumably in reaction to the apparently barbarous people they encountered. However, in this case there is evidence of heavy contact with non-Indo-European languages, particularly from other nomads. There appears to have been heavy contact between Alans and proto-Bulgarians. For instance, the ruler of the Alans bore the proto-Bulgarian (originally Mongol language) title of 'khan'.

The Alani are first mentioned in the west by the Roman historian, Josephus, in the first century AD. He calls them a Scythian tribe living near the Don (Tanais) and the Sea of Azov. They seem to be indivisible from the Samartians and the Geloni of the same region. Herodotus mentions the Geloni (Gilans), so they were either closely related, or more likely the same group of people. The fourth century Roman writer Ammianus Marcellinus considered them to be the direct descendants of the Massagetae. There were also (probable) elements of the Alans in the form of the Alauni and Roxolani along the Danube in the first century BC, showing how far their various divisions had migrated.