Massagers
The massagers were an Iranian equestrian people who lived in the 6th century BC. . AD a tribe - confederation formed, which is also the Saken joined. The home of the massagers was between the Caspian Sea and the Aral Sea on the rivers Oxus ( Amu Darya ) and Jaxartes ( Syr Darya ). The name Massageten is explained in different ways, e.g. B. as "Fischervolk" or "Great Horde" (W. Tomaschek 1889) or as " Great Geten " (H. Kothe 1969).
Mention in historiography
Antiquity
The Greek historian Herodotus (484–425 BC) reports in his histories that it was around 530 BC. BC came to fights between the massagers and the Persians under their conqueror Cyrus II (around 590-530 BC), during which the son of the massage queen Tomyris died. Tomyris then defeated the Persians, and Cyrus II was fatally wounded on the bank of the Araxes River . Only King Dareios I managed to make up for the Persian defeat when he used the massagers on a campaign between 518 and 516 BC. Chr. Subjugated.
Herodotus describes the clothing of the massagers as similar to those of the Scythians , their armament consisted of bows , lances and battle axes, and many women warriors took part in the battle. Herodotus names the Scythians in the west and the Saks and Isedones in the east as neighbors of the massagers . The spread of the massagers was the trigger for the westward migration of the Scythians. Herodotus also attests to the veneration of the sun by the massagers to whom they sacrificed horses. Also Pomponius Mela knows the Massagetae as residents of the Caspian Sea.
The Persian Spitamenes succeeded 329–328 BC. With the help of Scythian auxiliary troops, which probably consisted mainly of massage riders, to achieve significant successes against various army divisions of Alexander the great . In the end, however, he was murdered by the massagers after a decisive defeat, as they did not want to expose themselves to an expected attack by the Macedonian conqueror.
Some time later, the Massageten Confederation was merged into the Sarmatian Union .
middle Ages
For some authors of the Middle Ages , the term massager appears in connection with a tribe in the Baltic States . Hartmann Schedel, for example, mentions the massagers in his world chronicle of 1493 as residents of an area between Prussia and Livonia .
“Between Eyfland and Prussia there is a small land, maybe a tagrays prayt, but almost long from the presses there is Eyfland. In it a folk massage is called that is neither Haidnisch nor quite cristglawbig and yet defies Polish violence. and from there the army extends to the sea. "
This is probably due to a confusion with the historical name Samagetae for the Žemaites or (Samogites), a Lower Lithuanian tribe that settled in the area described.
See also
literature
- Christo Danoff : Massage tai. In: The Little Pauly (KlP). Volume 3, Stuttgart 1969, column 1065 f.
Web links
- Rüdiger Schmitt : massagers . In: Ehsan Yarshater (Ed.): Encyclopædia Iranica , as of April 11, 2018 (English, including references)
- Hermann Sauter: Massageten und Issedonen (2000, from: "Studies on the Kimmerierproblem")
- Engelbert Hellen: The Magnanimous Tomyris (2005, summary of the Massageten opera by Reinhard Keizer from 1717 )
- Paul Halsall: Herodotus: Queen Tomyris of the Massagetai and the Defeat of the Persians under Cyrus (University of New York 1998)
- Mention of the massage therapists in Schedel's world chronicle
- Pietro U. Dini on the incorrect use of the term 'massagers' by various authors of the Middle Ages
Remarks
- ↑ Karasulas, Antony. Mounted Archers Of The Steppe 600 BC-AD 1300 (Elite). Osprey Publishing, 2004
- ^ Herodotus: Histories I 204-215.
- ↑ Herodotus: Historien IV 25.
- ↑ Herodotus: Historien IV 11, 1.
- ↑ Pomponius Mela: Chorographia 1, 12.
- ↑ Arrian : Anabasis 4, 17, 7; among others
- ↑ Hartmann Schedel: Nürnberger Chronik . P. 279.
- ↑ Cf. Pietro U. Dini: Illuc erant leones. Paleokomparatyvistinės idėjos apie Žemaitijos at Žemaičių vardą . // Baltistica. 2003, Vol. 37/2, pp. 307-315.