Borysthenes Alanus

Salve,
July has begun, hopefully it will be a good month for all of you, dear web visitors.
Today a little ancient horse story.
I  introduced the story of the Sarmatian/Alan horses among the Romans during the ancient empire in this post.
I also wrote there about the emperor Hadrian's mount Borysthenes Alanus. This hunter's name was preserved for posterity because a poem was written and it is thought  that the poem had been composed by Hadrian himself. 
Lately  I copied the poem in its Latin original that is thought to have been carved in stone as a part of a funerary monument set upon this horse's grave.

 Borysthenes Alanus,                                       
 
  Caesareus veredus,                                          
 
per aequor et paludes                                    
 
et tumulos Etruscos                                                                                      
 
  Pannonicos nec ullus
 
apros eum insequentem
 
  dente aper albicanti
 
ausus fuit nocere,
 
  sparsit ab ore caudam
 
vel extimam saliva,
 
  ut solet evenire.
 
Sed integer iuventa,
 
  inviolatus artus,
 
die sua peremptus
 
hic situs est in agro.

 [English translation here or here]

So, scholars believe that  this avid hunter (even shown on his coins hunting from horseback), horseman and great Roman emperor had his spirited Borysthenes Alanus buried near or in a town called Colonia Apta Julia (Apt in France) in Gallia Narbonensis situated on the ancient Roman military road called Via Domita. Most likely the horse died during a boar hunt in Gaul.
 The stone, a bit damaged and in two pieces, was excavated in Apt at the beginning of the XVII century. However, the poem was already known during the Middle Ages, eg Huguccio of Pisa(died 1210AD)

From Cassius Dio and Historia Augustae we know that Hadrian had several monuments erected to his pets, however, neither of the sources mentions this Borysthemes Alanus.

 
ps
the roundels come the Arch of Constantine, and are thought to depict emperor Hadrian hunting.

Sarmatian horse

Salve,
Sarmatian riders became famous because of their contact with the Classical world, mainly the Romans and their empire. Being nomadic dwellers of the Panonian, Pontic and Caspian steppes they had to have some good, well trained horses to be able to carry their riders against their enemies while often heavily armoured and armed, at least the elite warriors.

 We know from  Strabo that they rode geldings, having castrated their colts. Strabo wrote that their horses were ''small, but exceedingly fast'' but ''difficult to control'' (for the Romans, I suppose).

Were the Sarmatian horses large, like the alleged Nisayan? Well, it does not appear to have been so, at least not from the sources, as evidenced by Starbo's description, or from the famous Trajan Column in Rome, where their horses are the same size as the Roman cavalry mounts. But they must have been strong and stout to be able to carry their bardings (scale armor) 

  Above a wikipedia photo of the pertinent section of the Trajan Column.

           In Roman work titled ''Historiae Augustae,'' a collection of biographies of the Roman emperors from Hadrian to Carinus, we have an interesting story involving  a reputedly fast Sarmatian (Alan) horse and  emperor Probus (Ad 276-282), :

   ''Once, indeed, when a horse was found among the booty taken from the Alani or some other nation — for this is uncertain — which, though not handsome or especially large, was reputed, according to the talk of the captives, to be able to run one hundred miles in a day and to continue for eight or ten days, all supposed that Probus would keep such a beast for himself. 

But first he remarked, "This horse is better suited to a soldier who flees than to one who fights,"  and then he ordered the men of the put their names into an urn, that the one drawn by lots should receive the horse.  Then, since there were in the army four other soldiers named Probus, it so chanced that the name of Probus appeared on the lot that first came forth, though the general's name had not been put into the urn.

And when the four soldiers strove with one another, each maintaining that the lot was his, he ordered the urn to be shaken a second time. But a second time, too, the name of Probus came forth; and when it was done for the third and the fourth time, on the fourth time also there leaped forth the name of Probus.  Then the entire army set apart that horse for Probus their general, and even those very soldiers whose names had come forth from the urn desired it thus.'' [David Magie's translation]

Finally,  we also know that emperor Hadrian had an Alan steed, used for hunting (thus a hunter), and he was called Borysthenes Βορυσθένης (Greek name for river god of Scythia and the Dnieper River). The name and information about this hunting horse survived because it was inscribed on its tomb at Apt, near Nimes, in present day France.
 I have copied the poem, so pretty soon I will provide the entire poem with an appropriate drawing, gods willing - :)

I did this drawing on MyPaint, and this is a Sarmatian horse, that bears a tamga{owner's brand marking] on its hindquarters, a notched ear also indicated his owner, and perhaps it belongs to the Bosporan Kingdom horseman ( a Sarmatian monarchy mixing Greek, Roman and Sarmatian elements since the rule of king Asupurgus ), and his equipment is a mix of Roman and Sarmatian tack, and while his tail is tied in the steppe manner his mane is not crenellated.

Sarmatian with a lasso - a sketch

Ushta os,
in this post on my blog I quoted a passage from Flavius Josephus' writings about the Alans raiding across the Caucassus Mountains the kingdoms of Armenia and Media Atropatene during I century AD.

Here I sketched, with a ball pen, a warrior astride a galloping horse with a lasso already in a swinging montion and at his side a long sword slung  from a second belt-loops with a scabbard slide (Asian invention brought to Europe by the nomads), about to cast his rope...I worked the drawing a bit with GIMP (GIMp Painter)
By the way, nowadays I use as my operating system the Linux Mint 11, and thanks to the maestro David Revoy's instructions the digital painting (with GIMP-PS & GIMP-Painter and MyPaint) has just become even more of a joyful pursuit.

                  +++ * +++++ * +++++ * +++

   Some more good news for all the enthusiasts of the history of horsemanship - on archive.org I found a nice copy of 1854 publication of the 1430s manuscript (in Paris, France) by philosopher-king of medieval Portugal Dom Duarte (Edward of Portugal). The thick volume (in original XV century Portuguese) contains the most famous horsemanship treatise - Livro da ensinança de bem cavalgar toda sela . [starts of page 497 of the original publication]

 Almost 10 years ago the definitive English translation, by the Preto family team of father and son,  of the entire ''Bem Cavalgar' was published [I am happy to have a hardcover of that edition]. Prior to that happy moment scholar Sidney Anglo had quoted profusely from the manuscript in his ground-breaking work ''The Martial Arts of Renaissance Europe.''


Do enjoy your study of Bem Cavalgar - :)

Sketches - continued

Salve Amici Mei et kind visitors,
 more sketches-in-progress Great Eurasian Steppe - including Khalchayan and Huns (both Hephthalites and European Huns)

...

Alans in Flavius Josephus, Jewish Wars, ch.VII (4)

Ushta os,
 today a quick visit to some of the most warlike horsemen in the ancient western Eurasia: the Sarmatians.


Alans were most likely the eastern division of the Sarmatian 'nation' or as Iranica defines them a tribal grouping of the Northeren Iranians   -  'an ancient Iranian tribe of the northern (Scythian, Saka, Sarmatian, Massagete) group, known to classical writers from the first centuries A.D. (see, e.g., Seneca, Thyestes 630; Annaeus Lucan, Pharsalia 8.223, 10.454; Lucian, Toxaris 51, 54, 55, 60; Ptolemy, Geographia 6.14.3, 9, 11; and other sources below). Their name appears in Greek as Alanoi, in Latin as Alani or Halani. The same tribes, or affiliated ones, are mentioned as the Asaioi (Ptolemy 5.9.16), Rhoxolanoi, Aorsoi, Sirakoi, and Iazyges (Strabo 2.5.7, 7.2.4; 11.2.1, 11.5.8; 7.2.4). In early times the main mass of the Alans was settled north of the Caspian and Black seas. Later they also occupied the Crimea and considerable territory in the northern Caucasus'

Below the Alan/Sarmatian incursion into Western Asia of 72 A.D. as described by the famous ancient Roman historian Titus Flavius Josephus who is describing the Alans using a lasso to take down and capture enemy warriors - here a king of ancient Armenia.

I. Traill translation, crica 1850

''The nation of the Alans — whom, I think, we have elsewhere stated to be Scythians inhabiting the banks of the river Tanais [Don River], and the lake Maeotis [Sea of Azov] —designing at this juncture to penetrate into Media and the parts beyond it, for plunder, addressed themselves to the king of the Hyrcanians, who was master of the pass which king Alexander [the Great] had closed with iron gates.

Being granted ingress by him, they fell in great numbers upon the Medes, who entertained no suspicions, and pillaged a populous country, abounding in flocks and herds, no one venturing to oppose them. For Pacorus [Pacrus of Media Atropatene, later Great King of Parthia], later Pacorus II of Parthia], the sovereign of that country, fled in terror to his fastnesses; and, having abandoned all besides, with difficulty recovered from them his wife and concubines, who had fallen into their hands, by a ransom of a hundred talents.

[coin of Pacorus when the king of Parthia from above given webpage]
Prosecuting, therefore, the work of rapine unresisted and quite at their leisure, they proceeded as far as the confines of Armenia, laying every thing waste. Tiridates [Tiridates I of Armenia], who reigned there, meeting them, and giving them battle, was on the point of being made prisoner in the engagement; a noose having been thrown over him by one at a distance, who would have dragged him away, had he not instantly cut the cord with his sword and effected his escape. The invaders, only rendered the more fierce by this opposition, desolated the country; and, carrying off' a vast multitude of men, with much booty besides, from both kingdoms, returned once more to their own homes.''*
Interesting article on the waves of the Sarmatian migration by Jurij Vinogradov
At the top a sketch-in-progress of a warrior throwing a lasso 

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*
original spelling