Japanese Slavic and East European Studies Vol.37. 2016 ARTICLES ΣΆΣΠΕΙΡΕΣ / ΣΑΥΑΡΟΙ / ΣΑΒΕΙΡΟΙ IN THE 5th CENTURY BC TO THE 8th CENTURY AD Anton Salmin Department of the Eastern Slavs and Peoples of European Russia at the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) of the Russian Academy of Sciences Altogether, historians have identified the ethnonyms Σάπειρες, Σάσπειρες, Σάβιροι, Sapires, Savares, and Saviri.1 In the lower reaches of the Volga and in Volga Bulgaria, they were already known as Suvars. The aim of this paper is to give a historical chronology of this tribe from the 5th century BC to the 8th century AD . As Herodotus tells us in his History, the Achaemenid King Darius I (522–486 BC) divided the Persian state into 20 provinces (satrapies). Having established these divisions, he appointed men to rule them and instituted the payment of tribute from each tribe . The capital of the state was the city of Persepolis . The country had a single monetary system based on the gold daric weighing 8.2 grams and the silver siglos weighing 5.6 grams. The Matienians, Saspeirians (Σάσπειρες), and Alarodians were allotted to the 18th province and commanded to pay Darius 200 talents. The Alarodians and Saspeirians went on campaigns equipped like the Colchians, that is to say, they wore wooden helmets and carried small shields of uncured leather, short spears, and daggers.2 In the year 333 BC, Alexander the Great defeated Darius III at the Battle of Issus, and, as a result, Asia Minor was lost to the Persians. In roughly the first half of the 3rd century BC, Apollonius of Rhodes wrote about the Sapirs / Sapeires (Σάπειρες) who had “long been living” next to the tribes called the Becheiri and Byzeres 3. The reference is to lands to the south of the Çoruh River, while the Becheiri lived in the area between Trebizond (Trabzon) and the Black Sea.4 17 Anton Salmin Beginning with thee, O Phoebus, I will recount the famous deeds of men of old, who, at the behest of King Pelias, down through the mouth of Pontus and between the Cyanean rocks, sped well-benched Argo in quest of the golden fleece. That is how the splendid Argonautica, by the Greek poet Apollonius of Rho- des, begins. The band of brave men who have gathered to sail to distant Colchis is told by the blind soothsayer Phineus (a son of Agenor, a former king of Thrace) which tribes they will encounter on their way. Among those mentioned are the Sa- peires . The Argonautica is an epic work, very close in subject matter to Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad. Paraphrasing a researcher of the Cimmerians,5 we can ask: “Where did the author of The Argonautica learn the real name of the Sapirs?” The answer is simple: his main protagonists, Pelias and Jason, were historical personages. Pelias was a man who seized royal power by force; Jason was his nephew, the son of King Aeson of Iolcos, and Alcimede / Polymede. The entire plot is constructed around them and the scheming around the throne. Of pri- mary significance for us, however, is the Greeks’ knowledge of the real picture of the peoples populating the southeast coast of Pontus. “Of course, it cannot be a question of proper localization, since the action... takes place in a mythi- cal, rather than a real world, but the use of real-life geographical details in the description of these journeys cannot be denied.”6 Many of Askold Ivanchik’s assertions about the Odyssey author’s sources about the Cimmerians and the Black Sea also have a direct logical bearing on The Argonautica, for example, the identification of the Pontic Colchis with Aea / Aia and the Black Sea with the Ocean. Thus, in any case, the references are to the true situation in the Black Sea region. Incidentally, these details had already appeared in the works of authors of the 8th–6th centuries BC 7. In the 8th century, mariners, followed by settlers, established more than 900 trading posts and settlements in the Propontis (Sea of Marmara); however, the largest were in Colchis. By the 5th–4th centuries BC, the Greeks already had a precise picture of the boundaries of the world that they had made their home. Moreover, researchers write of mixed marriages between the newcomers and the local tribes 8. At the very least, we can speak with cer- tainty about the reality of the ethnonyms Βεχείρες, Σάπειρες, and Βύζηράς that Apollonius of Rhodes used in his Argonautica . 18 ΣΆΣΠΕΙΡΕΣ / ΣΑΥΑΡΟΙ / ΣΑΒΕΙΡΟΙ in the 5th century BC to the 8th century AD Ptolemy wrote about the Savirs, in the form of Σαύαƍοι in the Caucasus, below the Aorsi and the Pagyritae, in the second half of the 2nd century AD .9 For that reason, scholars justly speak of the appearance of the Savirs, and also the Barsils, in the Northern Caucasus “already in the pre-Hunnish period.”10 The historian Vasilii Dimitriev agreed with Ptolemy’s assertion about the pre- sence of a group of Savirs in the Northern Caucasus in the 2nd century11 and considered that the ancestors of the Chuvash were located there “in the 2nd and 3rd centuries.”12 In the first half of the 3rd century, the Greek grammarian Herodian (Aelius Herodianus) wrote of tribes called σάπεϱ / σάπειϱ.13 In the early 3rd century, a military-political alliance of the nomads living in the northwestern Caspian basin passed through the Gate of Chor (i. e., the Derbent Gate), crossed the Kura River, and invaded Armenia. Researchers draw on the works of Movses Khorenatsi and Bardaisan and correctly suppose that those nomads definitely included Khazirs (Khazars) and Basils (Barsils).14 However, taking into account the overall historical and geographical situation, it is also possible to say that the nomads who attacked the Armenian lands included both Huns and Savirs . Ammianus Marcellinus records the Sapires in the year 361–362.15 That is why researchers of the history of the Caucasus hold the opinion that the Savirs / Sabirs began to penetrate into the steppe and foothills’ tableland zone of the Northern Caucasus no later than the first centuries AD.16 Matters become clearer from the 5th century, when, as active participants in the Perso-Byzantine wars, the Savirs / Sabirs (Σάβειϱοι) were drawn into in- teraction with the Persians, Eastern Romans, Ugrian tribes, Avars, Armenians, Alans, and Laz.17 Stephanus of Byzantium, describing events of the 5th century, mentions the Sapirs / Savirs / Sabirs (Σάπείϱεϛ / Σάβείϱεϛ) living on the River Akampis (Çoruh) between Colchis and Persia.18 In the early period of Caucasian history, the Savirs were often confused with other tribes, primarily with the Huns. “...the Huns, like a kind of very fertile sod of exceedingly strong tribes, expanded with two-pronged ferocity against other peoples. Some of these are called Altziagiri, others Sabiri; and they have separate dwelling places,” Jordanes wrote of the tribes that made up the core of the Hunnish confederation .19 Actually, the Huns themselves comprised only a small fraction of their forces. The great mass was made up of allies and con- quered tribes. 19 Anton Salmin Attila became the sole leader of the Hunnish union after violently ousting his own brother, Blida / Bleda (Βλήδα / Bleda), in 445. He then united many tribes and completely usurped power. Until Attila’s death, only isolated episodes are recorded in which the Savirs / Sabirs displayed particular bravery in combat. On all other occasions, the Savirs acted as part of Attila’s forces and were called Huns, or, at best, “Hunno-Savirs,” or, “the Huns called Savirs.” After the death of Attila in 453 and the break-up of the Hunnish union into autonomous tribes in the Caucasus, the Savir confederation acquired a dominant role. The Onogur state fell apart and was replaced by a new military and politi- cal union led by the Savirs. It included Huns and Bulgars. “The disintegration of the first Hunno-Bulgarian amalgamation led by the Onogurs caused the start of a parallel process of unification among the nomads of eastern Ciscaucasia and the emergence of a new military and political union led by the Sabirs.”20 In roughly the year 463, the Savirs, who lived a nomadic existence in the steppes north of the Caucasus, attacked the Saragur, Ugor, and Onogur. In turn, the Saragur encroached on the lands of the Acatzir. This action was prompted by the Savirs / Sabirs (Σαβίϱων) themselves being attacked by the Avars, while the Avars themselves had been driven out by tribes living on the coast.21 The majority of scholars accept this date from Priscus of Panium’s History as the first mention of the Savirs; however, variations of the ethnonym “Savirs” were known several centuries before that. To be more exact, in the original work by Priscus, the reference is not precisely to the year 463 but to the period 461–465, as it is not possible from what he writes to assign the event to a particular year — it began appearing in research thanks to someone’s infectious initiative. In the second half of the fifth century, the Savirs settled in the region of the Kuma River along the Caspian Sea. As we see, the ethnonym Σάβειϱοι again crops up actively in Byzantine sources after the death of Attila . In the early 460s, the Savirs / Sabirs forced the Onogur to leave the lands they had occupied and move to the west of the Ciscaucasian region. This left the southeastern nomadic territory completely under the control of the Savirs .22 On the basis of available data, it is possible to form a hypothesis as to how the Savirs would have been armed.