The Alans are a Scythian people, probably originating from Ossetia, the Alans (Latin [H] Alani - Greek Alanoi) are nomadic horsemen related to the Sarmatians of Kyrgyzstan and very close to the Iazyges, Roxolans and Taïfales.
Origin
Their first mention is due to the ancient Jewish historian Flavius Josephus during the 1st century of the Christian era:the latter teaches us that "... the Alans are a tribe of Scythians, living on the banks of the Tanaïs and the marshes of the Meotid...", that is to say between the Don and the Sea of Azov.
At this time, the Alans appear on the outskirts of Persia where their incursions are one of the causes of the fall of the Parthians. The Sassanids who succeeded them established a lasting empire in 226, driving the Alans back to the borders of the Don, the Urals and the Caucasus; the Alans then founded a semblance of an ephemeral kingdom there.
In 375, the date of the beginning of the "Great Invasions", some of them fled before the Huns of Balamber and found themselves in Germania.
The Alans in Gaul
These Alans later cross the frozen (?) Rhine near Mainz during the night of New Year's Eve 406/07, accompanied mainly by Quades (the latter are for a long time mistakenly confused with the Suevi due to a bad translation of "Swabians"), and Vandals Hasdings and Sillings, led by two different kings.
First allied with the Vandal tribes and the Quades, and led by their chief Goar, the Alani clans (around 50,000 individuals?) participated in the crushing of the Frankish mercenaries led by the Duke of Mainz. The Alans also save the Vandals, who have just lost their king, from a huge massacre; alongside the other Germanic invaders, they devastated Roman Gaul from 407 to 409:Worms, Mainz, Strasbourg, Tournai, Arras, Amiens, Reims fell and were sacked. Paris, Orléans, Tours are threatened.
Then, they crossed the Loire in 408 (burning down the Gallo-Roman fort of Meung-sur-Loire). However, unlike their comrades in arms, the Alans are divided into several armed bands, several clans, several historians establishing a number of about 3,000 individuals per clan.
A part of them, still led by Goar, obtains a treaty (fœdus) with the Roman Empire:Aetius allows them to settle on the Loire, around Orléans, but the Alans, turbulent, are very badly perceived by the natives. One day, believing that they were not being paid quickly enough or enough, some Alans did not hesitate to kill senators from Orléans.
The Alans travel in all directions the peninsula of Armorica that Aetius had abandoned to them to spare the other parts of Gaul.
In 445-448, Alans placed under the authority of a certain Eochar put down the revolt of the bagaudes of Armorica on behalf of Rome:they are probably the Alans of Goar.
In 451, when their leader was now Sangiban, these same Alans formed the center of the military system set up against the forces of Attila in the Catalaunian Fields (Campus mauriacus in Latin) near Moirey, in the region of Troyes:this role is mainly due to the merits of Alain's heavy cavalry (the cataphracts, veritable "tanks" of antiquity).
Previously, we also know that Alans clans, led by their chief Sambida, settle on the Rhône around Valence, where they are as difficult to live with as their cousins in the Loire.
Alans in Hispania
Finally, in 409, part of the Alans, led by Respendial, still follows the Vandals and the Quades to Hispania. There they roam the central plateaus of the Iberian Peninsula, in the Tagus region. One of the two Vandal tribes and the Quades settled in Galicia while the Alans settled mainly in Lusitania. They were brutally dislodged in 418 by the Visigoths, who massacred them.
Their journey with the Vandals then continued as far as Andalusia and the Alan clans of Hispania, greatly diminished by the attacks of the Visigoths, placed themselves under the authority of the unified Vandals:in 428, the Vandal king Genséric took the title of " king of the Vandals and the Alans" and takes in 429, the 80,000 Barbarians who follow him in North Africa. The history of the Alans is therefore intertwined with that of the "Kingdom of Carthage":founded in 439 in the N. -E. present-day Tunisia and eastern Algeria, this “state” was destroyed by Byzantine troops in 533/34, during the short-lived Byzantine reconquest of Africa.
Subsequently, all the Alans clans, less numerous than the other barbarian peoples, naturally and gradually integrated into the neighboring peoples, when they were not quite simply exterminated by other more powerful peoples (the Visigoths in particular).
To the east, their distant cousins, having survived the massacres of the Mongols or Tamerlane Tatars in the 13th / 14th century, and having assimilated other Caucasophone elements, still currently live in the Caucasus as Ossetians. The latter are mainly of Orthodox religion, with a large Muslim minority.
On the cultural level, only the Alans of the 1st - 6th centuries are nomadic or semi-nomadic horsemen. It is impossible to distinguish properly Alani elements in Africa.
Testimonies of the presence of the Alans in Gaul
As with most migrating barbarian peoples (apart from the Goths in Spain), the Alans left very few traces of their presence on Gallic, Hispanic, and African soil.
The "Alans of the Loire", present around Orléans, were able to leave, as a legacy, their ethnonym at the origin of the name of a hundred localities:Allaines, Allainville, Alaincourt, etc.
In Normandy, in Calvados, the Alaine presence is perhaps best attested by an important funerary furniture dating from the beginning of the 5th century:the “Treasury of Airan”. But maybe this is just a group of Sarmatian letes.
Found by chance in Moult in 1876, this treasure contains a number of polychrome goldsmith pieces attributed either to the Alans or the Huns. The tomb, located near two Roman camps forming part of the line of defense erected against the Frisian and Saxon pirates, may be that of a Barbarian princess who accompanied her husband there, as for him federated with Rome. Nevertheless, the presence of East Germanic (fibula, chain) and Roman (plate-belt buckle) elements alongside the Alano-Sarmatian elements makes the ethnic origin of this woman impossible to determine.
The surname "Al(l)ain", in which one should perhaps look for the origin of the first name "Alain", originally very popular in Brittany and used in Armorica from the 6th century, can still come from the name of this barbarous people; however, a more plausible Celtic etymology is also suggested for this given name.
One of the rare traces of their passage and their ephemeral presence in the West can also be found in Spain, where the Alans are at the origin of a breed of robust dogs imported by the latter, a breed that has kept their name:the Alans. Alanos Espanol.
Their presence in the Greek Empire
The Alans also appear as mercenaries or auxiliaries of the Byzantine emperor Andronicus II Paleologus, at the beginning of the 14th century, as the Catalan historian Ramon Muntaner points out when he relates the expedition of the Almogavars to the East. It was their leader Georges Gircon who assassinated the leader of the Almogavres, Roger de Flor, Caesar of the Empire, on April 4, 1305, in Adrianople, obeying the orders of Michel IX, the son of the Emperor. These Alans were defeated later, in 1306, by the Almogavars and Gircon was killed and beheaded. It seems that Gircon hardly carried Roger de Flor in his heart, because following a quarrel between the men of the Company and the Alans, his son found death, which was the source of a hatred that was not going to go away. be satisfied only with the death of Caesar.
Language
The original language of the Alans must be a north-eastern Iranian dialect of the Caucasian type (according to G. Dumézil), probably similar to that of the Sarmatians. It evolves thereafter among their descendants of the Caucasus in the Middle Ages to become almost identical to the current Ossetian.
Civilization
The Roman historian-soldier Ammien Marcellin, an eyewitness who mixes his observations with the rumors (?) he heard about the Barbarians, brings some information about the Alans of the North Caucasus, information that must be approached with circumspection
It describes their physical appearance:the Alans are small but robust, have moderate blond hair, martial eyes and are more civilized in their way of dressing and eating than the Huns.
In terms of morals, according to him, the Alans are belligerent and courageous:their ferocity and the speed of their attacks have nothing to envy to those of the Huns. They ignore slavery and despise the weak and the old. They despise old people because for them (as for many other barbarian peoples) it is an honor to die in battle, but a disgrace to die of old age.
In terms of their way of life, the Alans ignore tillage and use bark-covered carts as homes.
Ammien Marcellin still lends them the custom of scalping their adversaries and tying their hair to their mount. They also worship a deity of war (identified with Mars) with a simple sword stuck in the ground and serving as an altar (the worship of a "magic" sword is also lent to the Huns).
It should be noted that this information corresponds exactly to the legends traditionally attached to the peoples of steppe horsemen by their sedentary neighbors:Ammien Marcellin even writes that it has been reported to him that certain eastern Alans are cannibals.
Archaeological sources, for their part, indicate the existence among the Alans of one or more deities of fire and the sun.
The decorative art of the Alans is essentially animalistic:similar to that of the Saces until the 2nd century, it gives pride of place to polychrome cloisonné decorations in the 3rd and 4th centuries. These decorations became widespread in the West at the time of the great invasions (4th - 6th centuries), in particular by the relay of the Eastern Germanic peoples, many of whom adopted Scythian motifs from the art of the steppes (Goths, Burgundians, Vandals).
Subsequently, many Sarmato-Alan cultural elements are found among the Ossetians, until the 14th century.
According to Georges Dumézil, the current Ossetians are, linguistically and culturally, the most characterized descendants of the Alans. Their legends (Nartes cycle) show interesting similarities with those of the Indo-European and particularly Celtic area (Arthurian legend).