Carpi

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Author:Laxman Burdak, IFS (R)

Carpi or Carpiani were a Dacian tribe that resided in the eastern parts of modern Romania in the historical region of Moldavia from no later than c. AD 140 and until at least AD 318.

Variants

Jat clans

Name

The Greco-Romans called this people the Carpi or Carpiani.[1] Probably the earliest mention of them, under the name Καρπιανοί (Carpiani in Latin) is in the Geographia of the 2nd-century Greek geographer Ptolemy, composed c. AD 140.[2]

The name Carpi or Carpiani may derive from the same root as the name of the Carpathian mountain range that they occupied, also first mentioned by Ptolemy under the name Καρπάτης - Karpátēs.[3] The root may be the putative Proto-Indo-European word *ker/sker, meaning "peak" or "cliff" (cf. Lithuanian karpyti "mountain peaks looking like a saw", Albanian karpë "rock", Romanian (ş)carpă "precipice", and Latin scarpa, cfr. Italian scarpata, English escarpment). [4] Scholars who support this derivation are divided between those who believe the Carpi gave their name to the mountain range (i.e. the name means "mountains of the Carpi")[5][6] and those who claim the reverse. In the latter case, Carpiani could mean simply "people of the Carpathians".[7] But the similarity between the two names may be coincidence, and they may derive from different roots. For example, it has been suggested that the name may derive from the Slavic root-word krepu meaning "strong" or "brave". [8] Also, it had been suggested that Carpathian Mountains may derive from the Sanskrit root "kar" 'cut' that would give the meaning of 'rugged mountains'. [9]

Romanian scholar Vasile Pârvan considered that the following peoples recorded in ancient sources correspond to Ptolemy's Karpiani:

the Kallipidai mentioned in the Histories of Herodotus (composed around 430 BC) as residing in the region of the river Borysthenes (Dnieper)[10][11]
the Karpídai around the mouth of the river Tyras (Dniester) recorded in a fragment of Pseudo-Scymnus (composed c. 90 BC)[12][13]
the Harpii, located near the Danube delta, mentioned by Ptolemy himself.[14][15]

If so, their locations could imply that the Carpi had very gradually migrated westwards in the period 400 BC - AD 140, a view championed by Kahrstedt.[16]These names' common element carp- appears frequently in Dacian and Thracian placenames and personal names.[17] But there is no consensus that these groups are in fact Carpi. Bichir suggests that they were Thraco-Dacian tribes distantly related to the Carpi.[18]

Territory

The Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World places the Carpi between the river Hierasus (Siret) and the river Porata (Prut)[19]

However, it is not possible to reliably define the territories of these groups due to the imprecision of the ancient geographical sources. Also, it is likely that in many areas, ethnic groups overlapped and the ethnic map was a patchwork of dispersed sub-groups. The Sarmatians and Bastarnae are attested, in both literature and archaeology, all over Wallachia, Moldavia and Bessarabia.[20]It is likely that, when Greco-Roman sources refer to conflicts with the Costoboci, Carpi or Goths, they are referring to coalitions of different groups under the currently hegemonic tribe. Given the Carpi's repeated raids South of the Danube and clashes with the Romans during the 3rd century, it is likely by ca. 230, the Carpi had extended their hegemony over eastern Wallachia, previously dominated by the Roxolani.

History

The ethnic affiliation of the Carpi remains disputed, as there is no direct evidence in the surviving ancient literary sources. A strong body of modern scholarly opinion considers that the Carpi were a tribe of the Dacian nation.[21][22] Other scholars have linked the Carpi to a variety of ethnic groups, including Sarmatians, Thracians, Slavs, Germanic peoples, Balts and Celts.

About a century after their earliest mention by Ptolemy, during which time their relations with Rome appear to have been peaceful, the Carpi emerged in c. 238 as among Rome's most persistent enemies. In the period AD 250–270, the Carpi were an important component of a loose coalition of transdanubian barbarian tribes that also included Germanic and Sarmatian elements. These were responsible for a series of large and devastating invasions of the Balkan regions of the empire which nearly caused its disintegration in the "Crisis of the Third Century".

In the period 270–318, the Roman "military emperors" acted to remove the Carpi threat to the empire's borders. Multiple crushing defeats were inflicted on the Carpi in 273, 297, 298-308 and in 317. After each, massive numbers of Carpi were forcibly transferred by the Roman military to the Roman province of Pannonia (modern western Hungary) as part of the emperors' policy of repopulating the devastated Danubian provinces with surrendered barbarian tribes. Since the Carpi are no longer mentioned in known documents after 318, it is possible that the Carpi were largely removed from the Carpathian region by c. 318 or, if any remained, it is possible that they mingled with other peoples resident or immigrating into Moldavia, such as the Sarmatians or Goths.

Carpi after 318

There are several indications that the Carpi may have been largely eliminated north of the Danube by 318:

  1. The evidence of Aurelius Victor that all the Carpi were deported to the empire.[23]
  2. The sheer scale of losses in repeated wars against the Romans (5 wars in a 21-year period 296–317) and subsequent mass deportations.
  3. The disappearance, c. 318, of the "Daco-Carpic" culture in Moldavia, according to Bichir.[24]
  4. The absence of any mention of the transdanubian Carpi in the contemporary history of Ammianus, whose surviving books provide a detailed account of the period 353–378.[25] (Ammianus does mention the Carpi twice, but only those settled inside the empire).[26]
  5. The fact that the Carpicus title was not claimed after 318.

Many historians dispute that the Carpi were eliminated from the Carpathian region and argue that many Carpi remained, e.g. Millar and Batty.[27][28] Beyond 318, specific evidence of Carpi continuity is limited to Zosimus' reference to Karpodakai joining in a barbarian invasion of the empire in the 380s.

Even if some Carpi did remain north of the Danube, it is clear that they lost their political independence, according to Heather.[29] After the death of Constantine, the Wallachian plain and Moldavia fell under the domination of the Thervingi branch of the Gothic nation, as evidenced by the existence of a substantial Gothic kingdom in the mid fourth century.[30] Transylvania appears to have been dominated in the fourth century by another, probably Germanic group, the Taifals.[31] However, the Taifali appear also to have been under Gothic suzerainty.[32]

These Germanic kingdoms were after 350 overwhelmed by the Huns, resulting in the great Gothic-led migration of Transdanubians across the Danube that culminated in the Roman disaster at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. The Carpi are nowhere mentioned in Ammianus' detailed account of these epic events, suggesting that any who remained north of the Danube had probably lost their distinct identity.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Hist. Aug. Gordiani Tres XXVI.3
  2. ↑ Ptolemy III.5.1, 10
  3. ↑ Bichir, Gh. (1976). The History and Archaeology of the Carpi from the 2nd to the 4th centuries AD. Vol. BAR series 16(i) (English trans. ed.), p. 145.
  4. ↑ Köbler, Gerhard (2000): Indo-germanisches Wörterbuch (online), *Ker (1)
  5. ↑ Parvan Vasile (1926) : Getica, publisher Cultura Nationala, 153"
  6. ↑ Martini, Peter I., Chesworth Ward (2010) 255
  7. ↑ Bichir 1976, p. 145.
  8. ↑ Millar, Fergus, The Roman Empire and its neighbours, (1883) 430
  9. ↑ Tomaschek Gratz University (1883): Les restes de la langue dace in "Le Muséon Revue Internationale Volume 2, Louvain", 403"
  10. ↑ Herodotus IV.17
  11. ↑ Parvan (1926) 153"
  12. ↑ Parvan (1926) 153"
  13. ↑ Pseudo-Scymnus 842
  14. ↑ Parvan (1926) 153"
  15. ↑ Ptolemy III
  16. ↑ Bichir 1976, p. 149.
  17. ↑ Tomaschek (1883) 403"
  18. ↑ Bichir 1976, pp. 148–150.
  19. ↑ Barrington Atlas Map 22
  20. ↑ 1. Batty (2008) 250, 378; 2. Bichir 1976, pp. 162–164. 3. Barrington Atlas Map 23
  21. ↑ Virgil Cândea. An Outline of Romanian History
  22. ↑ J.B. Bury. The Cambridge Medieval History volumes 1-5
  23. ↑ Victor 39.43
  24. ↑ Bichir 1976, p. 144.
  25. ↑ Loeb edition of Ammianus, Index
  26. ↑ Ammianus XXVIII.1.5; XXVII.5.5
  27. ↑ Millar (1970)
  28. ↑ Batty (2008) 377-8
  29. ↑ Heather (2009) 128
  30. ↑ Ammianus XXXI.3.7
  31. ↑ Ammianus XXXI.3.7
  32. ↑ Ammianus XXXI.9.3
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