Mariandyni

Author:Laxman Burdak, IFS (R)

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Mariandyni (Μαριανδυνοί or Μαρυανδυνοί) were an ancient tribe in the north-east of Bithynia. Their country was called Mariandynia (Μαριανδυνία, Stephanus of Byzantium s. v.) and Plinyspeaks of a Sinus Mariandynus ("Mariandynian Gulf") on their coast. Greek myths have Mariandynus as their presumed eponymous hero.

Variants

• Mariandynia
• Maryandini
• Mariandynian Gulf
• Sinus Mariandynus

Jat clans

• Marial - Need further research

History

The Mariandyni inhabited the region between the rivers Sangarius and Billaeus, on the east of the territory occupied by another tribe called Thyni or Bithyni. According to Scylax of Caryanda, they did not extend as far west as the Sangarius, for according to him the river Hypius formed the boundary between the Bithyni and Mariandyni.

Ancient sources are vague as to the ethnic affiliation of the Mariandyni. Strabo expresses a belief that the Mariandyni were a branch of the Bithynians, a belief which cannot be well reconciled with the statement of Herodotus, who clearly distinguishes the Mariandyni from the Thracians or Thyni in Asia Minor. Elsewhere, Strabo states that Mariandyni are Paphlagonians.The descriptions provided by Herodotus suggest that in the Persian army they appeared quite distinct from the Bithyni, and their armor resembled that of the Paphlagonians, which was quite different from that of the Bithyni.

The chief city in their territory was Heraclea Pontica, the inhabitants of which reduced the Mariandyni, for a time, to a state of servitude resembling that of the Cretan Mnoae, or the Thessalian Penestae. According to modern researcher John Hind,

"...the Mariandyni may have initially ceded some coastal territory [to the Heracleot colonists] fairly peacefully, being in need of protection from... the Bebrykes and the Paphlagones. In time the Herakleots acquired the Lycus Valley as the basis of their prosperity, and the Mariandyni entered a form of collective serfdom in which the saving grace was that they could not be dispersed or sold abroad. How this state of affairs was arrived at is not clear, bur the people may have been sold into it at a time of weakness by their chieftains, or may have slowly descended into it as a result of "being protected out of all they owned" by the Herakleots... The vigorous expansion of the Herakleot territory resulted in the locking of the Mariandyni into their agricultural villages as a dependent people, subject also to impressment as rowers in the fleet."

In the early 5th century they seem to still have been an independent people, paying tribute directly to Lydian king Croesus, and to have been at war with Heraclea. In the division of the Persian empire they formed part of the third Persian satrapy.

Mention by Pliny

Pliny mentions.... After leaving the Sagaris the Gulf of the Mariandyni¹⁵ begins, and we come to the town of Heraclea¹⁶ on the river Lycus¹⁷; this place is distant from the mouth of the Euxine two hundred miles. The sea-port of Acone¹⁸ comes next, which has a fearful notoriety for its aconite or wolf's-bane, a deadly poison, and then the cavern of Acherusia¹⁹, the rivers Pædopides, Callichorus, and Sonautes, the town of Tium²⁰, distant from Heraclea thirty-eight miles, and the river Billis.

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15 The modern Gulf of Sakaria. Of the Mariandyni, who gave the ancient name to it, little or nothing is known.

16 Its site is now known as Harakli or Eregli. By Strabo it is erroneously called a colony of Miletus. It was situate a few miles to the north of the river Lycus.

17 Now called the Kilij.

18 Stephanus Byzantinus speaks of this place as producing whetstones, or ἀκοναὶ, as well as the plant aconite.

19 This name was given to the cavern in common with several other lakes or caverns in various parts of the world, which, like the various rivers of the name of Acheron, were at some time supposed to be connected with the lower world.

References

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