Bastarnae
The Bastarnae, Bastarni or Basternae, also known as the Peuci or Peucini, were an ancient people who are known from Greek and Roman records to have inhabited areas north and east of the Carpathian Mountains between about 300 BC and about 300 AD, stretching in an arc from the sources of the Vistula in present-day Poland and Slovakia, to the Lower Danube, and including all or most of present-day Moldava. The Peucini were sometimes described as a subtribe, who settled the Peuke Island in the Danube Delta, but apparently due to their importance their name was sometimes used for the Bastarnae as a whole. Near the sources of the Vistula another part of the Bastarnae were the Sidones, while the Atmoni, another tribe of the Bastarnae are only mentioned in one listing by Strabo.
The earliest Graeco-Roman historians to refer to the Bastarnae imply that they were culturally Celtic. Also consistent with connections to the cultures to their west, later Roman-era sources state directly that they spoke Germanic languages, and could be considered Germanic peoples. In contrast, like other peoples who lived in this geographical region, Graeco-Roman writers also sometimes referred to the Bastarnae as a "Scythian" or "Sarmatian" people, but this was a reference to their location, and customs, rather than a linguistic category. Although largely sedentary, at least one Roman writer, Tacitus, stated that the Bastarnae had adopted some Sarmatian customs. So far, no archaeological sites have been conclusively attributed to the Bastarnae. The archaeological horizon most often associated by scholars with the Bastarnae is the Poieneşti-Lucașeuca culture.
From the first records which mention them, the Bastarnae were active in the region of the Danube estuary on the Black Sea coast. The Bastarnae first came into conflict with the Romans during the first century BC when, in alliance with Dacians and Sarmatians, they unsuccessfully resisted Roman expansion into Moesia and Pannonia, south of the Danube. Later, they appear to have maintained friendly relations with the Roman Empire during the first two centuries AD. This changed around 180 AD, when the Bastarnae are recorded as participants in an invasion of Roman territory, once again in alliance with Sarmatians and Dacians. In the mid-3rd century AD, the Bastarnae were part of a Gothic-led grand coalition of lower Danube tribes that repeatedly invaded the Balkan provinces of the Roman Empire.
Many Bastarnae were resettled within the Roman Empire in the late third century.
Etymology
The origin of the tribal name is uncertain. It is not even clear whether it was an exonym or an endonym. A related question is whether the groups denoted "Bastarnae" by the Romans considered themselves a distinct ethnic group at all or whether it was a generic exonym used by the Greco-Romans to denote a disparate group of tribes of the Carpathian region that could not be classified as Dacians or Sarmatians.One possible derivation is from the proto-Germanic word *bastjan, meaning "binding" or "tie". In this case, Bastarnae may have had the original meaning of a coalition or bund of tribes.
It is possible that the Roman term basterna, denoting a type of wagon or litter, is derived from the name of this people who were known, like many Germanic tribes, to travel with a wagon train for their families.
It has also been suggested that the name is linked with the Germanic word bastard, meaning illegitimate or mongrel, and this name is sometimes contrasted to proposed Germanic etymologies for the name of the Sciri who lived in the same general region. However, Roger Batty considers this Germanic derivation unlikely. If the name is an endonym, then this derivation is unlikely, as most endonyms have flattering meanings.
Trubačev proposes a derivation from Old Persian, Avestan bast- "bound, tied; slave" and Iranian *arna- "offspring", equating it with the δουλόσποροι "slave Sporoi" mentioned by Nonnus and Cosmas, where the Sporoi are the people Procopius mentions as the ancestors of the Slavs.
Location
The earliest classical mentions of the Bastarnae locate them north of the Lower Danube, although they apparently made frequent crossings impacting upon the peoples living south of the Danube.Strabo made several remarks about the location of the Bastarnae. In one place he described the lands beyond the Rhine and Danube as the home of the Galatian and the Germanic peoples, and beyond these were the Bastarnae and their neighbours the Tyregetans "and the River Borysthenes". However, in another similar passage he says only that "most writers suspect" the Bastarnae to be next beyond the Germanic Peoples, but he indicates that it is also possible that "others lie in between, either the Iazyges, or the Roxolani, or certain other of the wagon-dwellers — it is not easy to say". In yet another similar passage he describes the Bastarnae as the most inland of the peoples living between the Borysthenes and the Ister, and indicates that their neighbours the Tyregetans are closer to the Black Sea.
Strabo also mentioned their interactions with other peoples near the Danube, specifying that in his time, "wagon-dwelling" Scythians and Sarmatians, "as well as the Bastarnian tribes, are mingled with the Thracians. And mingled with them are also the Celtic tribes — the Boii, the Scordisci, and the Taurisci". He confirmed that historically "the Scythians and Bastarnians and Sauromatians on the far side of the river often prevail to the extent that they actually cross over to attack those whom they have already driven out, and some of them remain there, either in the islands or in Thrace". In particular, Near the outlets of the Ister River is a great island called Peuce; and when the Bastarnians took possession of it they received the appellation of Peucini."
In one passage Pliny the Elder located the Bastarnae "and other Germanic peoples" in the lands beyond the Iazyges and Dacians. In another he describes "the Peucini, the Basternae", as neighbours of the Dacians.
In the second century AD, the texts attached to Ptolemy's Geography say that "above Dacia are the Peucini and the Basternae"; "between the Peucini and the Basternae are the Carpiani"; "between the Basternae and the Rhoxolani" who he places on the Black Sea coast, "are the Chuni" ; and "below the Basternae near Dacia are the Tigri and below these are the Tyrangitae" whose names are linked to the Tyras or Dniester river. Possibly relevant, he also mentioned a mountainous region called the "Peuca" mountains south of the Costoboci and Transmontani. The Sidones, named as one part of the Bastarnae by Strabo, are described by Ptolemy as one of the peoples east of the Vistula, although the location is not clear. It thus appears that the Bastarnae were settled in a vast arc stretching around the northern and eastern flanks of the Carpathians from western Ukraine to the Danube Delta.
The Peutinger Map shows the Bastarnae north of the Carpathian mountains and appears to name the Galician Carpathians as the Alpes Bastarnicae.
Because of their apparent cultural and linguistic connections to the west, the Bastarnae are generally believed to have moved originally from that direction, but this remains uncertain. Babeş and Shchukin argue in favour of an origin in eastern Pomerania on the Baltic coast of today's north-west Poland, on the grounds of correspondences in archaeological material, e.g. a Pomeranian-style fibula found in a Poieneşti site in Moldavia, although Batty considers the evidence insufficient. Babeş identifies the Sidoni, a branch of the Bastarnae which Strabo mentioned with the Sidini located by Ptolemy in Pomerania.
Batty argues that Greco-Roman sources of the first century AD locate the Bastarnae homeland on the northern side of the Northern Carpathian mountain range, encompassing south-east Poland and south-west Ukraine.
Ethno-linguistic affiliation
Scholars hold divergent theories about the ethnicity of the Bastarnae. One view, implied by some of the earliest reports, is that they spoke a Celtic language. The only explicit description of their language, was a much later remark by Tacitus, who said they spoke a language like the Germanic peoples. However others hold that they were Scythian/Germanic, or mixed Germanic/Sarmatian. A fringe theory is that they were Proto-Slavic. Shchukin argues that the ethnicity of the Bastarnae was unique and rather than trying to label them as Celtic, Germanic or Sarmatian, it should be accepted that the "Basternae were the Basternae". Batty argues that assigning an "ethnicity" to the Bastarnae is meaningless; as in the context of the Iron Age Pontic-Danubian region, with its multiple overlapping peoples and languages, ethnicity was a very fluid concept, which changed rapidly and frequently, according to socio-political vicissitudes. That was especially true of the Bastarnae, who are attested over a relatively-vast area. The Bastarnae maintained a separate name until ca. 300 AD, probably implying retention of their distinctive ethno-linguistic heritage up to that time.Celtic
writing about the time of Perseus of Macedon explained how the Dardanians sought help from the Romans against the Bastarnae, who were allied with the Macedonian and Celtic enemies of Rome, which can be taken as implying that they were not Galatian. He described them as numerous, physically large, and valorous warriors.On the other hand, a much later report of these events by Livy, writing about 10 AD, is sometimes understood to imply that the Bastarnae spoke a Celtic language.
Much later still, the Greek historian Plutarch, also talking the time of Perseus of Macedon, went further, writing that the Roman consul Hostilius "secretly stirred up the Gauls settled along the Danube, who are called Basternae".
Another reason to consider the Bastarnae as Celtic is that the regions they are documented to have occupied overlapped to a great extent with the locations of Celtic tribes attested in the northern Carpathians. In addition, archaeological cultures which some scholars have linked to the Bastarnae display pronounced Celtic affinities. Finally, the arrival of the Bastarnae in the Pontic-Danubian region, which can be dated to 233–216 BC according to two ancient sources, coincides with the latter phase of Celtic migration into the region.
In addition, inscription AE 14, recording a campaign on the Hungarian Plain by the Augustan-era general Marcus Vinucius, also appears to distinguish the Bastarnae from neighbouring Celtic tribes: "Marcus Vinucius... governor of Illyricum, the first to advance across the river Danube, defeated in battle and routed an army of Dacians and Basternae, and subjugated the Cotini, Osi,... and Anartii to the power of the emperor Augustus and of the people of Rome."
The three names of Bastarnae leaders found in ancient sources are of Celtic origin: Cotto, Clondicus and Teutagonus.