Rome's Gothic Wars: From the Third Century to Alaric (Key Conflicts of Classical Antiquity) (13 page)

As we saw in chapter 
three
, it is very rarely possible to assign a particular material culture to a specific barbarian group known from the written sources. Fortunately for us, one of the few places where we can
do precisely that is in the area occupied by the so-called Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov culture between the late third and the late fourth centuries.
This archaeological culture gets its unwieldy name from two cemeteries, one in modern Romania, one in modern Ukraine, each coincidentally at the edge of the culture’s extension, which lies between the Donets river in the east and the Carpathians and Transylvania in the west. The Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov culture is dated, partly on independent archaeological grounds, to the same period in which the literary sources show the Goths as the dominant political force along the lower Danube and northwest of the Black Sea. Many barbarian groups other than Goths lived within the Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov zone and the culture itself is diverse and derived from several different cultural traditions. However, because it is a new development of the later third century – exactly the period in which the written sources attest the growth of Gothic hegemony – it is likely that Gothic leaders inadvertently created a stable political zone at the edge of the Roman empire in which a new material culture could develop out of numerous different antecedents. Because this new Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov culture was the material context in which Gothic history was embedded, it can help us understand the world of the Goths we meet in our written sources.

The geography of the Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov region shaped the social diversity of its archaeological culture. The culture extended across three major geographic zones. At its northernmost reaches, it occupied the so-called forest steppe, a broad transition zone between the heavily wooded regions of northern Europe and the open plains immediately north of the Black Sea. This northwestern Black Sea region is actually the westernmost end of the great Eurasian plain, which is at its widest breadth in Central Asia and gradually shrinks to a narrow band along the Black Sea coast to the east of the Carpathian mountains. Unlike the forest steppe to its north, this Black Sea steppe was not heavily wooded, and its drier expanses were better suited to the sort of pastoralist exploitation common to the Eurasian steppe than they were to agricultural cultivation. Several important rivers flow through this region into the Black Sea, among them the Dnieper, Bug, and Dniester,
as well as the Sireul (Sereth) and Prut, which join the Danube just before it turns east and enters the Black Sea itself. Along these rivers and their many smaller tributaries there is rich land suitable for the intensive cultivation of food crops, particularly grains. Because of these environmental contrasts, the region has always supported two parallel ways of life, settled agricultural populations in the river valleys coexisting alongside semi-nomadic pastoralists in the steppes. These pastoralists have often had strong cultural, and sometimes political, connections to other nomadic groups further to the east, where the Eurasian steppe becomes broader north of the Sea of Azov and the Caucasus. This coexistence of pastoralists beside sedentary farming populations seems to have characterized the region since prehistoric times and certainly continued to do so deep into the middle ages. In the third and fourth centuries, the nomadic population of the Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov zone was in regular contact with the settled population: at a site like
Kholmskoě, for example, the remains of a nomad camp are present very close to an agricultural village. Although it was commonplace until recently to read such contrasts between pastoralism and agriculture in ethnic terms (for example, Alan and Sarmatian nomads versus sedentary Goths and Taifali), they are better understood by comparison with Arabia in the same period, where the pastoralist bedouin of the deserts lived alongside the settled populations of the oases and desert fringes, politically but not ethnically diverse.

Despite the presence of pastoralists, the Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov culture was fundamentally agricultural and the majority of its population were farmers. Settlements were concentrated along the great river valleys and along their tributaries. Even from the quite limited survey data, it is clear that population was dense, with villages scattered every few kilometres along the rivers. Villages could be quite large, sustaining twelve or fifteen families, along with their livestock – mostly cattle, with sheep/goats (almost indistinguishable archaeologically) or pigs as secondary animals, depending on which was better suited to the local topography. Horses were rare in the agricultural settlements, and
presumably confined to the use of elites. For the most part, settlements were well organized, with houses in rows. The houses themselves were built in a fashion known from all over central Europe, which scholars always refer to by their German name of
Grubenhäuser
(‘sunken houses’). Such
Grubenhäuser
were half-dug into the ground, with varying amounts of the house – sometimes as little as the roof – projecting above the surface. The houses were generally of wood, and sometimes of wattle and daub, but in regions near to the Black Sea stone floors were common. Regardless, the sunken construction maximized insulation in both winter and summer, very useful in a continental climate with considerable variations in temperatures. Another type of house common throughout the
barbaricum
was found alongside the
Grubenhäuser
at many Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov settlements. Called
Wohnstallhäuser
, these houses were built of timber and entirely above ground, combining within a single structure a dwelling area for the human residents with stalls for the livestock.

As with the types of houses one finds in the Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov zone, there is nothing strikingly unusual about the region’s economy, which conformed to the patterns found in all the agricultural cultures of the
barbaricum
. The economy of most Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov villages was self-contained. Wheat, millet and barley were the staple grains, and most of what was eaten seems to have been ground at home by hand. Agricultural and woodworking implements made of iron were common, though forge-sites are barely known and we cannot tell whether every village had a blacksmith or whether there were more centralized distribution spots for metal tools. For cooking, hand-made pots were used alongside wheel-turned pottery of considerably higher quality, and many ceramic forms found in the region have long-standing local precedents. Much of this pottery must have been made in the villages where it went on to be used, but there is also evidence for commercial workshops of different types – for instance a well-known glass factory at
Komarovo – and for trade in fine wares with the Roman province of
Scythia.
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The bronze and occasionally silver ornaments that are quite common in the grave goods of the region were presumably made in regional workshops and distributed by means
of trade. Similarly, workshops for bone combs have been discovered, with production on a scale much too large for purely local consumption.

Trade with the Roman empire and with other more distant regions of the
barbaricum
is also attested. Although some have argued for substantial imports of basic foodstuffs into Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov regions from the Roman empire, the evidence is debateable. Mediterranean amphorae have been found at Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov sites, presumably a sign of some trade in the grain, oil, and wine that were transported in amphorae. On the other hand, amphorae remains are not extensive and we do not know how widely the Mediterranean preference for olive oil spread beyond the lower Danube – certainly animal fats were preferred to olive oil in most of central Europe. It is similarly hard to imagine an extensive grain trade: various grains, including some not grown inside the empire, were widely cultivated throughout the region, which had historically been able to serve as an important granary for the Greek world of the Mediterranean.
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Wine, by contrast, might well have been a fairly substantial export into the Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov regions, but it will take more detailed study of the amphora evidence for us to be sure.

Wine, as a relatively high-value item not readily available from local sources, probably served the needs of Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov elites, as presumably did Roman glass and fine ceramics. It is, however, higher-value goods that most clearly demonstrate the existence of this sort of interaction with the empire. We have seen that Roman bronze coins were common close to the frontier and represent the monetization of the local economy.
More striking are the large gold coins – multiples of the
solidus
– worn as medallions inside the
barbaricum
. In the Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov zone, such
multipla
are known from between the early third and the early fifth century, but fully eighty percent of the finds cluster in the middle of the fourth century, under
Constantius Ⅱ,
Valentinian, and
Valens. These
multipla
are distributed in a zone between the lower Danube and Black Sea on the one hand, and the Vistula and Oder rivers on the other, which suggests that they passed from the empire to
the Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov elites and then onwards through a network of treaty relations into east-central Europe. The absence of such medallions from the Upper Danube and the Rhineland suggests that they are a phenomenon specific to the relations between the empire and the Goths, and in turn between Gothic elites and neighbours further to the north. Examples of portable art more representative of Danish, Scandinavian and northwestern German regions, found at Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov sites like the large cemetery at
Dančeny, suggest traffic of the same sort in the opposite direction.
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In all likelihood, then, trade and diplomatic activity between the empire and the Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov elites brought Roman luxury goods into the
barbaricum
, while gift exchange distributed some of those same goods from the immediate vicinity of the frontier into remoter parts of central and northern Europe.
Unfortunately, we know somewhat less about Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov elites than we do about other barbarian elites further to the west. Archaeologists have not, for instance, uncovered anything like the same number
of fortified sites as were raised by Alamannic chieftains along the upper Rhine. On the other hand, sites like
Bašmačka,
Aleksandrovka and
Gorodok are all distinctly larger than the more usual small villages and all display considerably higher levels of imported Roman amphorae. They were thus probably royal or aristocratic strongholds rather than just farming villages. Traces of fortification confirm that impression. Aleksandrovka, for instance, sited at the confluence of the Inguleč and the Dnieper, was surrounded by a ditch and an earth rampart, and the foundations of the site’s walls were of stone with evidence of three towers, the whole design very reminiscent of the late Greek architecture of the Black Sea coast.
Palanca, near the Dniester, Gorodok, on the lower Bug, and Bašmačka, near the Dnieper rapids, also had stone walls.
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All three sites controlled important east-west routes across the region northwest of the Black Sea.

A considerably more intriguing site than any of these can also be interpreted in the context of the Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov elite.
The fourth-century village
at Sobari, in the modern republic of Moldova between the upper Prut and Dniester rivers, was first discovered in 1950 and has been excavated intermittently ever since then, uncovering remains of eight houses and a ceramic workshop. The village lay near the Dniester river and was walled – three sides of the wall have been found – with large cut-granite stones and smaller rubble fill. What makes the site so impressive is the lavishness of one of the standing structures. Although it may have consisted of only two rooms, one roughly 5.5 × 7.5 metres, the other 7.5 × 10 metres, the building itself is unparalleled in the
barbaricum
for its use of a colonnade, of which sixteen column-bases survive. The building was roofed in the standard Roman fashion, with terra cotta tiles, and more than 14,000 pieces of roof tile have been found. Still more strikingly, at least some of the windows were of glass. We cannot be sure whether this structure was a public building like a church or a temple or whether it was a residence, but it certainly is an anomaly in a village where ceramic finds are otherwise typical of the Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov region as a whole. Sobari is nearly 300 kilometres from the Roman frontier, yet whoever built this house did so knowing what an elite Roman settlement ought to have, namely a central structure with columns, a tiled roof and glazed windows. It is not at all far-fetched to see in Sobari the residence of a Gothic lord who had spent some time in the service of the empire, possibly converted to one of its religions, and developed a taste for its aesthetic habits.
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Much the same interpretation may explain the large farming village of
Kamenka-Ančekrak near the Black Sea, where the central structure and its several outbuildings were built of stone and revealed a much higher incidence of imported ceramics than did ordinary houses in the surrounding village.
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Nobles like those whose residences we can see at Sobari and Kamenka-Ančekrak were presumably the owners of the few horses known from Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov villages, and it may well have been they who were responsible for the relatively small number of wild animal bones found at such sites – hunting was throughout the ancient world an aristocratic pursuit. This same elite can probably account for the
treasures discovered in the Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov region. Indeed,
the distribution of such treasures may help us to map royal and aristocratic strongholds, if we interpret treasure finds as collection points for tribute and for the exercise of such governmental functions as existed. The conspicuous redistribution of portable wealth was a major part of all barbarian leaders’ relationship with their followers and we have considerable, if somewhat later, evidence for the importance of inherited treasures to the continuity of a barbarian royal line. Unfortunately, in the Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov zone we lack the same sorts of evidence that we have from regions further west along the Danube. There, from sites like
Strásza,
Ostrovany,
Rebrin, and
Szilágysolmlyó we have a variety of golden fibulae and imperial symbols that must almost certainly represent the direct diplomatic support of the Roman state. The famous gold hoard of
Pietroasele, though found within the Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov region, belongs to a somewhat later period, and most of the culture’s prestige items were of silver rather than gold, for instance the hoard of silver items of ca. A.D. 380 from
Valea Strîmbǎ.
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Regardless of the specific provenances of any particular find, the ability to display and dispose of valuable treasures was clearly an important index of social distinction among Sântana-de-Mureş/Černjachov elites. This social display is particularly evident in the many grave finds from the region.