The Sciri were a tribe of Germanics. They lived at various locations in eastern and central Europe, their history entwined with that of the Ostrogoths, Romans, Huns, and Heruli. odoacer, who ruled italy for a time in the fifth century C. E., is thought to have been Scirian.
Origins
Little is known with certainty about early Scirian history The Sciri are thought to have originally lived on the Vistula River and its tributaries in present-day northwestern Poland with other Germanic peoples. According to the sixth-century Byzantine historian Procopius the Sciri were a Gothic nation, that is, part of the large confederacy of tribes called collectively the Goths. Their name may mean “pure ones.
LANGUAGE
The Sciri spoke an East Germanic dialect.
History
By the third century C. E. some among the Sciri had migrated to the Black Sea in present-day southern Ukraine. There they met and mingled with a heterogeneous population, many of whom eventually joined in a large confederation dominated by the Goths, probably Sciri among them. in the fourth century because of pressure from the Ostrogoths the Sciri migrated to the Carpathian Mountains to the northwest. They eventually were ruled by the Huns and served among them.
In 455 Sciri and Germanic allies under Ardaric of the Gepids defeated remnants of the Huns in the Battle of Nedao in the Roman province of Pannonia (roughly modern Hungary). The Sciri settled along the Middle Danube. In 469 the Ostrogoths defeated the
Odoacer: First Germanic Ruler of Italy
Odoacer, the son of Idico (Edeco), thought to be of the Sciri tribe, was born in 435 C. E. His name, also spelled Odovocar, is derived from the German Audawakrs, meaning “watchful of the wealth.” He is known as the chieftain of the allied Heruli and Rugii, as well as the Sciri.
Odoacer joined the Roman army in Italy and soon earned the rank of commander. When the Western Emperor, Julius Nepos, was overthrown by General Orestes, who then failed to distribute promised land to tribal leaders, Odoacer led a revolt. He soon won the favor of his troops and followers, who in 476 declared him king. Odoacer soon executed Orestes; overtook Ravenna, the capital of the Western Romans; and deposed Orestes’s son, Romulus Augustulus. The Eastern Emperor Zeno was subsequently forced to recognize Odoacer, who tactically decided to rule Italy as a representative of the empire, under the overlordship of the emperor. Zeno reluctantly granted him the title of patrician, although Odoacer still acknowledged himself as king.
As a leader of almost the entire peninsula of Italy Odoacer gained the support and favor of the Roman senate, who allowed him to distribute lands to his followers. Though an Arian Christian, he did not intervene in church affairs and kept the government and church separate. He expanded his domain into Dalmatia.
Threatened by Odoacer’s growing power, Zeno appointed Theodoric, leader of the Ostrogoths, as king of Italy. Conquered by Theodoric, Odoacer was forced to surrender the Italian Peninsula. In 493 after a period ofjoint rule Theodoric invited Odoacer to a banquet feast, where he assassinated him, according to legend with his own sword.
Odoacer is hailed as the first ruler of Italy after the fall of the Western Roman Empire.
Sciri, who then scattered to both the Western and Eastern parts of the Roman Empire; many served as mercenaries in Roman legions. Some reportedly were settled in the Roman province of Lower Moesia (modern northern Bulgaria).
Odoacer (see sidebar), who defeated and deposed the last Western Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus in 476, was probably Scirian. Many of his soldiers were Heruli. Odoacer was a Roman general whose coup d’etat was only one of many such depositions of Roman emperors by Roman generals throughout Roman history The great difference in this case was of course that Odoacer was a German. However, by this time the distinction between Roman and Germanic had dwindled considerably. A portrait of Odoacer shows him clean shaven with a short Roman haircut and wearing a toga. It was in Rome’s interest to have a stronger ruler than Romulus Augustulus had shown himself to be. Perhaps with this in mind the Roman Senate approved Odoacer’s claim to be king. Odoacer communicated with the Byzantine imperial government in Constantinople (modern Istanbul), advising them that because Western Roman authority no longer extended beyond Italy, there was no longer need for a Western emperor, and that he, Odoacer, claimed to rule only Italy. Odoacer’s accession did then in this sense bring about the end of the Roman Empire in the West, but the idea that it resulted from a barbarian invasion and takeover was promoted by the writer Jordanes, working in Constantinople in the 550s.
In any case there is actually considerable uncertainty as to Odoacer’s ethnic identity, and the forces he led were ethnically mixed. He had risen to power in Attila’s diverse court, where Huns rubbed shoulders with Goths, Gepids, and many others. Odoacer’s father, Idico (Edeco), had established the small Scirian kingdom on the Middle Danube. When it was shattered by the Ostrogoths, Odoacer went to Italy and entered imperial service; he rose to the command of the federate armies of Italy, made up of a diverse mix of peoples.
Odoacer’s followers settled in Italy largely peacefully, with only a brief flare of conflict with the indigenous inhabitants in 477-478. Odoacer allowed the Roman administrative machinery to function with little interference. He was even able to extend Roman control to Dalmatia in present-day Croatia and was successful against the Vandals in Sicily.
Odoacer was in turn deposed by the Ostrogothic king Theodoric, who invaded Italy in 489. After four years of struggle Odoacer’s last stronghold was Ravenna. The besieged city fell on March 5, 493; 10 days later, on the Ides of March, Theodoric, in an apparent peacemaking gesture, invited Odoacer to a banquet, where he killed him. After Odoacer’s death the Scirian identity disappeared from history. Scirian descendants probably contributed to the mix of peoples in northern Italy, the Alps, and the region between the Alps and the Danube. They have been mentioned as one of the tribes ancestral to the Bavarii.
CULTURE (see also Germanics)
It is probable that the Sciri were not a “tribe” in the ancient Germanic sense of a more or less sedentary grouping of familial clans, but rather a group that emerged out of the contest for power in the Black Sea region. The rate of ethnogene-sis—the birth of new peoples—tended to increase among Germanic peoples in times of stress, and the arrival of the groups that would form the Sciri in a new region inhabited by a bewildering mix of other peoples of many different ethnicities would have been such a time.
Certainly by the period of Odoacer Scirian social organization was different from that of their ancient Germanic tribal forebears, who had no permanent war leaders or kings.
Although the identity of Odoacer is uncertain and many of his followers were in fact Herulian, his probable Scirian roots make the Scirians an important people in the history of Italy as well as of the Germanics in general.
World History
