Bared-Sword War-God (Sarmatian Ares)
Sarmatian · deity · attested for the Alani in the 4th c. CE; continuous with the Scythian sword cult · Recorded classification
Sarmatian war-god worshipped as a sword; the brief explicitly asks to note the Sarmatian sword-cult. Native theonym unrecorded (term carries the Latin gladius/Mars of Ammianus). Distinct tradition tag 'Sarmatian'.
Domains
- war
Powers
- is worshipped as a sword fixed in the earth
Epithets
- the planted sword The war-god worshipped as a naked sword fixed upright in the earth and honoured with offeringsAmmianus Marcellinus 31.2.23 (on the Alans) (primary)
Relations
- interpretatio: MarsAmmianus: a sword fixed in the earth is worshipped 'as Mars'. Preserves war-divinity in aniconic steppe form; breaks on everything civic and calendrical in Roman Mars, including his agrarian roots.Ammianus Marcellinus 31.2.23 (the Alans worship a bare sword as Mars) (primary)
- equated with: Sword-God of War (Scythian Ares)Standard scholarly identification of the Sarmatian/Alanic sword-cult as the continuation of the Scythian akinakes-cult Herodotus describes. Same aniconic sword-worship; six centuries separate the attestations.T. Sulimirski, The Sarmatians (1970) (secondary)
Sources
- The Alani (a Sarmatian people) have no temples or shrines but fix a bared sword in the earth and worship it as Mars, the war-god of their territories.: Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae 31.2.23 (primary)
- This Alanic sword-cult is the late continuation of the Scythian worship of 'Ares' as a planted iron sword (Hdt 4.62); the rite is read as the erection of an axis mundi joining men and gods.: 'Sarmatian Religion,' Encyclopedia of Religion (M. Eliade, ed.); D.S. Raevskiy (1977) (secondary)