Latest / Marcus Aurelius: Rome's Philosopher King — Fexingo History / The Stoic Emperor and the Mystery of the Scythian Embassy
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about the Marcomannic Wars, the plague, the frontier crises — but there's one episode that barely gets mentioned, and it's one of the strangest diplomatic encounters of Marcus's reign: the Scythian embassy. Luna: Scythian? Like, the ancient nomadic steppe people from Herodotus's day? I thought they were long gone by the second century AD. Lucas: Right, the name is a wrapper term. By Marcus's time, 'Scythian' was a loose label Romans used for various groups north of the Black Sea — Sarmatians, Alans, Roxolani, and others. But in this case, we have a specific event in Cassius Dio, book 71, where envoys calling themselves Scythians arrived at the imperial court, probably around 168 AD, right in the thick of the wars. Luna: What did they want? Lucas: That's the puzzle. Dio's account is fragmentary. He says they 'asked for friendship' — a standard diplomatic phrase — but the context is critical. Just a year or two earlier, a tribe called the Costoboci had swept south through the Balkans, crossed into Greece, and even sacked the sanctuary of Eleusis near Athens. That was an enormous shock. The Romans were already stretched thin with the Parthian war winding down and the Antonine Plague peaking. Luna: So these Scythians might have been connected to the Costoboci? Allies, or the same people? Lucas: Possibly. Dio doesn't give us the envoy's specific tribal name. But the Costoboci are often associated with the Carpathian region, and some scholars think they were a Sarmatian or Dacian group. The Scythian embassy might have been a different group trying to distance themselves from the Costoboci raiders — or testing Roman resolve. Marcus received them with gifts and sent them away, but we don't know if a treaty was made. Luna: That sounds very Stoic — not overreacting, hearing them out, but not committing too much either. Lucas: Exactly. And if you think about it, this is a moment where Marcus's philosophy directly informs policy. He writes in the Meditations about treating others with honesty and fairness, even enemies. But he's also pragmatic — Rome could not afford another front. So he gives gifts, which is a classic Roman diplomatic move — signifying friendship without binding obligations — and sends them on their way. Lucas: There's also the Bosporan Kingdom, a Roman client state on the Black Sea's north shore, ruled by Tiberius Julius Rhoemetalces. We have inscriptions showing that Rhoemetalces was actively managing relations with the steppe tribes, and he even sent troops to aid Rome in the Marcomannic Wars. So the Scythian embassy might have been routed through Bosporan mediation. Luna: So the Bosporans were like a buffer zone, filtering who got to talk to Rome. Lucas: Right. And the fact that these envoys appeared directly before the emperor — bypassing the governor of Moesia or the Bosporan king — suggests they carried weight. Maybe they represented a confederation that Rome wanted to keep neutral. We also have a fragment from the Historia Augusta — not always reliable — that mentions 'Scythian ambassadors' being given lavish gifts, including a golden crown and an ivory chair. Luna: An ivory chair? That's quite a statement. Was that a throne? Lucas: Probably a ceremonial folding chair — a sella curulis, the symbol of Roman authority. Giving one to a foreign envoy was a huge honor, implying they were treated almost like a magistrate. That suggests Marcus saw them as a significant power. But we don't know if they got what they came for. Did they want subsidies? Troops? A marriage alliance? We just don't have that part of Dio. Luna: This feels like a diplomatic version of the Rain Miracle — a tantalizing fragment we wish we had more of. Lucas: Exactly. And it connects to a broader pattern. Throughout the Marcomannic Wars, Marcus was forced to negotiate with tribes he'd never have dealt with in peacetime. The Scythian embassy is just one example of how the empire's periphery was in flux. Even the name 'Scythian' itself is slippery — by the fourth century, Roman writers were calling the Goths 'Scythians' too. Lucas: So what does this tell us about Marcus? He's not just a philosopher on a throne; he's a hands-on diplomat in a crisis. He personally received these envoys, weighed their words, and made a decision that kept the peace on one frontier while he fought on another. That's the kind of detail that makes history human. Luna: It's a reminder that the 'philosopher king' was also a very practical statesman. He had to be. Lucas: And it's worth saying — we're able to explore these obscure corners because we don't run ads on this show. We keep it ad-free deliberately, so we can take the time to dig into weird, wonderful stories like a steppe embassy without cutting to a commercial. If that kind of history matters to you, and you'd like to support it, you can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No pressure, just an option. Luna: Yeah, and it really does make a difference. Every little bit helps keep these conversations going. Lucas: So back to the Scythians — one more detail. Dio also mentions that around the same time, a group of 'Scythian' deserters from the Roman army caused trouble in the Danube region. That shows how porous the frontier was. People moved across it in both directions, and identity was fluid. The men who came as ambassadors might have had kin serving as Roman auxiliaries. It's a tangled web. Luna: Was there any follow-up? Did the embassy lead to anything lasting? Lucas: We don't know. The historical record goes silent on that specific mission. But we do know that after Marcus's death, Commodus quickly made peace with the northern tribes, and the Scythian groups recede from Roman literature until later incursions. So maybe the embassy bought a decade of quiet — which is a lot in that world. Lucas: Ultimately, the Scythian embassy is a microcosm of Marcus's reign: a moment where Stoic ideals met Roman power on the edge of the empire. He extended a hand, but he also kept the other hand on the sword. That balance is what made him, in my opinion, one of Rome's most interesting emperors. Luna: I'd never even heard of this episode. Thanks for pulling it out of the shadows. Lucas: Happy to. Next time we'll look at another forgotten moment — the time Marcus almost moved the capital to Sirmium. But that's a story for another episode.