Constantine the Great and Rausimodus, Sarmatarum Rex

Abstract

The author starts from a paragraph in Zosimos’s “New History”, which describes the battle between Constantine the Great and the Sarmatians led by their king, Rausimodus, somewhere close to the Danube. V. M. Zubar has put this event in relation to information given by Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus about an expedition of Constantine the Great against a rebellion in Scythia, but dated the event in the year 322. The author offers arguments, both from written sources and from archaeological evidences, which support Zubar’s thesis, but corrects the chronology and dates the war which took place in the province of Scythia in the year 324.