The Alans (Latin: Alani) were an ancient and medieval Iranian nomadic pastoral people of the North Caucasus[1][2][3][4][5] – generally regarded as part of the Sarmatians, and possibly related to the Massagetae.[6] Modern historians have connected the Alans with the Central Asian Yancai of Chinese sources and with the Aorsi of Roman sources.[7] Having migrated westwards and becoming dominant among the Sarmatians on the Pontic–Caspian steppe, the Alans are mentioned by Roman sources in the 1st century CE.[1][2] At that time they had settled the region north of the Black Sea and frequently raided the Parthian Empire and the Caucasian provinces of the Roman Empire.[8] From 215–250 CE the Goths broke their power on the Pontic Steppe.[4]
Upon the Hunnic defeat of the Goths on the Pontic Steppe around 375 CE, many of the Alans migrated westwards along with various Germanic tribes. They crossed the Rhine in 406 CE along with the Vandals and Suebi, settling in Orléans and Valence. Around 409 CE they joined the Vandals and Suebi in crossing the Pyrenees into the Iberian Peninsula, settling in Lusitania and Hispania Carthaginensis.[9] The Iberian Alans, soundly defeated by the Visigoths in 418 CE, subsequently surrendered their authority to the Hasdingi Vandals.[10] In 428 CE, the Vandals and Alans crossed the Strait of Gibraltar into North Africa, where they founded a kingdom which lasted until its conquest by forces of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I in 534.[10]
Those Alans who remained under Hunnic rule eventually founded the powerful kingdom of Alania in the North Caucasus in the 9th century; it survived until the Mongol invasions of the 13th century CE. Various Ossetian scholars regard these Alans as the ancestors of the modern Ossetians.[8][11]
The Alans spoke an Eastern Iranian language which derived from Scytho-Sarmatian and which in turn evolved into the modern Ossetian language.[2][12][13]The name Alan represents an Iranian dialectal form of Aryan.[1][2][14]
The Alans were documented by foreign observers from the 1st century CE onward under similar names: Latin: Alānī; Greek: Ἀλανοί Alanoi; Chinese: 阿蘭聊 Alanliao (Pinyin; Alan + Liu) in the 2nd century,[15] 阿蘭 Alan in the 3rd century,[16] later Alanguo (阿蘭國);[17] Parthian and Middle Persian Alānān (plural); Arabic Alān (singular); Syriac Alānayē; Classical Armenian Alank'; Georgian Alaneti ('country of the Alans'); Hebrew Alan (pl. Alanim).[18][1] Rarer Latin spellings include Alauni or Halani.[19] The name was also preserved in the modern Ossetian language as Allon.[20][21]
The ethnonym Alān is a dialectal variant of the Old Iranian *Aryāna, itself derived from the root arya-, meaning 'Aryan', the common self-designation of Indo-Iranian peoples.[22][23][1] It probably came in use in the early history of the Alans for the purpose of uniting a heterogeneous group of tribes through the invocation of a common, ancestral 'Aryan' origin.[21] Like the name of Iran (*Aryānām), the adjective *aryāna appears to be related to Airyanəm Waēǰō ('stretch of the Aryas'), the mythical homeland of the early Iranians mentioned in the Avesta.[23][1]