Dog.
「猟犬」の意味である。アルテミス Artemisを聖なる女猟師として崇拝したスキタイ族につけられたギリシア語名である。アランという名前は中世スコットランド人の間では一般的な名前であったが、その頃はまだ猟犬という本来のギリシア語の意味が残っていた。アルテミスはしばしば「偉大なる雌イヌ」と呼ばれた。そして、彼女が狩猟をするときに随行する巫女たちは「聖なる雌イヌ」と呼ばれ、ポルキスとかアクタイオーンのようなイノシシ神や雄ジカ神を追って殺し、そして食い尽くした。かくして、「雌イヌの息子」とは、キリスト教徒にとっては、悪魔崇拝者を意味した。つまり女神に仕える異教徒を意味した。
Dog.
Barbara G. Walker : The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets (Harper & Row, 1983)
ALANS ( 0Alanoi/)
were known in the West from the 1st c. A.D. AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS regarded them not as an ethnic entity, but rather as ubiquitous groups of professional warriors (cavalry-men) who practiced ritual adoption and used an East lranian idiom as their lingua franca. Some of them took part in the exploits of the Goths, Huns, and Vandals, fought at the battle of ADRIANOPLE, and eventually settled in North Africa, Italy, and Gaul. Others became foederati; ASPAR was reportedly of Alan origin.
Later sources distinguish two groups, the mountain Alans and the steppe Alans. The former, the Alans proper, Iived in the northern Caucasus, between the Terek, Bol'šoj Zelen[c]uk, and Argun rivers. Both groups were either subjects or associates of the Khazar state or Byz.; Justinian II sent an embassy to Alania (as the country is called by Theophanes the Confessor) seeking an alliance against the Arabs. Patr. NICHOLAS I MYSTIKOS dispatched several church missions to the Alans, and between 914 and 916 Peter, arch-bishop of Alania, was active there. The remains of churches in Byz. style, dated to the loth C., have been discovered in the region. In the 13th C. THEODORE OF ALANIA sent a report on his flock. Kulakovskij's attempt to locate the metropolis of VICINA in Alania is erroneous (V. Laurent, EO 38 [1939] 91-l03). The only known Christian Alan inscription (of the 10th- 1 2th C., in a Greek script) was discovered on the Bol'šoj Zelen[c]uk.
In the 11th C. Alans served as Byz. mercenaries. In the early 14th C. Andronikos II settled a 10,000-strong contingent of Alan men with their wives and children in Asia Minor to use against the Turks, but they were unsuccessful; their operation against the CATALAN GRAND COMPANY in 1305 was no more fortunate. The Byz. made no clear distinction between Alans, Abchasians, and Georgians, even though John Tzetzes boasted that he knew how to address the Alans in their language. In the 11th C. the Georgian princess Maria was consistently called MARIA OF "ALANlA."
LIT. B. Bachrach, A History of the Alans in the West (Minneapolis 1973). Ju. Kulakovskij, Alany po svedenijam klassiceskich i vizantijskich pisatelej (Kiev 1899). V.A. Kuznecov, Alanija v X-XIII vv.(Ordzonikidze 1971). K.G. Doguzov, Vizantijsko-alanskie otnosenija (VI-XII vv.) (Tbilisi 1987).
--O.P.
ヘロドトス『歴史』第４巻17, 52には、 0Alazw~nejとして登場する民族とおそらくは同一であろう。