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For other uses, see Sarmatia (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with Samaritans.
Scythia-Parthia 100 BC.png
Total population
Regions with significant populations
Eastern Europe
Central Asia
Scythian languages, East Iranian languages
Related ethnic groups
Scythians, Sakas
Descendants: Alans, Ossetians

The Sarmatians (Latin: Sarmatæ or Sauromatæ, Greek: Σαρμάται, Σαυρομάται) were a large confederation[1] of Iranian people during classical antiquity,[2][3] flourishing from about the 5th century BC to the 4th century AD.[4] They spoke Scythian, an Indo-European language from the Eastern Iranian family.

Originating in Central Asia, the Sarmatians started their westward migration around the 6th century BC, coming to dominate the closely related Scythians by the 2nd century BC.[2] The Sarmatians differed from the Scythians in their veneration of the god of fire rather than god of nature, and their women's prominent role in warfare, which possibly served as the inspiration for the Amazons.[2] At their greatest reported extent, around 1st century AD, these tribes ranged from the Vistula River to the mouth of the Danube and eastward to the Volga, bordering the shores of the Black and Caspian seas as well as the Caucasus to the south.[5] Their territory, which was known as Sarmatia to Greco-Roman ethnographers, corresponded to the western part of greater Scythia (mostly modern Ukraine and Southern Russia, also to a smaller extent north eastern Balkans around Moldova). According to authors Arrowsmith, Fellowes and Graves Hansard in their book A Grammar of Ancient Geography published in 1832, Sarmatia had two parts, Sarmatia Europea [6] and Sarmatia Asiatica [7] covering a combined area of 503,000 sq mi or 1,302,764 km2.

In the 1st century AD the Sarmatians began encroaching upon the Roman Empire in alliance with Germanic tribes.[2] In the 3rd century AD their dominance of the Pontic Steppe was broken by the Germanic Goths.[2] With the Hunnic invasions of the 4th century, many Sarmatians joined the Goths and other Germanic tribes (Vandals) in the settlement of the Western Roman Empire.[2] A related people to the Sarmatians known as the Alans survived in the North Caucasus into the Early Middle Ages, ultimately giving rise to the modern Ossetic ethnic group.[8]





Oleg Trubachyov derived the name from the Indo-Aryan *sar-ma(n)t (feminine - rich in women, ruled by women), the Indo-Aryan and Indo-Iranian word *sar- (woman) and the Indo-Iranian adjective suffix -ma(n)t/wa(n)t.[10] By this derivation was noted the unusual high status of women (Matriarchy) from the Greeks point of view and went to the invention of Amazons (thus the Greek name for Sarmatians as Sarmatai Gynaikokratoumenoi, ruled by women).[10] Other scholars, like Harold Walter Bailey, derived the base word from Avestan sar- (to move suddenly) from tsar- in Old Iranian (tsarati, tsaru-, hunter).[11] It was also derived from the name of Avestan region in the west Sairima (*salm, < *Sairmi), and connected with the 10-11th century AD Persian epic Shahnameh's character "Salm".[11]




Main article: Sarmatian culture
Great steppe of Kazakhstan in early spring.
Sarmatian cataphracts during Dacian Wars as depicted on Trajan's Column.
Sarmatia Europea in map of Scythia, 1697.


  1. Sauromatian, 6th–5th centuries BC
  2. Early Sarmatian, 4th–2nd centuries BC









In the late 2nd or early 3rd century AD, the Greek physician Galen declares that Sarmatians, Scythians and other northern peoples have reddish hair.[16][17]

Greco-Roman ethnography[edit]


As seen in Roman depictions of Sarmatians, they are of caucasian types[18]


Hippocrates[20] explicitly classes them as Scythian and describes their warlike women and their customs:


shoulder and right arm.





Pliny the Elder writes (4.12.79–81):







Later, Pausanias, viewing votive offerings near the Athenian Acropolis in the 2nd century AD,[24] found among them a Sauromic breastplate.





Decline in the 4th century[edit]

See also: Alans and Ossetians

The Sarmatians remained dominant until the Gothic ascendancy in the Black Sea area. Goths attacked Sarmatian tribes on the north of the Danube in Dacia, which is known today as Romania. The Roman Emperor Constantine called his son Constantine II up from Gallia to run a campaign north of the Danube. In very cold weather, the Romans were victorious, killing 100,000 Goths and capturing Ariaricus the son of the Goth king.[26][27][28]



Possible influence on Arthurian legends[edit]

Scholars C. Scott Littleton and Ann C. Thomas posited that the legends of King Arthur and The Holy Grail derive from Sarmatian legends. The authors find parallels between the Sarmatian legend of Batradz, a Sarmatian King commanding his companions to throw his magical sword into a lake and Arthur's instructions to Sir Bedivere to throw his magical sword Excalibur into a lake. The authors also use historical records to demonstrate the presence of a 2nd-century AD colony of Sarmatian veterans at Bremetennacum, in modern Lancashire, as a historical source for the legends entering Britain.[33]

List of Sarmatian tribes[edit]

See also[edit]



  1. ^ Sinor 1990, p. 113
  2. ^ a b c d e f "Sarmatian". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 31 December 2014. 
  3. ^ Waldman & Mason 2006, p. 692-694
  10. ^ a b Gluhak, Alemko (1990), Podrijetlo imena Hrvat [The origin of the ethnonym Hrvat] (in Croatian), Zagreb: Jezik (Croatian Philological Society), pp. 131–133 
  11. ^ a b Bailey, Harold Walter (1985), Khotanese Text, Cambridge University Press, p. 65 
  12. ^ a b
  16. ^ Galen. De temperamentis 2. 5
  17. ^ Day 2001, p. 55-57
  18. ^
  20. ^ De Aere XVII
  21. ^ Strabo's Geography, books V, VII, XI
  24. ^ Description of Greece 1.21.5–6
  25. ^ Amm. Marc. 29.6.13–14
  26. ^ Origo Constantini 6.32 mentions the actions
  27. ^ a b Eusebius, Vita Constantini, IV.6
  28. ^ Charles Matson Odahl, Constantine and the Christian Empire, Chapter X.
  29. ^ Origo Constantini 6.32 mention the actions
  30. ^ Barnes Victories of Constantine page 150–154
  31. ^ Grant Constantine the Great pages 61–68
  32. ^ Charles Manson Odahl Constantine and the Christian Empire Chapter X
  33. ^ Littleton, C. Scott and Thomas, Ann C., "The Sarmatian Connection: New Light on the Origin of the Arthurian and Holy Grail Legends ", The Journal of America Folklore, Vol. 91, No. 359, Jan.-Mar., 1978, American Folklore Society, pp. 513-527.
  34. ^ Prichard Cowles, James. "Ethnography of Europe. 3d ed. p431. 1841". 17 January 2015. Houlston & Stoneman. Retrieved 17 January 2015. 
  36. ^ Prichard Cowles, James. "Ethnography of Europe. 3d ed. p433.1841". 17 January 2015. Houlston & Stoneman, 1841. Retrieved 17 January 2015. 


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