Sarmatia
（
Σαρματία). The eastern part of Poland and southern part
of Russia in Europe. A name first used by Mela for the part of northern Europe and Asia
extending from the Vistula (Wisla) and the
Sarmatĭci Montes on the west, which divided it from Germany, to the Rha
(Volga) on the east, which divided it from Scythia; bounded on the southwest and south by the
rivers Ister (Danube), Tibiscus (Theiss), and Tyras (Dniester), which divided it from Pannonia
and Dacia, and, farther, by the Euxine, and beyond it by Mount Caucasus, which divided it from
Colchis, Iberia, and Albania; and extending on the north as far as the Baltic and the unknown
regions of northern Europe. The people from whom the name of Sarmatia was derived inhabited
only a small portion of the country. The greater part of it was peopled by Scythian tribes;
but some of the inhabitants of its western part seem to have been of German origin, as the
Venedi on the Baltic, and Iazyges, Rhoxolani, and Hamaxobii in southern Russia; the chief of
the other tribes west of the Tanaïs were the Alauni or Alani Scythae, a Scythian
people who came out of Asia and settled in the central part of Russia. The whole country was
divided by the river Tanaïs (Don) into two parts, called respectively Sarmatia Europaea and Sarmatia Asiatica; but
it should be observed that, according to the modern division of the continent, the whole of
Sarmatia belongs to Europe. It should also be noticed that the Chersonesus Taurica (Crimea),
though falling within the specified limits, was not considered as a part of Sarmatia, but as a
separate country.
In a general way the name Sarmatia is often used very indefinitely of the whole of
northeastern Europe. The historical sources of our knowledge of Sarmatia in ancient times are
collected and discussed by Kalina,
De Fontibus, etc.
(1872).
