SARMATIANS (Σαυρομάται, Συρμάται, Sarmatae). In the time of Herodotus (iv. 110-117) the steppes between the Don and the Caspian were inhabited by the Sauromatae, a nomadic horse-riding people, whose women rode, hunted, and took part in battle like the men, so that legend (presumably the legend of the Greek colonists on the Black Sea) represented the race as descendants of the Amazons by Scythian fathers. It is recounted both by Herodotus and by Hippocrates (De Aer., 17) that no maiden was allowed to marry till she had slain a foe (or three foes), after which she laid aside her masculine habits. The Scythians, we are told, called the Amazons Οίόρπατα, which seems to be an Iranian name and to mean “lords of man,” and it is reasonable to think that the word was applied to the Sarmatian viragos by the Scythians, who themselves kept women in great subjection, and thus expressed their surprise at the dominating position of the female sex among their neighbours beyond the Don. But in spite of the difference of their customs in this point Scythians and Sarmatians spoke almost the same language (Herod, iv. 117), and, whatever difficulty still remains as to the race of the Scythians, their language and religion are now generally held to have been of Iranian character (see Scythia). That the Sarmatians, at least, were of Median origin is the express opinion of Diodorus (ii. 43) and Pliny. From their seats east of the Danube the Sarmatians at a later date moved westward into the lands formerly Scythian, one branch, the “transplanted” Iazyges (I. μϵτα-νασταί) being settled between the Danube and the Theiss at the time of the Dacian wars of Rome, while other Sarmatian tribes, such as the Maitse on the eastern shores of Lake Maeotis and the ...