the Balkans and sent Sarmatian conscripts, as part of Roman legions, as far west as Roman Britain. These
Iranian-speaking Scythians and Sarmatians dominated large parts of Eastern Europe for a millennium,
and were eventually absorbed and assimilated (e.g. Slavicisation) by the Proto-Slavic population of the
region.[8][9][11]
The Sarmatians differed from the Scythians in their veneration of the god of fire rather than god of
nature, and women's prominent role in warfare, which possibly served as the inspiration for
the Amazons.[73] At their greatest reported extent, around the 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.[74] 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[75] and Sarmatia
Asiatica[76] covering a combined area of 503,000 sq mi or 1,302,764 km^2.
Throughout the 1st millennium AD, the large presence of the Sarmatians who once dominated
Ukraine, Southern Russia, and swaths of the Carpathians, gradually started to diminish mainly due to
assimilation and absorption by the Germanic Goths, especially from the areas near the Roman frontier,
but only completely by the Proto-Slavic peoples. The abundant East Iranian-derived toponyms in Eastern
Europe proper (e.g. some of the largest rivers; the Dniestr and Dniepr), as well as loanwords adopted
predominantly through the Eastern Slavic languages and adopted aspects of Iranian culture amongst the
early Slavs, are all a remnant of this. A connection between Proto-Slavonic and Iranian languages is also
furthermore proven by the earliest layer of loanwords in the former.[77] For instance, the Proto-Slavonic
words for god (*bogъ) , demon (*divъ) , house (*xata) , axe (*toporъ) and dog (*sobaka) are
of Scythian origin.[78]
The extensive contact between these Scytho-Sarmatian Iranian tribes in Eastern Europe and the (Early)
Slavs included religion. After Slavic and Baltic languages diverged the Early Slavs interacted with Iranian
peoples and merged elements of Iranian spirituality into their beliefs. For example, both Early Iranian
and Slavic supreme gods were considered givers of wealth, unlike the supreme thunder gods in many
other European religions. Also, both Slavs and Iranians had demons –- given names from similar
linguistic roots, Daêva (Iranian) and Divŭ (Slavic) –- and a concept of dualism, of good and evil.[79]
The Sarmatians of the east, based in the Pontic–Caspian steppe, became the Alans, who also ventured
far and wide, with a branch ending up in Western Europe and then North Africa, as they accompanied
the Germanic Vandals and Suebi during their migrations. The modern Ossetians are believed to be the
direct descendants of the Alans, as other remnants of the Alans disappeared following
Germanic, Hunnic and ultimately Slavic migrations and invasions.[80] Another group of Alans allied with
Goths to defeat the Romans and ultimately settled in what is now called Catalonia (Goth-Alania).[81]