Any member of a people originally of Iranian stock who migrated from Central Asia to the Ural Mountains in the 6th–4th centuries BC and settled in southern European Russia and the eastern Balkans.
Closely related to the Scythian s, they were expert horsemen and warriors and gained wide influence through administrative and political astuteness. Women fought alongside men and may have inspired Greek tales of Amazon s. By the 5th century BC they controlled the land between the Urals and the Don, and by the 2nd century they had conquered the Scythians to rule almost all southern Russia. Allied with Germanic tribes, they continued to pose a threat to the West until the 1st century AD. After invading Dacia and the lower Danube, they were overrun by the Goth s. Many joined the Gothic invasion of western Europe. Sarmatia was destroyed by Hun s after AD 370. Their descendants cannot be traced after the 5th century.