Valentina Mordvintseva

On the world map compiled by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa in the 1st century BC the territory earlier known as Scythia was designated as Sarmatia. Since both peoples were practically the same from the point of view of the Greeks and Romans, the question arises why one ethnonym was substituted for the other. The name of Sarmatia appeared within an external narrative tradition, and the observer from the outside could have chosen the name of the most active part of the Barbarian population dealing with the Greco-Roman civilization as eponym of this region. It is most probable that the term “Sarmatians” was used to designate an elite group acting as a subject of international politics. This conclusion fi nds some implicit corroboration in the written and epigraphic sources.