- Roxolani
Roxolani — a large Sarmatian tribal union that roamed between the Borysthenes (modern Dnieper) and Tanais (modern Don) rivers. Part of the Roxolani were located in the Azov steppes, and part between the Borysthenes and the mouth of the Ister (modern Danube). Gradually, the Roxolani advanced westward into the southern regions of Dacia (modern Romania). In 118 AD, the Roxolani recognized their dependence on the Roman Empire. In the 2nd-3rd centuries AD, they waged wars with Rome, after which Emperor Hadrian was forced to pay them annual tribute. In the 4th century, under the pressure of the Ostrogoths, the Roxolani migrated westward. There has been a two-century-long debate surrounding the problem of the origin of the Roxolani and their ethnic evolution. In modern times, the Roxolani were usually understood in literature as Slavs: Zaporozhian Cossacks, South Russians, Little Russians.
The first mention in Greco-Latin sources of the ethnic name "Alans" appears as part of the compound ethnonym Roxolani (Greek: "roxolanoi"), in which the epithet "rox" means "bright" (Ossetian: roxs — "light"). The epithets "bright" or "white," applied to individual Sarmatian and related tribes, are equivalent to the concept of "free," "noble," etc. Strabo's placement of the Roxolani east of the Borysthenes (modern Dnieper) shows that by the 2nd century BC, to which Strabo's sources go back, the Roxolani had already reached the Dnieper in their westward movement. True, Strabo, based on the geographical concepts of his time, places the Roxolani much farther north than the territory they actually occupied to the northwest of Maeotis (the Sea of Azov). Strabo's data prove that, although the proper name Alan appears in ancient sources only in the 1st century AD, the Alan ethnic element was present in the steppes of the Northern Black Sea region for at least two centuries before that and, consequently, in the North Caucasus, where their main territory of formation was located.
VARIANT NAMES: Russian. Roxolani, Latin. Roxolani, Roxulani, Greek. Ρωξολανοί.
Sources:
Ethnogenesis of the Abkhazians. D.A. Arshba, 2015