Maeotae
Μαιῶται
Maeotae (Μαιῶται, Scyl. p. 31; Strab. xi. pp. 492, 494; Plin. Nat. 4.26; Maeotici, Pomp. Mela, 1.2.6, 1.19.17; Plin. Nat. 6.7), a collective name which was given to the peoples about the Palus Maeotis as early as the logographer Hellanicus (p. 78), if we read with his editor Sturz (for Μαλιῶται), Μαιῶται. According to Strabo (l.c.) they lived partly on fish, and partly tilled the land, but were no less warlike than their nomad neighbours. He enumerates the following subdivisions of the Maeotae: Sindi, Dandarii, Toreatae, Agri, Arrechi, Tarpetes, Obidiaceni, Sittaceni, Dosci, and many others. These wild hordes were sometimes tributary to the factory at the Tanais, and at other times to the Bosporani, revolting from one to the other. The kingdom of the Cimmerian Bosporus in later times, especially under Pharnaces, Asander, and Polemon, extended as far as the Tanais.
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.