Maeotae or Mæotæ or Maeotici (Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

: ) were an ancient people dwelling along the Palus Maeotis (to which they lent their name) in antiquity. It is not clear whether they spoke an Iranian language

Iranian languages

The Iranian languages form a subfamily of the Indo-Iranian languages which in turn is a subgroup of Indo-European language family. They have been and are spoken by Iranian peoples....

 or were related to the modern-day Adyghe

Adyghe people

The Adyghe or Adygs , also often known as Circassians or Cherkess, are in origin a North Caucasian ethnic groupwho were displaced in the course of the Russian conquest of the Caucasus in the 19th century, especially after the Russian–Circassian War of 1862.Adyghe people mostly speak Adyghe and most...

. The best attested tribe among them was the Sindi

Sindi (people)

The Sindi were an ancient people in the Taman Peninsula and the adjacent coast of the Pontus Euxinus , in the district called Sindica, which spread between the modern towns of Temryuk and Novorossiysk...

.

The earliest reference may be the logographer Hellanicus. Strabo

Strabo

Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...

 describes them as living among the Dandarii

Dandarii

The Dandarii were an ancient people dwelling along the Palus Maeotis in antiquity. Strabo describes them as living among the Maeotae, Sindi, Toreatae, Agri, Arrechi, Tarpetes, Obidiaceni, Sittaceni, Dosci, and Aspurgiani, among others....

, Toreatae

Toreatae

The Toreatae or Toretae were a tribe of the Maeotae in Asiatic Sarmatia. Strabp describes them as living among the Maeotae, Sindi, Dandarii, Agri, Arrechi, Tarpetes, Obidiaceni, Sittaceni, Dosci, and Aspurgiani, among others. Ptolemy The Toreatae (Greek: , Strabo xi. 2. 11) or Toretae (Greek: ,...

, Agri

Agri (people)

-Origin:The name Agri comes from Agar, a salt-pan. The original name seems to be Agle.The tradition common among them is that they originally dwelt at Mungi Paithan and were transported to the Konkan by Bimbaraja, and it is alleged that there are in existence sanads given by him to certain persons...

, Arrechi

Arrechi

The Arrechi were an ancient tribe of the Maeotae, on the east coast of the Palus Maeotis. Strabo places them among the Maeotae, Sindi, Dandarii, Toreatae, Agri, Tarpetes, Obidiaceni, Sittaceni, Dosci, and Aspurgiani, among others. They are probably the same as the Arichi of Ptolemy ....

, Tarpetes

Tarpetes

The Tarpetes were an ancient people dwelling along the Palus Maeotis in antiquity. Strabo describes them as living among the Maeotae, Sindi, Dandarii, Toreatae, Agri, Arrechi, Obidiaceni, Sittaceni, Dosci, and Aspurgiani, among others....

, Obidiaceni

Obidiaceni

The Obidiaceni were an ancient people dwelling along the Palus Maeotis in antiquity. Strabo describes them as living among the Maeotae, Sindi, Dandarii, Toreatae, Agri, Arrechi, Tarpetes, Sittaceni, Dosci, and Aspurgiani, among others....

, Sittaceni

Sittaceni

The Sittaceni were an ancient people dwelling along the Palus Maeotis in antiquity. Strabo describes them as living among the Maeotae, Sindi, Dandarii, Toreatae, Agri, Arrechi, Tarpetes, Obidiaceni, Dosci, and Aspurgiani, among others. -References:...

, Dosci

Dosci

The Dosci were an ancient people dwelling along the Palus Maeotis in antiquity. Strabo describes them as living among the Maeotae, Sindi, Dandarii, Toreatae, Agri, Arrechi, Tarpetes, Obidiaceni, Sittaceni, and Aspurgiani, among others....

, and Aspurgiani

Aspurgiani

The Aspurgiani were an ancient people, a tribe of the Maeotae dwelling along east side of the Strait of Kerch along the Palus Maeotis in antiquity. They seem to be identical with the "Asturicani" of Ptolemy The Aspurgiani (Greek: or ) were an ancient people, a tribe of the Maeotae dwelling along...

, among others. According to him they lived partly on fish, and partly tilled the land, but were no less warlike than their nomad neighbors. These wild hordes were sometimes tributary to the factory at the Tanais

Tanais

Tanais is the ancient name for the River Don in Russia. Strabo regarded it as the boundary between Europe and Asia.In antiquity, Tanais was also the name of a city in the Don river delta that reaches into the northeasternmost part of the Sea of Azov, which the Greeks called Lake Maeotis...

 (modern Don River

Don River (Russia)

The Don River is one of the major rivers of Russia. It rises in the town of Novomoskovsk 60 kilometres southeast from Tula, southeast of Moscow, and flows for a distance of about 1,950 kilometres to the Sea of Azov....

), and at other times to the Bosporani

Bosporan Kingdom

The Bosporan Kingdom or the Kingdom of the Cimmerian Bosporus was an ancient state, located in eastern Crimea and the Taman Peninsula on the shores of the Cimmerian Bosporus...

, revolting from one to the other. In later times, especially under Pharnaces II of Pontus

Pharnaces II of Pontus

Pharnaces II of Pontus, also known as Pharnaces II was a prince, then King of Pontus and the Bosporan until his death. He was a monarch of Persian and Greek Macedonian ancestry. Pharnaces II was the youngest son and child born to King Mithridates VI of Pontus from his first wife, his sister Queen...

, Asander

Asander (Bosporan King)

Asander named Philocaesar Philoromaios was an aristocrat and a man of high rank of the Bosporan Kingdom.Asander was of Greek and possibly of Persian ancestry. There is not much is known on his family and early life. He started his political and military career as a general under Pharnaces II, King...

 and Polemon I of Pontus

Polemon I of Pontus

Polemon Pythodoros, also known as Polemon I or Polemon I of Pontus was the Roman Client King of Cilicia, Pontus, Colchis and the Bosporan Kingdom....

, the Bosporan Kingdom

Bosporan Kingdom

The Bosporan Kingdom or the Kingdom of the Cimmerian Bosporus was an ancient state, located in eastern Crimea and the Taman Peninsula on the shores of the Cimmerian Bosporus...

 extended as far as the Tanais.

There are speculations that the Maeotes and the Sindes may have been Indo-Aryans

Indo-Aryans

Indo-Aryan is an ethno-linguistic term referring to the wide collection of peoples united as native speakers of the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-Iranian family of Indo-European languages...

, connected with the Mitanni

Mitanni

Mitanni or Hanigalbat was a loosely organized Hurrian-speaking state in northern Syria and south-east Anatolia from ca. 1500 BC–1300 BC...

 rulers of Assyria one millennium before Herodotus.

One princess of the Maeotes, a wife of a Sindic king, from the tribe of Ixomates, was called Tirgatao

Tirgatao

Tirgatao was a princess of the Maeotes mentioned by Polyaenus:Tirgatao is also the title of a tragedy by Kabardian writer Boris Utizhev, a playwright of the Kabardino-Balkar Republic. It was translated into Arabic and published in Damascus....

 by Polyaenus

Polyaenus

Polyaenus or Polyenus vs. e]]; , "many proverbs") was a 2nd century Macedonian author, known best for his Stratagems in War , which has been preserved. The Suda calls him a rhetorician, and Polyaenus himself writes that he was accustomed to plead causes before the emperor...

  comparable to Tirgutawiya, a name from a tablet found in Hurrian Alalakh

Alalakh

Alalakh is the name of an ancient city-state near modern Antakya in the Amuq River valley of Turkey's Hatay Province.Now represented by an extensive mound, the name of the modern archaeological site is Tell Atchana.-History:...

. Karl Eichwald

Karl Eichwald

Karl Eduard von Eichwald was a Russian geologist and physician.Eichwald was a Baltic German born at Mitau in Courland...

even proclaimed them to have been a Hindu colony, but this view was rejected by the vast majority of scholars.