The Spali ( la, Spalaei, Spali, Palaei, Pali) was an ancient tribe mentioned in

classical geography ;Pre-Hellenistic Classical Greece *Homer *Anaximander *Hecataeus of Miletus *Massaliote Periplus *Scylax of Caryanda (6th century BC) *Herodotus ;Hellenistic period *Pytheas (died c. 310 BC) *''Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax'' (3rd or 4th century BC) ...

that inhabited the south of Russia. Pliny ( 77–79) enumerated a group of tribes through which the

Don River The Don ( rus, Дон, p=don) is the fifth-longest river in Europe. Flowing from Central Russia to the Sea of Azov in Southern Russia, it is one of Russia's largest rivers and played an important role for traders from the Byzantine Empire. Its ...

(''Tanais'') crossed, in which the Spalaei are last mentioned. He mentioned the conquerors of the Napaei as the Palaei (6, 50), while in another chapter (6, 22) says that it was the three Scythian tribes of Auchetae, Athernei and Asampatae that defeated them. It is believed that the Spalaei and Palaei are one and the same. Diodorus (2, 43) reported that the Spalaei/Palaei/Pali were descendants of Scythian king Palus, the son of Scythes. The mythical origin and chapter '6, 22' suggests that the Spalaei/Palaei/Pali was a "collective designation of the eastern branch of Royal Scythians". By examinating Pliny and Diodorus, the Auchetae (or Euchatae) were part of the Spalaei/Palaei/Pali.

Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria (Italy). He is known fo ...

( 440 BC) stated that the Scythians or Scoloti consisted of the Auchatae (descending from Lipoxais), Catiaroi and Traspies (from Arpoxais), and Paralatae (from Colaxais), the latter which was "the youngest of them, the royal race". Tadeusz Sulimirski believed that they were a branch of the

Roxolani The Roxolani or Rhoxolāni ( grc, Ροξολανοι , ; la, Rhoxolānī) were a Sarmatian people documented between the 2nd century BC and the 4th century AD, first east of the Borysthenes (Dnieper) on the coast of Lake Maeotis ( Sea of Azov), ...

. Sulimirski attributed

Sarmatian The Sarmatians (; grc, Σαρμαται, Sarmatai; Latin: ) were a large confederation of ancient Eastern Iranian equestrian nomadic peoples of classical antiquity who dominated the Pontic steppe from about the 3rd century BC to the 4th cen ...

archaeology on the mid-

Dnieper } The Dnieper () or Dnipro (); , ; . is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. It is the longest river of Ukraine an ...

to the tribe, supported by the Sarmatians' downfall after the

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

invasion in 200 AD. The "Royal Scythian" connection is supported by Indo-Parthian royal names '' Spalirisos'', ''Spalyris'', ''

Spalahora Spalahores, also spelled Spalohres or Spalahora, (Greek: ; , (epigraphic); Kharosthi: , ; ruled circa 57-35 BCE), was an Iranian king who ruled Sakastan in the 1st-century BC. Name Spalahores's name is attested on his coins in the Greek forms ...

'', and the Slavic word ''ispolin'', ''spolin'' ("giant"), assumed to date back to when

Slavs Slavs are the largest European ethnolinguistic group. They speak the various Slavic languages, belonging to the larger Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout northern Eurasia, main ...

were ruled by the Spalaei.

Francis Dvornik Francis Dvornik (14 August 1893, Chomýž – 4 November 1975, Chomýž), in Czech František Dvorník, was a Catholic priest and academic. He is considered one of the leading twentieth-century experts on Slavic and Byzantine history, and on rela ...

(1893–1975) believed that the Sporoi mentioned by

Procopius Procopius of Caesarea ( grc-gre, Προκόπιος ὁ Καισαρεύς ''Prokópios ho Kaisareús''; la, Procopius Caesariensis; – after 565) was a prominent late antique Greek scholar from Caesarea Maritima. Accompanying the Roman gen ...

(500–560) as being the old name of the Antes and

Sclaveni The ' (in Latin) or ' (various forms in Greek, see below) were early Slavic tribes that raided, invaded and settled the Balkans in the Early Middle Ages and eventually became the progenitors of modern South Slavs. They were mentioned by early ...

were probably the ''Spali'' mentioned by

Jordanes Jordanes (), also written as Jordanis or Jornandes, was a 6th-century Eastern Roman bureaucrat widely believed to be of Gothic descent who became a historian later in life. Late in life he wrote two works, one on Roman history ('' Romana'') an ...

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