Caspians

[2] Caspian is the English version of the Greek ethnonym Kaspioi, mentioned twice by Herodotus among the Achaemenid satrapies of Darius the Great[3] and applied by Strabo.

Onomastic evidence bearing on this point has been discovered in Aramaic papyri from Egypt published by P. Grelot,[7] in which several of the Caspian names that are mentioned—and identified under the gentilic כספי kaspai—are, in part, etymologically Iranian.

[8] The Caspians are called Caspiani in Mela's De situ orbis, Caspi in Pliny's Natural History, and Caspiadae in Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica.

[10] The Caspiadeans reappear in the medieval Historia de via Hierosolymitana among the people arrayed against the forces of the First Crusade (1096–1099).

The anonymous poet, drawing on Flaccus, probably sought to connect the Seljuk Turks, the Crusaders' actual enemy, with the ancient Scythians.