People
Bruani
Biruani, Abritani
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Bruani stands in the Scythian lands by the Cimmerian Bosporus, the strait between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, written in plain black letters, although peoples are usually lettered in red. Some have taken it for Biruani, a place near Panticapaeum, or for a garbled Porthmion, an old Greek colony at the narrowest point of the strait. The likeliest match is the Borani, probably a Sarmatian people whom the historian Zosimus called Scythians. In the 250s AD they seized the Bosporan fleet, raided the Black Sea coasts and took Pityus and the fortified city of Trapezus.