The ancients knew very little about what is now Russia in Europe. The Greeks had colonies and factories about the shores of the Black Sea, but they never made much headway toward a knowledge of the country. The people were called Scythians and some were known to be farmers and established in settlements along the Dnieper River, while others were nomads. The headquarters of such government as they had seems to have been in the vicinity of the Azof Sea.
A little later we find a Graeco-Scythian state on the Bosphorus, while the cities of Olbia and Chersonesos exercised a civilizing influence upon the barbarians to the north. The Chersonese of the Greeks corresponded to the modern Crimea.
When the power of Rome rose and became heir to the Greek conquests in Asia, the wild Scythian was a source of constant trouble. Many a time Rome's legions were put to the test to keep this scourge of the steppes on their own side of the Danube and away from the Mediterranean. One wave after another of the Asiatic tribes pressed westward everywhere a catastrophe. They were nomadic nations of widely different races, which rolled into Europe one after another.
One of these movements resulted in the founding of the vast empire in eastern Scythia by the Goths under Hermaneric. They were driven out and overthrown by a cloud of Finnish people, Avars, Bulgarians, Magyars and Khazars, who followed upon the heels of the Huns. IN the midst of this melee the Slavs came to the front and appeared in history under their proper name.
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From General Nelson A. Miles
Thrilling Stories of The Russian-Japanese War, 1904
