The Massageteans or Massagetaeans are an Iranian nomadic confederation in antiquity known primarily from the writings of Herodotus.

Their name was probably akin to Thyssagetae.

Ammianus Marcellinus considered the Alans to be the former Massagetae.

At the close of the 4th century CE, Claudian (the court poet of Emperor Honorius and Stilicho) wrote of Alans and Massagetae in the same breath: "the Massagetes who cruelly wound their horses that they may drink their blood, the Alans who break the ice and drink the waters of Maeotis' lake" (In Rufinem).Procopius writes in History of the Wars Book III: The Vandalic War: "the Massagetae whom they now call Huns" (XI.

37.

), "there was a certain man among the Massagetae, well gifted with courage and strength of body, the leader of a few men; this man had the privilege handed down from his fathers and ancestors to be the first in all the Hunnic armies to attack the enemy" (XVIII.

54.

).Evagrius Scholasticus (Ecclesiastical History.

Book 3.

Ch.

II.

): "and in Thrace, by the inroads of the Huns, formerly known by the name of Massagetae, who crossed the Ister without opposition".