A few facts about King Farzoi

This fellow certainly deserves to be better known. As far as I know there is as yet no biography (not even a short biographical blurb) about him anywhere, just odd mentions here and there in various contexts. Yet he is someone who is pretty close to Attila as to significance in steppe politics. He wasn't as successful as the Hun, but he was preparing to take on the Roman Empire, and he did this at a time when this Empire was at the height of its power, not the weak and degenerate structure of the mid-5th c. CE...
We don't know where and when he was born. We do know that he was an Aorsan (west Alan) and that his clan came from the area of the Kuban river east of the Don (Yatsenko's gakk research). He was already an important political leader among the Aorsans when the Romans sought their help in stabilizing the status of their royal candidate in the Bosporus (Claudius' dealings with Aorsan King Eunones are described by Tacitus). Perhaps independently of this, Farzoi led his forces across the Don sometime in the 40's and swiftly built a power base there. We don't know in what order this was accomplished, but between ca. 45 and 48 CE he managed:
(a) to legitimize his status in the area by a close connection with the "Royal Scythians" (the Satarchi), perhaps through a dynastic marriage. From that point in time the Aorsi and Scythians become indistinguishable politically (though the former maintain their specific "podboy" burial practices).];
(b) to effect a strong political alliance with the Yazigi, who became a sort of "junior partner" in his construct. Aorsan detachments patrolled the Danubian frontier along with the Yazigi (we know this from Pliny)
(c) to coerce both the Roxolani and the Bastarnians into political submission, guaranteed by their giving him royal princes of their people as hostages (this we know from the funeral inscription of Farzoi's Roman nemesis Plautus Aelianus)
(d) to obtain the total submission of the Zarubinian and Przeworsk populations of the Ukrainian forest-steppe zone.
We don't know if Farzoi immediately started further activity in the north and west at this time. It's possible.
By 48 he had become so strong that the city state of Olbia had to acknowledge his power by making him "archont" and issuing coins with that status inscribed thereon. This was the first time Olbia had acknowledged foreign sovereignty since the time of Skilur and Mithradates. The Aorsan world was then in effect controlled by a double kingship: Eunones east of the Don, and Farzoi west of the Don (we have an inscription at Olbia to "the kings [plural GK]of the Aorsoi.." A sort of Bleda/Attila system.
As yet Farzoi made no moves against Rome. His politics were in line with Eunones'.
As of 49 he began to do very ambitious things. Again one can't be too sure of the order (except for a few things) but between 49 and 60 Farzoi accomplished the following:
(a) Became sole King of the Aorsi. Probably around 54 or 55. The circumstances are obscure. The indicator is that after 6 consecutive years of being "archont" of Olbia as of 54-55 he becomes "King" in their coins (and golden stateres are issued in his name).
(b) Engineered large scale population movements and transfers, as though working on a chessboard.
i= The Yazigi were ordered to occupy the transpannonian banks (and assist Vannius). In that connection Dacians were removed from the plains. Some may have been transplanted into Galicia (the so-called Lypetsk culture). It is unclear whether they were actually called "Costoboci" or whether that was the name of Sarmatians imported to control the population along the Dnister (there were "Costoboci" Sarmatians in the North Caucasus region).  It appears that Farzoi had the Dacian complex under total control.
ii= The Zarubinians were largely cleared out from the Middle Dnipro region. Some were transplanted to the immediate south (the Southern Boh basin), some were moved northeastward (where Farzoi coins were also found= basin of the Sejm and Desna). There was total evacuation of the Polissia region along the Prypjat (Pripet) and a population transfer into Galicia, where these Zarubinians coexisted with Przeworsk people and newly arrived Dacians and Sarmats.
iii= But the most interesting Zarubinian transplant was the one Farzoi engineered into the area of the Danubian limes. He moved masses of them to the border. We know this from Pliny (who calls them "Scythae degeneres et a servis orti" (after Herodotus!), from the Tab. Peut. which has "Venedae" on the Danube, and we know their fate from Aelianus' funerary inscription. I suspect there were not only Zarubinians there, but also Dacians, but that is for another occasion. Here I'm only giving the broad strokes.
(c) Began to organize alliances with other populations. This is where we can place not only the contacts with Germanics to the west, but also with Alans (and perhaps others) beyond the Caspian. This vast reservoir of humanity was ready to be tapped "if" things otherwise went right with him.
In ca. 61 Farzoi thought he was ready for the first move. He laid siege to Chersonesos in the Crimea (just as Skilur had in the late 2nd c BCE). This was a small but direct confrontation with Rome. I don't think he had any immediate grandiose plans, but just some initial strategic gains in mind. Had he succeeded in capturing Chersonesos he would probably have given it to the Bosporans in return for their defection from Rome.

But then Rome got lucky. Nero or his advisers had appointed an excellent military and administrative man to be governor of Moesia in 60. Plautus Aelianus. He was responsible for the security of the Empire in the north, all the way to the Bosporus. And he acted very ably. We don't have the details unfortunately, just the results succinctly noted in his funerary inscriptions. What Plautus did while Farzoi blockaded Chersonesos was to create problems in the coalition the Scythian was putting together. Plautus managed to get the upper hand over the Iazigi (we don't know if this was done militarily or otherwise). In any event they were effectively neutralized. Next he somehow got ahold of the hostage Roxolan and Bastarnian princes and liberated them. Then (and this was most significant) he got the newly implanted Zarubinians and others to defect and managed to get all of them across the border into Roman territory (over 100,000 apparently). The immediate
result of these successes was that Farzoi lifted the siege of Chersonesos. And one further result of the Plautus initiative was that Olbia rejected the suzerainty of the Scythian King in 62.
For the rest of Nero's reign the situation restabilized. Farzoi's credit had been shaken but was far from destroyed. He re-established his control over the Roxolans and others steppe peoples. He imported more nomads from across the Don: Siraci were located just east of the Dnister (where Pliny knows them in 75 CE), and the first recorded Alans arrived (we know this from Pliny also) to patrol the Danube. For the time being we know of no further attempts to colonize the limes. Farzoi waited.
With the assassination of Nero he seems to have gotten a chance to move again. He had the Roxolans raid Roman territory (though ultimately they were defeated as we know). Most importantly he reestablished his control over Olbia which once more began to mint his coins in 68.
Then something happened to him. We don't know what exactly except that at the latest by 70 CE he had died and had been replaced by Inismei.
A very interesting warlord! In 60 he controlled acreage from the borders of the old regnum Vannianum to the mouth of the Volga. His influence reached deep into Germania and into Alania (he had clans from the Urals and West Kazakhstan as his vassals). Certainly worthy of more notice than has hetetofore been vouchsafed him.