I think, like you, unlike Pekkanen, that -antes is a suffix, not an independent word.
BTW, the information supplied by Berzovan Alexandru in
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/64571
that Zarand, Tamand, Zerind, Carand, Bihor in Western Romania are Iranian seems to confirm that *-Vnd could be use in Iranian for ethonyms.
****GK: That should do it I guess.
Now as to the historical issues. See what you think of this. I've reread the available primary sources on the Sarmatian Civil War of 334 and its aftermaths.
1. It seems to me that Eusebius, Jerome, and the Anonymus Valesianus only tell one part of the story, and that Ammianus Marcellinus provides a welcome explanatory addition. E/J/AV suggest that there was a total exodus of "masters" from Sarmatia (the old Iazygae Metanastae region) after their defeat by the "slaves". Some 300,000 individual refugees were incorporated into the Empire. I think the problem of whether the "masters" were the old nomadic aristocracy, and the "slaves" their subject agricultural population already receives a hint of a solution when we are told that only some of these refugees became
Roman warriors, while others carried on as farmers... Ammianus' version, on the other hand, doesn't even mention this huge exodus (and doesn't deny it). It focuses on another group of defeated "masters" who fled not to the Romans but to the Quadi Victofali, and became their vassals. But Ammianus (perhaps a bit ambiguously: I reread these passages a number of times to make sure) suggests that a large group of nomad aristocrats remained in Sarmatia. They were not consistently unfriendly (though occasionally dangerous) to the "rebellious slaves", and while both groups were independent, and had their own territories, they seemed to have co-existed in relative peace between 334 and 358. Zizais was one of the leaders of the Sarmats ignored by E/J/AV. Ammianus emphasizes that this group of nomads were allies of the Quadi, but were not their vassals (unlike the group of "defeated and exiled masters" led by Usafer {AM 17.12.14}).
2. The Tabula
Peutingeriana adds even more clarifications to Ammianus' text. If one examines its data on the Danubian frontier (Segments ***), one finds three sequential descriptions of the Sarmatian region, from the old boundary between Pannonia superior and Pannonia inferior through approx. the first part of Moesia superior. [Note BTW that the Tabula's nomenclature here antedates the 296 CE adrministrative reforms of Diocletian. As a matter of fact, except for the addition of the Constantinople icon /and even that does not yet rival the pictorial representations of Rome and Antioch/ the map afaics presents information (with the exception of noted anachronisms re Arabia) adequate for ca. 270. There is nothing "special" about Ravenna, so the notion of a 5th c. timeline for the extant TP seems weak. But this is a tricky problem of course.
3. On the Sarmatian frontier then: TP scripts "Sarmate Vagi" for the length of the old Pannonia inferior, then
"Solitudines Sarmatarum", and then "Amaxobii Sarmate". The "Solitudines" section, deceptively long on the map
actually only covers the immediate area of Singidunum on the Roman side i.e. the border between Pannonia and Moesia. It is the area where the Tysa (Thiess, Pathissus) joins the Danube. And the distance allotted to the "Wagon dwellers" also occupies a relatively short space in reality (as vs. the map), and correlates with Moesia's Viminacium. We appear to have two distinct groups of nomads, separated by emptiness. Correlation with Ammianus' text about the events of 358-359 indicates that these "Solitudines Sarmatarum" were then occupied by two important tribes of "Sarmatae Limigantes" (Anicenses and Ticenses) who had migrated there after their victorious expulsion of the "masters" {AM 17.13.4}. But the map reflects the "pre-civil war situation".
4. A passing theory. If we assume that "Sarmate Vagi" might be one of the many transcription mistakes found in the TP (along with equally many correct readings), then could "VAGI" be a misspelt "IA--GI =
IA-(ZI)-GI"?
If so the "Amaxobii Sarmate" might represent the Roxolani, late arrivals to the area [ca. 260 or a bit later acc. to Harmatta. BTW note that the TP still has the "Roxulani Sarmate" north of the Black Sea in early Gothic times]. It would be these late arrivals who would then be the "masters" against whom the war of 334 erupted, and who were expulsed. Along with "loyalist agriculturalists" (there are always such elements). This would explain the high figures migrating to Roman soil, and the continuation (apparent) of nomadic control (Iazigi?) of the Pannonian border through 358. Usafer the Quadian vassal would thus have been Roxolanian (?).
5. Neither Ammianus nor E/J/AV have much to say about the vast majority of the Sarmatian agricultural tribes of the North. Ammianus' tale of the "Limigantes" is strictly about the two recently immigrated tribes on the Danubian border and their fate. Not a pretty one. By the end of the 359 campaign. most had been
destroyed or enslaved by a military coalition or Sarmats (both Iazigi and rehabilitated Roxolani (if my theory holds) Romans and Taifali, and the few remaining ones resubjected to these "rehabilitated" "old masters" now under the kingship of the Roman appointee Zizais (a Iazig?). There is nothing to suggest that the unnamed agricultural tribes of the North lost their autonomy.
5. These tribes are identified in the TP as "Lupiones Sarmate" and "Venadae Sarmatae". On the analogy of the location of the nomad groups, the "Lupiones" would have occupied (roughly) the basin of the Muresh r., and the "Venadae" that of the Koros r. and further north up to the mountains. I'm pretty sure of this location acc. to the pattern adopted in TP. If "Lupiones"=Lugiones and "Venadae"= Venedi, the next question would be : how did they get there? Did the Iazigi follow the raiding pattern of Avars and early Hungarians or was this something else?
6. There
is the further question: if the map is basically pre-334, who migrated with the "masters" to Roman territory and who remained? And
who migrated southward as the "Anicenses" and "Ticenses" after 334? We know that in 358 the defeated Ticenses were relocated far to the north, in the area of the Venedi. But does this mean that they were Venedi? The fact that they only stuck it out for a few months and they tried to invade Valeria in 359 doesn't prove they weren't originally from Sarmatian Venedia. Their parents were after all willing migrants to the "Solitudines Sarmatorum".
7. We know two words from the language of these "Ticinenses" {AM 19.11.10). What we do not know is whether these "military terms" were borrowings from the nomads or were original "Ticinensic" words. "Marha, Marha" apparently means "death,death" (or so my source) and is supposedly Iranic. Is it? Unfortunately history has not even recorded the names of any Limigantic leaders or actors.