CHAP. 25.—DACIA, SARMATIA.
On setting out from this spot, all the nations met
with are Scythian in general, though various races have
occupied the adjacent shores; at one spot the Getæ[1], by the
Romans called Daci; at another the Sarmatæ, by the Greeks
called Sauromatæ, and the Hamaxobii[2] or Aorsi, a branch
of them; then again the base-born Scythians and descendants of slaves, or else the Troglodytæ[3]; and then, after
them, the Alani[4] and the Rhoxalani. The higher[5] parts
again, between the Danube and the Hercynian Forest[6], as
far as the winter quarters of Pannonia at Carnuntum[7], and
the borders of the Germans, are occupied by the Sarmatian
lazyges[8], who inhabit the level country and the plains,
while the Daci, whom they have driven as far as the river
Pathissus[9], inhabit the mountain and forest ranges. On
leaving the river Marus[10], whether it is that or the Duria[11],
that separates them from the Suevi and the kingdom of
Vannius[12], the Basternæ, and, after them, other tribes of
the Germans occupy the opposite sides[13]. Agrippa considers
the whole of this region, from the Ister to the ocean, to be
2100 miles in length, and 4400 miles in breadth to the river
Vistula in the deserts[14] of Sarmatia. The name "Scythian"
has extended, in every direction, even to the Sarmatæ and the
Germans; but this ancient appellation is now only given to
those who dwell beyond those nations, and live unknown to
nearly all the rest of the world.
1. Though Strabo distinguishes the Getæ from the Daci, most of the
ancient writers, with Pliny, speak of them as identical. It is not known,
however, why the Getæ in later times assumed the name of Daci.
2. "Dwellers in waggons." These were a Sarmatian tribe who wandered with their waggons along the banks of the Volga. The chief seats
of the Aorsi, who seem in reality to have been a distinct people from the
Hamaxobii, was in the country between the Tanais, the Euxine, the
Caspian, and the Caucasus.
3. "Dwellers in Caves." This name appears to have been given to
various savage races in different parts of the world.
4. There were races of the Alani in Asia on the Caucasus, and in Europe on the Mæotis and the Euxine; but their precise geographical
position is not clearly ascertained.
5. The present Transylvania and Hungary.
6. The name given in the age of Pliny to the range of mountains extending around Bohemia, and through Moravia into Hungary.
7. Its ruins are still to be seen on the south bank of the Danube near
Haimburg, between Deutsch-Altenburg and Petronell. The Roman fleet
of the Danube, with the 14th legion, was originally established there.
8. In Pliny's time this migratory tribe seems to have removed to the
plains between the Lower Theiss and the mountains of Transylvania,
from which places they had expelled the Dacians.
9. The Lower Theiss.
10. Now the river Mark, Maros, or Morava.
11. The name of the two streams now known as the Dora Baltea and
Dora Riparia, both of which fall into the Po. This passage appears to
be in a mutilated state.
12. A chief of the Quadi; who, as we learn from Tacitus, was made king
of the Suevi by Germanicus, A.D. 19. Being afterwards expelled by his
nephews Vangio and Sido, he received from the emperor Claudius a
settlement in Pannonia. Tacitus gives the name of Suevia to the whole
of the east of Germany from the Danube to the Baltic.
13. According to Hardouin, Pliny here speaks of the other side of the
mountainous district called Higher Hungary, facing the Danube and
extending from the river Theiss to the Morava.
14. This, according to Sillig, is the real meaning of a
desertis here, the
distance being measured from the Danube, and not between the Vistula
and the wilds of Sarmatia. The reading "four thousand" is probably
corrupt, but it seems more likely than that of 404 miles, adopted by
Littre, in his French translation.