Sarmatians

“ The Sarmatians, being attacked by the Goths, implored the aid of the Romans. Constantine was defeated in one battle with the invaders, but in the next he was victorious, and 100,000 Goths, driven into the mountains, perished with cold and hunger. In the division of spoils, the Sarmatians were dissatisfied, and revenged themselves by making inroads upon the Roman dominions. In succeeding wars they were defeated and scattered; 300,000 were received as vassals of the empire, and settled in military colonies in Pannonia, Thrace, Macedonia, and Italy. ”

“ This attribute of Sarmatian women, as a matter of fact, is well attested,—though Herodotus has thrown over it an air of suspicion not properly belonging to it, by his explanatory genealogical mythe, deducing the Sarmatians from a mixed breed between the Scythians and the Amazons. ”

“ But if the language of the Scoloti was Aryan, and they were therefore of an Aryan stock, the Sarmatians must have been of the same stock, for the Sarmatians and the Scoloti spoke, as Herodotus told us (p. 232) , the same language. And if Herodotus adds that the Sarmatians spoke the language of the Scoloti badly, and their ancestresses, the Amazons, learnt it badly from their husbands, this means no more than that they spoke a different dialect of the same language. Diodorus calls the Sarmatians a branch of the Medes planted on the Tanais; to Pliny the Sarmatians are descendants of the Medes. ”

“ I am in doubt whether to reckon the Peucini, Venedi, and Fenni among the Germans or Sarmatians; 267 although the Peucini, 268 who are by some called Bastarnae, agree with the Germans in language, apparel, and habitations. 269 All of them live in filth and laziness. The intermarriages of their chiefs with the Sarmatians have debased them by a mixture of the manners of that people. ”

“ We perceive it here; it has forced Gibbon to suppose, without any reason but the necessity of extricating himself from his perplexity, that the Sarmatians had taken a king from among the Vandals; a supposition entirely contrary to the usages of Barbarians Dacia, at this period, was occupied, not by Sarmatians, who have never formed a distinct race, but by Vandals, whom the ancients have often confounded under the general term Sarmatians. ”

“ The care of their numerous flocks and herds, the pursuit of game, and the exercises of war, or rather of rapine, directed the vagrant motions of the Sarmatians. The movable camps or cities, the ordinary residence of their wives and children, consisted only of large wagons drawn by oxen, and covered in the form of tents. The military strength of the nation was composed of cavalry; and the custom of their warriors, to lead in their hand one or two spare horses, enabled them to advance and to retreat with a rapid diligence, which surprised the security, and eluded the pursuit, of a distant enemy. ”

“ Another military expedition, conducted with equal courage, routed the troops of the barbarians in Valeria, who were plundering and destroying everything within their reach.
7. Terrified at the greatness of this disaster, the Sarmatians, under pretext of imploring peace, planned to divide their force into three bodies, and to attack our army while in a state of fancied security; so that they should neither be able to prepare their weapons, nor avoid wounds, nor (which is the last resource in a desperate case) take to flight. ”

“ And after everything was prepared, we set forth, as you know, at the end of the spring, and undertook a great enterprise; first of all taking care that the countless darts of the enemy should not prevent us from making a bridge. And when, with no great trouble, this had been accomplished, after we had set our foot upon the enemy's territories, we defeated, with very little loss to ourselves, the Sarmatians, who with obstinate courage set themselves to resist us to the death. ”

“ On the northwest were the Sarmatians and Scythians—Sclavonic tribes, able to conquer, but not to reconstruct; savages repulsive and hideous even to the Goths themselves. On the east lay the Parthian empire, separated from Roman territories by the Euphrates, the Tigris, and the Armenian mountains. The Caucasian range between the Euxine and the Caspian seas presented an insuperable barrier, as did the deserts of Arabia to the Roman legions. ”

“ That is, that the Ossetes, Jasy, Alans, Sarmatians [4] are all of one stock, once nomad, now confined to the valleys of the central chain of the Caucasus. The Ossetes are tall, well-made, and inclined to be fair, corresponding to the description of the Alans in Ammianus (XXXI, II, 21) and their Iranian language answers to the accounts of the Sarmatians, of whom Pliny says ‘Medorum ut ferunt soboles’ (N. H., VI, 19) .”
4. The author agrees with Zaborowski and differs from Minns in his belief that the Ossetes are of Nordic stock while the Sarmatians were Alpines. ”

“ Their masters, unable to withstand the ungoverned fury of the populace, preferred the hardships of exile to the tyranny of their servants. Some of the fugitive Sarmatians solicited a less ignominious dependence under the hostile standard of the Goths. A more numerous band retired beyond the Carpathian Mountains, among the Quadi, their German allies, and were easily admitted to share a superfluous waste of uncultivated land. But the far greater part of the distressed nation turned their eyes towards the fruitful provinces of Rome. ”

“ These matters then, as has been related, having been thus successfully terminated, the public interests required that the army should at once march against the Limigantes, the revolted slaves of the Sarmatians, who had perpetrated many atrocities with impunity. For, as soon as the countrymen of free blood had attacked us, they also, forgetful of their former condition, thinking to take advantage of a favourable opportunity, burst through the Roman frontier, in this wickedness alone agreeing with their masters and enemies. ”

“ Gal., i. 51) .
37 The Iazygians were a tribe of Sarmatians, who migrated from the coast of the Black Sea, between the Dnieper and the Sea of Azov, in the reign of Claudius, and settled in Dacia, near the Quadi, with whom they formed a close alliance. They were conquered by the Goths in the fifth century. Cf. Ovid (Tristia, ii. 191) .
38 Called also Sarmatians. Herodotus (iv. 21) says that these people lived east of the Don, and were allied to the Scythians. Subsequent writers understood by Sarmatia the east part of Poland, the south of Russia, and the country southward as far as the Danube. ”

“ And we also crushed the Quadi, who were bringing reinforcements to the Sarmatians, and who with similar courage attacked our noble legions.
29. "These tribes, after heavy losses sustained in their attacks, and their stubborn and toilsome resistance, have at length learnt the power of our valour, and throwing away their arms, have allowed their hands, prepared for fighting, to be bound behind their backs; and seeing that their only hope of safety is in prayer, have fallen at the feet of your merciful emperor, whose wars they found are usually successful. ”

“ Within these tribes live Sarmatians, who also are Scythians, Aorsi,911 and Siraci, extending as far as the Caucasian Mountains towards the south. Some of these are Nomades, or shepherd tribes, others Scenitæ, (or dwellers in tents,) and Georgi, or tillers of the ground. About the lake Mæotis live the Mæotæ. Close to the sea is the Asiatic portion of the Bosporus and Sindica.912 Next follow Achæi, Zygi, Heniochi,913 Cercetæ, and Macropogones (or the long-beards) . ”

“ The greater part of the barbarian names occurring in the inscriptions of Olbia, Tanais and Panticapaeum are supposed to be Sarmatian, and as they have been well explained from the Iranian language now spoken by the Ossetes of the Caucasus, these are supposed to be the representatives of the Sarmatae and can be shown to have a direct connexion with the Alani (q.v.) , one of their tribes. By the 3rd century B.C. the Sarmatae appear to have supplanted the Scyths proper in the plains of south Russia, where they remained dominant until the Gothic and Hunnish invasions. ”

“ None could be found, not one, for warlike Rome, From Pontus far detains his early friends, Far stands his wife's and young descendants' home, Nor on her exil'd sire his daughter tends.
But the wild Bessi of enormous limb, And the Coralli yellow hair'd, are there; Or, clad in skins, the Getic people grim, Whose bosoms hearts of flint within them bear.
Yes, the Sarmatian boor, with aspect dread, His savage succours on the bard bestow'd; The fierce Sarmatian, from debauch oft led, Borne to his horse's back a reeling load. ”

“ None of the kings my forefathers had heard this name. I compelled them to obey Asshur, and those who remained I drove out of their dwellings, and placed them in the city of Samaria." On this campaign Sargon must have advanced into the peninsula of Sinai, and far into Arabia, for the annals continue: "Pharaoh (Pirhu) , the king of Egypt (Muzur) , Samsieh the queen of the Arabs, Iathamir the Sabæan, are kings from the distant coast of the sea and from the land (chasm) . As their tribute I received herbs of the East of various [Pg 90] kinds, metals, horses, and camels." ”

“ Now, as he was diverting himself by looking out upon the flower-garden from the latticed window of the palace, behold, he saw his brother’s wife and with her ten black slaves and ten slave-girls. Each slave laid hold of a damsel and another slave came forth and did the like with the queen; and when they had their wills one of other they all returned whence they came. Hereat there betided the King of Samarkand exceeding surprise and solace and he was made whole of his malady, little by little. ”

“ In the palaces and the mosques of Samara we can see the conquerors themselves conquered by a culture which had been developing during thousands of years on Mesopotamian soil, a culture which had received indeed new elements into its composition, which had learnt from the Greek and from the Persian, but had maintained in spite of all modifications its distinctive character. ”

“ Samartia fell unwept, without a crime!
Found not a generous friend, a pitying foe.
Strength in her arms, nor mercy in her woe!
Dropt from her nerveless grasp the shattered spear,
Closed her bright eye, and curbed her high career ”

“ When you leave the kingdom of Samara you come to another which is called Dagroian. It is an independent kingdom, and has a language of its own. The people are very wild, but they call themselves the subjects of the Great Kaan. ”

“ I have dwelt somewhat at length on the fascinating romance of Semiramis because it is so interesting an illustration of the extraordinary progress which the new science of Assyriology has made during the last few decades; because it illustrates how difficult it is in the annals of the nations of western Asia to separate myth and legend from authentic history; because it shows how gradually we are acquiring a more thorough and exact knowledge of the great empires of Assyria and Babylonia than was possible for a Berosus or a Herodotus to obtain ”

“ It is otherwise when the prevailing force is one foreign to civilization,—when an Attila obtains possession of Rome, or a Tamerlane traverses the plains of Asia; old forms remain, but the hand of philosophy would afterwards vainly remove them with the view of finding beneath them plants which had gained vigor from the human blood given them for nourishment. ”

“ Centuries glided by, and it became Sa-mo-kien, the most western province of the Celestial Empire. Then the tide of Mohammedan conquest rolled over Samarkand; followed by the rule of the Seljūk Turks, destined five centuries later to extend their sway from Mongolia to Constantinople. The old city now became what Moorish Spain was—a chosen abode of all the arts that adorn and sweeten life. The whole fabric of civilisation was drowned in blood by the ruthless Chingiz Khān, and the ruin of Samarkand seemed irretrievable. It was lifted from the dust by a greater genius than Chingiz. ”

“ Thus grew up the customs of the religion which thou hast seen, but ever the ancient fires eats deeper in the pit of the mountain, and ever a great fear lies in the hearts of all Sardanians that some time the fires of the other mountains will follow that fire and leave Sardanes the prey of the ice and snow and darkness that wait without her gates. ”

“ That Sardinia, with all her emotional and picturesque barbarism, has never produced a single artist is almost as strange as her barbarism itself.... Near the focus of European civilization, in the very spot which an à priori geographer would point out as the most favorable place for material and intellectual, commercial, and political development, these strange sister islands have slept their secular sleep, like nodes on the sounding-board of history. ”

“ There seems no doubt but that there was some ruler called Semiramis, who conquered most of Western Asia, Egypt and part of Ethiopia, and who attempted India. Her fish origin is simply due to her being a woman and to her marrying On or Ones, or probably Oanes or Ho-Anes, the Serpent Fish, or recognised God of Passion, both on the lower Euphrates and the lower Nile. Her conquests may merely signify that the race who had faith in her conquered, or that certain conquerors embraced the worship of the Sun Goddess. ”

“ We learn from them that Sargon not only established his rule over Babylonia and the adjoining districts, he also defeated the Elamites, and made four expeditions into Syria, 'the land of the Amorites.' The last of these expeditions occupied three years, and ended with the erection of images of the Chaldaean king on the shores of the Mediterranean, and with the conquest of the countries 'of the sea of the setting sun,' which he united 'into a single empire.' His last campaign was against the Aram-Naharaim of Scripture in north-western Mesopotamia. ”