and while he shewed the Cæfars to the armies and CHA P.
provinces, he maintained every part of the empire Xviii.
in equal obedience to its fupreme head 34. The
tranquillity of the last fourteen years of his reign
was fcarcely interrupted by the contemptible in-
furrection of a camel-driver in the island of Cy-
prus 35, or by the active part which the policy of
Conftantine engaged him to affume in the wars of
the Goths and Sarmatians.

of the Sar

Among the different branches of the human Manners race, the Sarmatians form a very remarkable matians. fhade; as they feem to unite the manners of the Afiatic barbarians with the figure and complexion of the ancient inhabitants of Europe. According to the various accidents of peace and war, of alliance or conqueft, the Sarmatians were fometimes confined to the banks of the Tanais; and they fometimes fpread themselves over the immenfe plains which lie between the Viftula and the Volga". The care of their numerous flocks. and herds, the pursuit of game, and the exercise of war, or rather of rapine, directed the vagrant

34 Eufebius (1. iv. c. 51, 52.), with a defign of exalting the authority and glory of Conftantine, affirms, that he divided the Roman empire as a private citizen might have divided his patrimony. His diftribution of the provinces may be collected from Eutropius, the two Victors, and the Valefian fragment.

25 Calocerus, the obfcure leader of this rebellion, or rather tu mult, was apprehended and burnt alive in the market place of Tarfus, by the vigilance of Dalmatius. See the elder Victor, the Chronicle of Jerom, and the doubtful traditions of Theophanes and Cedrenus.

36 Cellarius has collected the opinions of the ancients concerning the European and Afiatic Sarmatia; and M. d'Anville has applied them to modern geography with the fkill and accuracy which always diftinguish that excellent writer.

CHA P. motions of the Sarmatians. The moveable XVIII. camps or cities, the ordinary refidence of their wives and children, confifted only of large waggons drawn by oxen, and covered in the form of tents. The military ftrength of the nation was compofed of cavalry; and the cuftom of their warriors, to lead in their hand one or two fpare horfes, enabled them to advance and to retreat with a rapid diligence, which furprised the security, and eluded the purfuit, of a diftant enemy 37. Their poverty of iron prompted their rude industry to invent a fort of cuirafs, which was capable of refifting a fword or javelin, though it was formed only of horses' hoofs, cut into thin and polished flices, carefully laid over each other in the manner of fcales or feathers, and ftrongly fewed upon an under-garment of coarse linen 39. The offenfive arms of the Sarmatians were fhort daggers, long lances, and a weighty bow with a quiver of arrows. They were reduced to the neceffity of employing fifh bones for the points of their weapons; but the cuftom of dipping them in a venomous liquor, that poifoned the wounds which they inflicted, is alone fufficient to prove the most favage manners; fince a people impreffed with a sense of humanity would have abhorred fo cruel a practice, and a nation fkilled in the arts of war would have difdained fo impotent a re

37 Ammian. I. xvii. c. 12. The Sarmatian horfes were caftrated, to prevent the mischievous accidents which might happen from the noify and ungovernable paffions of the males.

38 Paufanias, 1. i. p. 50. edit. Kuhn. That inquifitive traveller had carefully examined a Sarmatian cuirafs, which was preserved in the temple of Æfculapius at Athens.

fource

ce

fource 39. Whenever thefe Barbarians iffued from CHAP.
their deferts in queft of prey, their fhaggy beards, XVIII.
uncombed locks, the furs with which they were
covered from head to foot, and their fierce coun-
tenances, which feemed to exprefs the innate
cruelty of their minds, infpired the more ci-
vilized provincials of Rome with horror and dif-

may.

tlement

near the

The tender Ovid, after a youth fpent in the en- Their fetjoyment of fame and luxury, was condemned to an hopeless exile on the frozen banks of the Da- Danube. nube, where he was expofed, almost without defence, to the fury of these monsters of the defert, with whose stern fpirits he feared that his gentle fhade might hereafter be confounded. In his pathetic, but fometimes unmanly lamentations 4°, he describes, in the most lively colours the dress, and manners, the arms and inroads of the Getæ

39 Afpicis et mitti fub adenco toxica ferro,

Et telum caufas mortis habere duas.

Ovid. ex Ponto, l. iv. ep. 7. ver. 7.
See in the Recherches fur les Americains, tom. ii. p. 236-271, a
very curious differtation on poifoned darts. The venom was com.
monly extracted from the vetegable reign; but that employed by the
Scythians appears to have been drawn from the viper, and a mixture
of human blood. The ufe of poisoned arms, which has been spread
over both worlds, never preferved a favage tribe from the arms of a
difciplined enemy.

40 The nine books of Poetical Epifles, which Ovid compofed
during the feven first years of his melancholy exile, poffefs, befides
the merit of elegance, a double value. They exhibit a picture of
the human mind under very fingular circumftances; and they con.
tain many curious obfervations, which no Roman, except Ovid,
could have an opportunity of making. Every circumstance which
tends to illuftrate the hiftory of the Barbarians, has been drawn
together by the very accurate Count de Buat. Hift. Ancienne des
Peuples de l'Europe, tom. iv. c. xvi. p. 286–317.

and

CHAF. and Sarmatians, who were affeciated for the purXVIII. pofes of deftruction; and from the accounts of

hiftory, there is some reason to believe that these Sarmatians were the Jazyga, one of the most numerous and warlike tribes of the nation. The allurements of plenty engaged them to feek a permanent establishment on the frontiers of the empire. Soon after the reign of Auguftus, they obliged. the Dacians, who fubfifted by fifhing on the banks of the river Teyfs or Tibifcus, to retire into the hilly country, and to abandon to the victorious Sarmatians the fertile plains of the Upper Hungary, which are bounded by the courfe of the Danube and the femi-circular inclofure of the

41

Carpathian mountains "1. In this advantageous pofition, they watched or fufpended the moment of attack, as they were provoked by injuries or appeased by prefents; they gradually acquired the skill of ufing more dangerous weapons; and although the Sarmatians did not illuftrate their name by any memorable exploits, they occafionally affifted their eaftern and western neighbours, the Goths and the Germans, with a formidable body of cavalry. They lived under the irregular ariftocracy of their chieftains 4; but after they had received into their bofom the fugitive Van

41 The Sarmatians Jazygæ were fettled on the banks of the Pathiffus or Tibifcus, when Pliny, in the year 79, published his Natural History. See l. iv. c. 25. In the time of Strabo and Ovid, fixty or feventy years before, they appear to have inhabited beyond the Getæ, along the conft of the Euxine.

42 Principes Sarmatarum Jazygum penes quos civitatis regimen

plebem quoque et vim equitum quâ folâ valent offerebant. Tacit. Hift. ii. 5. This offer was made in the civil war between Vitellius and Velpafian.

dals,

dals, who yielded to the preffure of the Gothic c H a p.
power, they feem to have chofen a king from XVIII.
that nation, and from the illuftrious race of the
Aftingi, who had formerly dwelt on the fhores of
the northern ocean 43.

thic war,

This motive of enmity must have inflamed the The Gofubjects of contention, which perpetually arife on 35T. the confines of warlike and independent nations. The Vandal princes were ftimulated by fear and revenge; the Gothic kings afpired to extend their dominion from the Euxine to the frontiers of Germany; and the waters of the Maros, a fmall river which falls into the Teyfs, were stained with the blood of the contending Barbarians. After fome experience of the fuperior ftrength and number of their adverfaries, the Sarmatians implored the protection of the Roman monarch, who beheld with pleafure the difcord of the nations, but who was justly, alarmed by the progrefs of the Gothic arms. As foon as Conftantine had declared himself in favour of the weaker party, the haughty Araric, king of the Goths, inftead of expecting the attack of the Legions, boldly paffed the Danube, and fpread terror and devastation through the province of Mafia. To oppose the inroad of this deftroying hoft, the aged emperor took the field in perfon; but on this occafion either his conduct or his fortune betrayed the glory which he had acquired in fo many fo

43 This hypothesis of a Vandal king reigning over Sarmatian fubjects, feems neceffary to reconcile the Goth Jornandes with the Greek and Latin historians of Conftantine. It may be obferved that Ifidore, who lived in Spain under the dominion of the Goths, gives them for enemies, not the Vandals, but the Sarmatians. See his Chronicle in Grotius p. 709*

reign