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 chap, xlii] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 401 to imitate the rapine of the father and the prostitution of the mother. Yet amidst the rudest ignorance, the untaught natives discover a singular dexterity both of mind and hand ; and, although the want of union and discipline exposes them to their more powerful neighbours, a bold and intrepid spirit has ani- mated the Colchians of every age. In the host of Xerxes, they served on foot ; and their arms were a dagger or a javelin, a wooden casque, and a buckler of raw hides. But in their own country the use of cavalry has more generally prevailed ; the meanest of the peasants disdain to walk; the martial nobles are possessed, perhaps, of two hundred horses ; and above five thousand are numbered in the train of the prince of Mingrelia. The Colchian government has been always a pure and hereditary kingdom ; and the authority of the sovereign is only restrained by the turbulence of his subjects. Whenever they were obe- dient, he could lead a numerous army into the field ; but some faith is requisite to believe that the single tribe of the Suanians was composed of two hundred thousand soldiers, or that the population of Mingrelia now amounts to four millions of inhabi- tants. 80 It was the boast of the Colchians, that their ancestors had Revoiu- checked the victories of Sesostris ; and the defeat of the Egyptian coichos is less incredible than his successful progress as far as the foot of mount Caucasus. They sunk, without any memorable effort, under the arms of Cyrus ; followed in distant wars the standard of the great king ; and presented him every fifth year with one hundred boys and as many virgins, the fairest produce of the under the Persians land. 87 Yet he accepted this qift like the gold and ebony of before Christ 500 India, the frankincense of the Arabs, or the negroes and ivory of ^Ethiopia ; the Colchians were not subject to the dominion of a satrap, and they continued to enjoy the name as well as sub- stance of national independence. 88 After the fall of the Persian 86 Strabo, 1. xi. p. 765 [2, § 19]. Lamberti, Relation de la Mingrelie. Yet we must avoid the contrary extreme of Chardin, who allows no more than 20,000 inhabitants to supply an annual exportation of 12,000 slaves : an absurdity un- worthy of that judicious traveller. 87 Herodot. 1. iii. c. 97. See, in 1. vii. c. 79, their arms and service in the ex- pedition of Xerxes against Greece. 88 Xenophon, who had encountered the Colchians in his retreat (Anabasis, 1. iv. p. 320, 343, 348, edit. Hutchinson ; and Fosters's Dissertation, p. 53-58, in Spelman's English version, vol. ii.), styles them alr6vofxoi. Before the conquest of Mithridates, they are named by Appian tduos apti/iaves (de Bell. Mithridatico, c. vol. iv. — 26