Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/333

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 315 thin and polished slices, carefully laid over each other C H A P. in the manner of scales or feathers, and strongly sewed '__ upon an under garment of coarse linen i'. The of- fensive arms of the Sarmatians were short daggers, long lances, and a weighty bow with a quiver of arrows. They were reduced to the necessity of employing fish-* bones for the points of their weapons ; but the custom of dip})ing them in a venomous liquor, that poisoned the M'ounds which they inflicted, is alone sufficient to prove the most savage manners ; since a people im- pressed with a sense of humanity would have abhorred so cruel a practice, and a nation skilled in the arts of war would have disdained so impotent a resource''. Whenever these barbarians, issued from their deserts in quest of prey, their shaggy beards, uncombed locks, the furs with which they were covered from head to foot, and their fierce countenances, which seemed to express the innate cruelty of their minds, inspired the more civilized provincials of Rome with horror and dismay. The tender Ovid, after a youth spent in the enjoy- Their set- nient of fame and luxury, was condemned to an hope- ^^^^ ^^g less exile on the frozen banks of the Danube, where Danube. he was exposed, almost without defence, to the fury of these monsters of the desert, with whose stern spirits he feared that his gentle shade might hereafter be con- founded. In his pathetic, but sometimes unmanly lamentations", he describes, in the most lively colours, I* Pausanias, 1. i. p. 50. edit. Kuhn. That inquisitive traveller had care- fully examined a Sarmatian cuirass, which was preserved in the temple of ^sculapius at Athens. '1 Aspicis et mitti sub adunco toxica ferro, Et telurn causas mortis habere duas. Ovid, ex Ponto, 1. iv. ep. 7. ver. 7. See in the Recherches sur les Americains, tom. ii. p. 236 — 271, a very curi- ous dissertation on poisoned darts. The venom was commonly extracted from the vegetable reign ; but that employed by the Scythians appears to have been drawn from the viper, and a mixture of human blood. The use of poisoned arms, which has been spread over both worlds, never preserved a savage tribe from the arms of a disciplined enemy. ' The nine books of Poetical Epistles, which Ovid composed during the seven first years of his melancholy exile, possess, besides the merit of ele- gance, a double value. They exhibit a picture of the human mind under very singular circumstances ; and they contain many curious observations.