Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/19

  (pp. 514, 517), the principal tribes of which were the Sacae, Dahae, ami Massagetae, and adds (p. 518) that its "embouchure" was, according to Patrocles, 80 parasangs from the mouth of the Oxus. Pliny (vi. 18) says that the Scythians called it "Silis," probably a form of the name Syr, which it now bears, and that Alexander and his soldiers thought that it was the Tanaïs. It has been conjectured that the Alani, in whose language the word tan (Tan-aïs, Dan, Don) signified a river, may have brought this appellative first to the E., and then to the W. of the Aralo-Caspian basin, in their migrations, and thus have contributed to confirm an error so flattering to the vanity of the Macedonian conquerors. (Asie Centrale, vol. ii. pp. 254, 291; comp. Schafarik, Slav. Alt. vol. i. p. 500.) Pomponius Mela (iii. 5. § 6) merely states that it watered the vast countries of Scythia and Sogdiana, and discharged itself into that E. portion of the Caspian which was called Scythicus Sinus.

Arrian, in recounting the capture of Cyropolis (Anab. iv. 3. § 4), has mentioned the curious fact, that the Macedonian army entered the town by the dried-up bed of the river; these desiccations are not rare in the sandy steppes of Central Asia,—as for instance, in the sudden drying up of one of the arms of the Jaxartes, known under the name of Tanghi-Daria, the account of which was first brought to Europe in 1820. (Comp. Journ. Geog. Soc. vol. xiv. pp. 333—335.)

Ptolemy (vi. 12. § 1) has fixed mathematically the sources, as well as the "embouchure," of the Jaxartes. According to him the river rises in lat. 43° and long. 125°, in the mountain district of the (, § 3: Muz-Tágh), and throws itself into the Caspian in lat. 48° and long. 97°, carrying with it the waters of many affluents, the principal of which are called, the one (, § 3), and the other  (, § 3). He describes it as watering three countries, that of the "Sacae," "Sogdiana," and "Scythia intra Imaum." In the first of these, upon its right bank, were found the  and  (, vi. 13. § 3); in the second, on the left bank, the   and , who extended to the Oxus, the  , and  (, vi. 12. § 4); in Scythia, on the N. bank of the Syr, lived the Jaxartae , a numerous people (vi. 14. § 10), and near the "embouchure," the  (, vi. 14. § 13). Ammianus Marcellinus (xxiii. 6. § 59), describing Central Asia, in the upper course of the Jaxartes which falls into the Caspian, speaks of two rivers, the and  (probably the Demus of Ptolemy), "qui per juga vallesque praecipites in campestrem planitiem decurrentes Oxiam nomine paludem efficiunt longe lateque diffusam." This is the first intimation, though very vague, as to the formation of the Sea of Aral, and requires a moredetailed examination. [.]

The obscure Geographer of Ravenna, who lived, as it is believed, about the 7th century A.D., mentions the river Jaxartes in describing Hyrcania.

Those who wish to study the accounts given by mediaeval and modern travellers, will find much valuable information in the "Dissertation on the River Jaxartes" annexed to Levchine, Hordes et Steppes des Kirghiz-Kazaks, Paris, 1840. This same writer (pp. 53—70) has described the course of the Syr-Daria, which has its source in the mountains ofKachkar-Davan, a branch of the range called by the Chinese the "Mountains of Heaven," and, taking a NW. course through the sandy steppes of Kizil-Koum and Kara-Koum, unites its waters with those of the Sea of Aral, on its E. shores, at the gulf of Kamechlou-Bachi.

 JAXAMATAE (,, , Ixomatae, Anim. Marc. xxii. 8. § 31; Exomatae, Val. Flacc. Argonaut. 144, 569) a people who first appear in history during the reign of Satyrus III., king of Bosporus, who waged war with Tirgatao, their queen. (Polyaen. viii. 55.) The ancients attribute them to the Sarmatian stock. (Scymn. Fr. p. 140; Anon. Peripl. Eux. p. 2.) Pomponius Mela (i. 19. § 17) states that they were distinguished by the peculiarity of the women being as tried warriors as the men. Ptolemy (v. 9) has placed them between the Don and Volga, which agrees well with the position assigned to them by the authors mentioned above. In the second century of our era they disappar from history. Schafarik (Slav. Alt. vol. i. p. 340), who considers the Sarmatians to belong to the Median stock, connects them with the Median word "mat"="people," as in the termination Sauromatae; but it is more probable that the Samiatians were Slavonians.

 JA'ZYGES, IA'ZYGES (, Steph. B. Iazyx), a people belonging to the Sarmatian stock, whose original settlements were on the Palus Maeotis. (Ptol. iii. 5. § 19; Strab. vii. p. 306; Arrian, Anab. 1, 3; Amm. Marc. xxii. 8. § 31.) They were among the barbarian tribes armed by Mithridates (Appian, Mithr. 69); during the banishment of Ovid they were found on the Danube, and in Bessarabia and Wallachia (Ep. ex Pont. i. 2. 79. iv. 7, 9, Trist. ii. 19. 1.) In A. D. 50, either induced by the rich pastures of Hungary, or forced onwards from other causes, they no longer appear in their ancient seats, but in the plains between the Lower Theiss and the mountains of Transylvania, from which they had driven out the Dacians. (Tac. Ann. xii. 29; Plin. iv. 12.) This migration, probably, did not extend to the whole of the tribe, as is implied in the surname "Metanastae;" henceforward history speaks of the, who were the Sarmatians with whom the Romans so frequently came in collision. (Comp. Gibbon, c. xviii.) In the second century of our era, Ptolemy (iii. 7) assigns the Danube, the Theiss, and the Carpathians as the limits of this warlike tribe, and enumerates the following towns as belonging to them:— ; or  (, al. );  or  (, al. );  ;  ;  ;   and. These towns were, it would seem, constructed not by the Iazyges themselves, who lived in tents and waggons, but by the former Slave inhabitants of Hungary; and this supposition is confirmed by the fact that the names are partly Keltic and partly Slavish. Mannert and Reichard (Forbiger, vol. iii. p. 1111) have guessed at the modern representatives of these places, but Schafarik (Slav. Alt. vol. i. p. 514) is of opinion that no conclusion can be safely drawn except as to the identity of Pesth with Pessium, and of Potisije with Partiscum.

The Iazyges lived on good terms with their neighbours on the W., the German Quadi (Tac. Hist. iii. 5), with whom they united for the purpose of 