Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/937

 SARMATIA. For Agathyrsl, see Hunni. The Sargatii are mentioned in Ptolemy. South of the Tanaitae came the Osuli (? SuI-ictX of Nestor), reaching as far as the Roxolani, i. e. occupying parts of Cherson and ETcaterinoslav. Between the Roxolani and Hamaxobii the Rhakalani and Exobugitae. The statement of Pliny that the Hamaxobii were Aorsi, combined with simi- larity of name between Aorsi and Ersad, will not help us here. The Krsad are in the governments of Penza and Tamluv ; the direction of the Ha- maxobii is more westward. Rhakalani seems but another form of Roxolani. In 'Es.o-buff-'ita.e the middle syllable may give us the root Bug, the modern name of the Hypanis. It has been surjnised that this is the case with Sa,-hok-ae, and Costo-ioc-i. The locality would suit. Between the Peucini and Basternae (this differ- ence between two nations otherwise identified creates a complication) lie the Carpiani, above whom the Gevini and Budini. The Carpi must have been near or on the Carpa- thian Mountains. They appear as a substantive nation in the later history of Rome, in alliance vi'ith the Sarmatae, &c. of the Dacian frontier. We have a Victoria Carpica Arpi; Carpiani and Kap-noha.- Kai (which Zeuss renders Carpathian Dacians) are several forms of this name [Carpi]. They, along with the Costoboei, Armadoci, and Astingi, appear as the most important frontagers of Northern Dacia. Between the Basternae and Roxolani the Chuni, and under their own mountains (uirb rh i'5ia oprj) the Amadoci and Navari, and along the lake (marsh) of Byke the Torekkadae, and along the Achillaean Course ('AxiAXe'cos SpS/u.oi'^ the Tauro- scythae, and south of the Bastarnae in the direction of Dacia the Tagri, and south of them the Tyran- getae. For Tauroscytliae and Tyrangetae. see s. vv. and SCYTHIA. Tagri looks like a modified form of Zagora {tra- montane), a common Slavonic geographical name, applicable to many localities. The Amadoci occupied iSi'a opij, or the Mons Amadocus of Ptolemy. There was also a Kiixvr] ''AjxaMK-T). This juxta-position of a mountain and Like (pool, or swamp, or fen) should fix their locality more closely than it does. Their liistory connects them with the Costoboei. (Zeuss, s. vv. Costo- boei, Amadoci.) The physical conditions, how- ever, come out less clearly than our prchcnt topo- graphical knowledge of Podolia, Minsk, &c. explains. For the Navari see Neuri. The name Chuni is important. [See Hunni.] In Torek-kad-ae and Eso-bug-itae we have two elements of an apparent compound that frequently occurs in Scytho-Sarmatian geography — Tyn-get-ae, &c., Costo-hok-i, Sa-boc-i. The geograpliy is quite compatible in the presence of these elements. Rivers. — From the Vistula eastwards, the Chro- nus, the Rliubon, the Turuntus, the Chersinos, — the order of the modern names being the Pregel, Memel, Duna, Aa, ?.nd Neva. For the drainage of the Black Sea, see Scvthia. IIouNTAiNs. — Pence, the Montes Amadoci, the Mons Budinas, the Mons Alaunus, the Mons Car- pathus, the Venedic mountains, the Rhipaean moun- tains. None of these are definitely identified. It is difiicult to say how Ptolemy named the most im- portant range of so flat a tract as Russia, viz., the Valdai Mountains. On the other hand, the names of SARMATIA. 917 his text imply more mountains than really exist. All his mountains were, probably, spurs of the Car- pathians, just as inSarmatia Asiatica they were of Caucasus. Towns. — See ScYrniA. II. SARMATIA ASIATICA. The boundaries are — the Tanais, from its sources to its mouth, European Sarmatia from the sources of the Tanais northwards, the Maeotis and Cim- merian Bosporus, the Euxine as far as the river Corax, the range of Caucasus, the Caspian as far as the river Soana, the Volga as far as its bend (Scvthia being on the east of that river), — and on the north an Unknown Land. Without knowing the point at which this terra incognita begins, it is impossible to give the northern limits of Sarmatia Asiatica. It is included, however, in the govern- ments of Caucasus, Circassia, Astrakhan, Don Kosaks, Saratov, Simbirsk, Kazan, Viatka, Kos- troma, Vladimir (?), Nizhni Novogorod, Riazan (?), Tambov, and Penza ; all the governments, in short, on the water system of the Volga; a view which makes the watershed between the rivers that empty themselves into the White Sea and the rivers that fall into the Caspian and Euxine a convenient pro- visional boundary. For the obscure geography of Asiatic Sarmatia, the bend of the Tanais is our best starting point. To the north of it dwelt the Perierbidi, a great nation; to the south the laxamatae, the former in Do7i Kosaks, Voronezh, and Tambov, Saratov, the latter in Astrakhan. North of the Perierbidi come the Asaei, the Suardeni, the Zacatae, the Hip- pophagi Sarmatae, the ]Iodocae, the Royal Sar- matians, the Hyperborean Sarmatians, the Un- known Land. In Kazan and Simbirsk we may place the Cliaenides, and on the east of the Volga the Phtheirophagi and Materi. The NTjcitDris X'^P'* must be at the mouth of the Volga. If so, the order in which the names have been given is from north to south, and the Phtheirophagi are in Eastern Kazan, the Materi in Saratov. The remaining populations are all (or nearly all) in the governments of Caucasus and Circassia, in the northern spurs of the Caucasian range. They are the Siraceni, the Psessii, the Thymeotae, the Turambae, the Asturicani, the Arichi, the Zicchi, the Conapoeni, the Meteibi, the Agoritae, the Melanchlaeni, the Sapothracni, the Scymnitae, the Amazones, the Sunani, the Sacani, the Orinaei, the Vali, the Servi, the Tusci, the Diduri, the Vodae, the Olondae, the Isondae, the Gerrhi. The Achaei, Kerketi, Heniochi, Suanocokhi, and Sa- naraei are truly Caucasian, and belong to the geography of the mountain range rather than the Sarmatian plains and steppes — for such they are in physical geography, and such was the view of Slrabo, so far as he noticed Sarmatia at all. It is difficult to detei-mine the source of Ptolemy's information, difficult to say in what language we are to seek for the meaning of his names. The real populations, as they actually existed, were not very different from those of the Herodotean Scvthia; yet the Herodotean names are wanting. These were, probably, Scythian, — the northern populations to which they applied being Ugrian. Are the names native? For the parts due north of Caucasus they may be so; indeed it is possible that the greater number of them may be duo to a Caucasian source. At the present time, when we are fairly supplied with '3 N 3