Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/938

 918 SiUlMATIA. clnta both as to the names by which the popula- tions of the parts in quesion designate themselves, as well as those by which they are designated by their neighbours, there are no satisfactory identifica- tions at all. There are some that we may arrive at by a certain amount of assumption ; but it is doubtful whether this is legitimate. In the names, for instance, beginning with sn- (Sa-hod, &c.) we may see the Slavonic for trans ; in those with po- the Slavonic ad, — both of which are common in the geographical terminology of the Russians, &c. But these are iincertain, as are the generality of the other coincidences. In Siberia, for instance, a Samoyed tribe is named Motor-zi : name for name, this may be Jlateri ; whether, however, it denote the same population is another question. Are the Sarmatiae of Ptolemy natural divisions ? Subject to an hypothesis, which will be just stated in the present article, but which will be exhibited in full in ScYT'HiA, the Sarmatiae of Ptolemy are ob- jectionable, both for what it contains and what it omits. The whole of Asiatic Sarmatia is, more or less, arbitrary. It seems to be a development of the area of the Herodotean Sauromatae. In the north it comprised Finn or Ugrian, in the south Circassian and Georgian, populations. The Alauni were Scythian, as were several other tribes. It is therefore no ethnological term. Neither are its boundaries natural, if we look at the physical con- ditions of the country. It was defined upon varying and diSerent principles, — sometimes with a view to ])hysical, sometimes to ethnological, sometimes to political geography. It contains more than a natural Sarmatia. On the other hand, the Vistula was no ethnological line of demarcation. The western half of Poland was Sarmatian, in respect to its climate, surface, and the manners of its inhabitants. The Lygii, however, having been made part of Germania, remained so in the eyes of Ptolemy. That the populations on each side of the Lower Vistula, i. e. of West and East Prus- sia, were the same, is certain ; it is certain, at least, that they were so at the beginning of the historical period, and all inference leads us to hold that they were so before. The Vistula, however, like the Rhine, was a good natural boundary. The Jazyges Metanastae were most probably Sar- matian also. Pliny calls them Jazyges Sarmatae (iv. 25); the name Metanastae being generally in- terpreted removed. It is, however, quite as likely to be some native adjunct misunderstood, and adapted to the Greek language. The other Jazyges (i. e. of the Maeotis) suggested the doctrine of a migration. Yet, if the current in- terpretation be right, there might be any amount of Jazyges in any part of Sarmatia. It is the Slavonic for language, and, by extension, for the people who speak a language: — "a po Ocje rjeje, gde wteczel' w Wolgu, jazyk swoj Muroma, i Czeremisi swoj jazyh, e Mordwa svio] jazyh;" — translated, "On the Oka river, where it falls into the Volga, a particular people, the Muroma, and the Tsheremis, a peculiar people, and the Mordwins, a peculiar people." (Zeuss, s. v. Osfjiniien). Hence it has at least a Slavonic gloss. On the other hand, it has a meaning in the Magyar language, where Jassatj = howman, a fact which has induced many scholars to believe that there were Magyars in Hungary befoie the great ^lagyar invasion, indeed before the Hun. Be this as it may, the district of the Jazyges Me- SARJIATIA. tanastae is called the Jassag district at the present moment. Jlore than one of the Dacian populations were Sarmatian, — the diiference between Dacia, the name of the Roman Province, and Sarmatia, the country of an independent and hostile population, being merely political. Indeed, if we look to the distri- bution of the Sarmatae, their south-eastern limit must have the parts about Tormi. [See Sauroma- tae.] Here, however, they were intrusive. Ethnology. — The doctrine upon this point is merely stated in the present notice. It is developed in the article on Scythia. It is to the effect that, in its proper application, Sarmatian meant one, many, or all of the north-eastern members of the Slavonic family, probably, with some members of the Lithuanic, included. History. — The early Sarmatian history is Scy- thian as well [Scythia], and it is not until Pan- nonia becomes a Roman province that the Sarmatian tribes become prominent in history, and, even then, the distribution of the several wars and alliances be- tween the several nations who came under the ge- neral denomination is obscure. In doing this there is much that in a notice like the present may be eliminated. The relations of the Greeks and earlier Romans with Sarmatia were with Scythia and the Getae as well, the relations of the latter being with the provincials of Pannonia, with the Marcomanni, and Quadi, &c. Both are neighbours to a tribe of Jazyges. The great Mithridatic Empire, or, at any rate, the Mithridatic Confederacy, contained Sarmatians fo nomine, descendants of the Herodotean Sauro- matae. Members of this division it must have been whom the Marcus, the brother of Lucius Lucullus, chastised and drove beyond the Danube, in his march through Sloesia. Tho.=.e, too, it was with whom the Cis-Danubian nations in general were oftenest in contact, — Jazyges, Roxolani, Costoboci, &c., who though (almost certainly) Sarmatian in their ethnological affinities, are not, eo nomine, Sar- matian, but, on the contrary, populations with more or less of an independent history of their own. Thirdly, the Sarmatians, who, in conjunction with Getae, Daci, Jloesians, Thracians, &c., may have been found in the districts south of the Danube, must be looked upon as intrusive and foreign to the soil on which they are found. On the other hand, it must be remembered that the Sarmatae eo nomine fall into two divisions, divided from each other by the whole extent of the Roman province of Dacia, the area of those of the east being the parts between the Danube and the Don, the area of those of the west being the parts between the Danube and Theiss. The relations of the former are with the Scythians, Roxolani, tbo kings of Pontus, &c., over whom, some years later, M. Crassus triumphed. His actions, however, as well as those of M. Lucullus, so far as they were against the Sannatae, were only accidental details in the campaigns by which Moesia was reduced. The whole of the Trans-Danubian frontier of Jloesia, east of Viminiacum, was formed by Dacia. The point at which the Remans and Sarmatians would more especially com.e in contact was the country about Sirmium, where the three provinces of Pannonia, Illyricum, and Moesia joined, and where the pre-eminently Sarmatian districts of the nations between the Danube and Theiss lay northwards — pre-eminently Sarmatian as opposed to the Daiians,