Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/940

 920 SAKMATICA INSULA. Mpplies to one of these. There were more of them. The general rule, however, is, that some particular division of the name takes historical prominence, and that the general name of Sarmatia, as well as the particular Sarmatae of the parts between Dacia and Pannoiiia, and those between Scythia and Persia, disappears. [See Vandali; Tiiaika- LAE.] [R. G. L.] SARJIA'TICA I'NSULA, an island at that mouth of the Danube called Kalonstoma (rh KaKhv UTotxa). (I'lin. iv. 24. s. 24.) [T. H. D.] SARMA'TICAE PORTAE (at •S.a.pfianKoX iri- Kai, Ptol. V. 9. §§ U, 15), a narrow pass of the Caucasus, whence it is also called Caucasiae Portae. (VYm. vi. 11. s. 12, 15. s. 15.) From its vicinity to the Caspian sea, it was also called by some of the ancients Portae Caspiae (Suet. Nero, 19), Claustra Caspiarum (Tac. //. i. 6), and Via Caspia (Id. Ann. vi. 33); but Pliny {I. c.) notes this as an error; and the proper Portae Caspiae were in the Taurus (Forbiger, Geoyr. vol. ii. p. 47, note 92). The Sar- maticae Portae formed the only road between Sar- matia and Iberia. Ptolemy (I. c.) distinguishes from this pass another in the same mountain, which he calls o( 'A€d.viai rii/Aai (Portae Albaniae), and places the latter in the same latitude as the former, namely the 47 th degree, but makes its longitude 3 degrees more to the E. The Albaniae Portae are those on the Alazon, leading over the mountain from Derbend to Berdan. At both spots there are still traces of long walls 120 feet in height; and on this circumstance seems to have been founded a legend, prevalent in that neighbourhood, of the Black Sea and the Caspian having been at one time connected by such a wall. (Forbiger, Ibid. p. 55, note 13, b. ; comp. Ritter, Erdkunde, ii. p. 837.) [T. H. D.] SARMA'TICI MONTES (:ZapiJ.ariKa. opt]), a range of mountains on the eastern frontier of Ger- many, mentioned only by Ptolemy (ii. 11. § 6, viii. 10. § 2), according to whom it appears to have ex- tended north of the Danube as far as the sources of the Vistula, and therefore consisted of the mountains in Moravia and a part of the Car- patlmms. [L. S.] SARMA'TICUM MARE (6 S.apiJ.aTiKhs wKiavSs, Ptol. vii. 5. §§ 2, 6), a sea in the N. of Europe, washing the coast of Sarmatia, and which must thus have been the Baltic (Tac. Germ. 45). But sometimes the Black Sea is designated by the poets under this name, as by Ovid (ex Font. iv. 10. 38) and by Valerius Flaccus (Sarmaticus Pontus, viii. 207.) [T. H. D.] SARMATINA, a town of Ariana, mentioned by Ammianus (xxiii. 6). It is probably the same as the Sarmagana of Ptolemy (vi. 17. § 4), as both he and Ammianus place it next to Bitaxa, in the same province. [V.] SARMIZEGETHU'SA (Zap/xiCeydeovaa, Ptol. iii. 8. § 9: ZepfJii^eyfdova-r], Dion Cass. Iviii. 9), one of the most considerable towns of Dacia, and the residence of the Dacian kings (^SatriAeioj', Ptol. I. c.) It is called Sarmategte in the Tabtda Pent, and Sar- mazege by the Geogr. Rav. (iv. 7). It is incontes- tably the sameplace as that called to /SaffiAeia Aukwu by Dion Cassius (Ixvii. 10; Ixviii. 8), who places it on the river Sargetia (76. c. 14); a situation which is also testified by ruins and inscriptions. At a later period a Roman colony was founded here by Trajan, after he had expelled and killed Decebalus king of tlie Dacians; as is testified by its name of Colonia Ulpia Trajana Augusta, and may be inferred ' SARNUS. from Ulpian (Dig. 50. tit. 15. 1. 1.), from whom we also learn that it possessed the Jus Italicum. it was the head-quarters of the Legio xiii. Gemiiia (Dion Cass. Iv. 23), and at first probably there w;is only a Roman encampment here (Id. Iviii. 9; Aur. Vict. Caes. xiii. 4). Hadrian conferred an aqueduct upon it, as appears from an inscription (Gruter, p. 177. 3; Orelli, No. 812), and that emperor seems to have retained the colony, on account of its nume- rous Roman inhabitants, when he resolved to abandon the rest of Dacia to the barbarians. From an inscription to Trajan and his sister Marciana, there would appear to have been baths here (Orell. 791). Sarmizegethusa occupied the site of the pre- sent Vai'hely (called also Gradischte), on the river Strel or Strey, about 5 Roman miles from the Porta Ferrea, or Vulcan Pass. (Comp. Inscr. Gruter, p. 272; Oreni,No.s. 831,3234,3433,3441,3527,3680, 4552; Zamosc. Ann, pp.40, 74; Marsili, Z>a«wi. tab. 24, 55, &c.; Ukert, iii. 2. p. 616, seq.; Zumpt, in Rhein. Mus. 1843, p. 253—259.) [T. H. D.] SARNEIUS ('Xdpveios), a small stream of Hyr- cania mentioned by Strabo (x. p. 511), which, after rising in M. Coronus, flowed in a westerly direction into the Caspian. Professor Wilson considers that it nmst be either the Atrek or the Gurijan. [V.] SATiNIA or SARMIA, is named in the IIaritime Itin. among the islands of the Ocean between Gallia and Britannia. Supposed to be Chcernsey. [G. L.] SARNUS (6 2apj'(5s: Sarno), a river of Cam- pania, flowing into the Bay of Naples. It has its sources in the Apennines, above Nuceria (Nocera), II near which city it emerges into the plain, and, after traversing this, falls into the sea a short distance S. of Pompeii. Its present mouth is about 2 miles distant from that city, but we know that in ancient times it flowed under the walls of Pompeii, and entered the sea close to its gates. [Pompeii.] The change in its course is doubtless owing to the great catastrophe of A. D. 79, which buried Pompeii and Herculaneum. Virgil speaks of the Sarnus as flowing through a plain (quae rigat aequora Sarnus, ^ere. vii. 738); and both Silius Italicus and Statins allude to it as a placid and sluggish stream. (Sil. Ital. viii. 538; Stat. Silv. i. 2. 265; Lucan, ii. 422.) According to Strabo it was navigable, and served both for the export and iiuport of the produce of the interior to and from Poiupeii. (Strab. v. p. 247 ; Pliu. iii. 5. s. 9; Ptol. iii. 1. § 7; Suet. Clar. Rhet. 4.) Vibius Sequester tells us(p. 18) that it derived its name as well as its sources from a mountain called Sarus, or Sarnus, evidently the same which rises above the modern town of Sarno, and is still called Monte Saro or Sarno. One of the principal sources of the Sarno does, in fact, rise at the foot of this mountain, which is joined shortly after by several confluents, the most considerable of these being the one which flows, as above described, from the valley beyond Nuceria. According to a tradition alluded to by Virgil (I. c), the banks of the Sarnus and the plain through which it flowed, were inhabited in ancient tiiues by a people called Saurastes, whose name is evidently connected with that of the river. They are represented as a Pelasgian tribe, who settled in this part of Italy, where they founded Nuceria, as well as several other cities. (Conon, ajj. Serv. ad Aen. I.e.; Sil. Ital. viii. 537.) But their name seems to have quite disappeared in the historical period ; and we find Nuceria occupied by the Alfaterni, who were an Oscan or Sabellian race. [Nucekia.]