Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/363

 Chap. 25.] ACCOUNT OF COTHfTEIES, ETC. 329 Stoma^ and the Psilon-Stoma^. These mouths are each of them so considerable, that for a distance of forty miles, it is said, the saltness of the sea is quite overpowered, and the water found to be fresh. CHAP, 25. DACIA, SAEMATIA. On setting out from this spot, all the nations met Avith are iScytliian in general, though various races have occupied the adjacent shores ; at one spot the Getse'*, by the Eomans called Daci ; at another the Sarmatse, by the Greeks called Sauromatae, and the Hamaxobii^ or Aorsi, a branch of them ; then again the base-born Scythians and descend- ants of slaves, or else the Troglodytae^ ; and then, after them, the Alani^ and the Khoxalani, The higher^ parts again, between the Danube and the Hercynian Forest^, as far as the winter quarters of Pannonia at Carnuntum^, and the borders of the Germans, are occupied by the Sarmatian lazyges^", who inhabit the level .country and the plains, swarms of mosqvdtoes, -which were said at a certain tmie of the year to migrate to the Palus Ma^otis. AccortUng to Bi'otier the present name of tills island is Ilan Adasi, or Serpent Island. ^ The " Xorthera Mouth " : near the town of Kiha. 2 Or the " Narrow Mouth." 3 Though Strabo distinguishes the Getce from the Daci, most of the ancient writers, with Phny, speak of them as identical. It is not known, however, why the Getse in later times assumed the name of Daci. dered with their waggons along the banks of the Volga. The chief seats of the Aorsi, who seem in reality to have been a distinct people from the Ilamaxobii, was in the country between the Tanais, the Euxine, the Caspian, and the Caucasus. 5 " Dwellers in Caves." Tliis name appears to have been given to various savage races in different parts of the world. ^ There were races of the Alani in Asia on the Caucasus, and in Eu- rope on the Ma'otis and the Euxine ; but their precise geograpliical position is not clearly ascertained. 7 The present Transylvania and Hungary. 8 The name given in the age of Pliny to the range of mountains ex- tending around Bohemia, and through Moravia into Hungary. ' Its ruins are still to be seen on the south bank of the Danube near Haimburg, between Deutsch-Altenburg and Pctronell. The Roman Ueet of the Danube, with the 11th legion, was originally estabhshed there. ^^ In Pliny's time this migratory tribe seems to have removed to the
 * " Dwellers in waggons." These were a Sarmatian tribe who wan-