Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/481

 n. vii. c. in. 12. GET.E AND DACI. 467 maintain the obedience of his subjects, he availed himself of the assistance of Decasneus a sorcerer, 1 who had travelled in Egypt, and who, by predictions he had learnt to draw from certain natural signs, was enabled to assume the character of an oracle, and was almost held in the veneration of a god, as we have related when noticing Zamolxis. 2 As an instance of their implicit obedience, we may relate that they were per- suaded to root up their vines and live without wine. How- ever, Boerebistas was murdered in a sedition before the Ro- mans sent an army against him. Those who succeeded to his government divided it into several states. Lately, when Augustus Ccesar sent an army against them, they were divided into five states, at another time they were four, for such divisions are but temporary in duration, and variable in their extent. 12. There was, from ancient times, another division of these people which still exists ; thus, some they call Dacians and others Getae : the Getee extend towards the Euxine and the east, but the Dacians are situated on the opposite side towards Germany and the sources of the Danube, 3 whom I consider to have been called Daci from a very early period. Whence also amongst the Attics the names of Getce and Davi were customary for slaves. This at least is more probable than to consider them as taken from the Scythians who are named Daae, 4 for they live far beyond Hyrcania, 5 and it is not likely that slaves would be brought all that way into At- tica. It was usual with them to call their slaves after the name of the nation from whence they were brought, as Lydus and Syrus, 6 or else by a name much in use in their own country, as, for a Phrygian, Manes or Midas ; for a Paphla- gonian, Tibius. The nation which was raised to so much power by Boerebistas has since been completely reduced by yo/jrcr, one who used a kind of howling incantation while re- peating spells. 2 See hook vii. chap. iii. 5, page 456. J Gossellin observes that the Dacians did not extend to the sources of the Danube, but to Bohemia, near the middle of the course of the Danube. 4 Gossellin seems to think that these Daae are identical with the in- habitants of Daghistan. Davus is not found as the name of a slave amongst the Greeks till after the conquests of Alexander the Great. 5 Hyrcania comprehended the Corcan and Daghistan. 6 From Lvdia and Syria. 2 H 2