t, was apprehended and burnt alive in the market-place of Tarsus,
by the vigilance of Dalmatius. See the elder Victor, the Chronicle of
Jerom, and the doubtful traditions of Theophanes and Cedrenus.]

Among the different branches of the human race, the Sarmatians form a
very remarkable shade; as they seem to unite the manners of the Asiatic
barbarians with the figure and complexion of the ancient inhabitants of
Europe. According to the various accidents of peace and war, of alliance
or conquest, the Sarmatians were sometimes confined to the banks of the
Tanais; and they sometimes spread themselves over the immense plains
which lie between the Vistula and the Volga. [36] The care of their
numerous flocks and herds, the pursuit of game, and the exercises
of war, or rather of rapine, directed the vagrant motions of the
Sarmatians. The movable camps or cities, the ordinary residence of their
wives and children, consisted only of large wagons drawn by oxen, and
covered in the form of tents. The military strength of the nation was
composed of cavalry; and the custom of their warriors, to lead in their
hand one or two spare horses, enabled them to advance and to retreat
with a rapid diligence, which surprised the security, and eluded the
pursuit, of a distant enemy. [37] Their poverty of iron prompted
their rude industry to invent a sort of cuirass, which was capable
of resisting a sword or javelin, though it was formed only of horses'
hoofs, cut into thin and polished slices, carefully laid over each other
in the manner of scales or feathers, and strongly sewed upon an under
garment of coarse linen. [38] The offensive arms of the Sarmatians were
short daggers, long lances, and a weighty bow with a quiver of arrows.
They were reduced to the necessity of employing fish-bones for the
points of their weapons; but the custom of dipping them in a venomous
liquor, that poisoned the wounds which they inflicted, is alone
sufficient to prove the most savage manners, since a people impressed
with a sense of humanity would have abhorred so cruel a practice, and
a nation skilled in the arts of war would have disdained so impotent a
resource. [39] Whenever these Barbarians issued from their deserts in
quest of prey, their shaggy beards, uncombed locks, the furs with which
they were covered from head to foot, and their fierce countenances,
which seemed to express the innate cruelty of their minds, inspired the
more civilized provincials of R