OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

121

so impotent a resource . 5 Whenever these bar- chap.

barians issued from their deserts in quest of.,_,_

prey, their shaggy beards, uncombed locks, thefurs with which they were covered from headto foot, and their fierce countenances, whichseemed to express the innate cruelty of theirminds, inspired the more civilized provincialsof Rome with horror and dismay.

The tender Ovid , after a youth spent in the Their set-enjoyment of fame and luxury, was condemned near theto an hopeless exile on the frozen banks of the Ddnube *Danube, where he was exposed, almost withoutdefence, to the fury of these monsters of thedesert, with whose stern spirits he feared thatbis gentle shade might hereafter be confounded.

In his pathetic, but sometimes unmanly lamen-tations , 1 he describes, in the most lively colours,the dress and manners, the arms and inroadsof the Getse and Sarmatians, who were as-

* Aspicis ct mitti sub adunco toxica ferro,

Et telum causas mortis habere duas.

Ovid , ex Ponto, 1. iv, cp. 7, ver. 7.

Sec in the Recherches sur Ies Americains, tom. ii, p. 236-271, a verycurious dissertation on poisoned darts. The venom was commonly ex-tracted from the vegetable reign; but that employed by the Scythians appears to have been drawn from the viper, and a mixture of humanblood. The use of poisoned arms, which has been spread over bothworlds, never preserved a savage tribe from the arms of a disciplinedenemy.

' The nine books of Poetical Epistles, which Ovid composed duringthe seven first years of his melancholy exile, possess, besides the meritof elegance, a double value. They exhibit a picture of the human mindunder very singular circumstances; and they contain many curious ob-servations, which no Roman, except Ovid , could have an opportunityof making. Every circumstance which tends to illustrate the historyof the barbarians, has been drawn together by the very accurate Countde Boat. Hist. Ancicnne des Peoples de l’Europc, tom. iv, c. xvi,p 286-317.