THE DECLINE AND FALL

sociated for the purposes of destruction ; andfrom the accounts of history, there is some rea-son to believe that these Sarmatians were theJazygae, one of the most numerous and warliketribes of the nation. The allurements of plentyengaged them to seek a permanent establish-ment on the frontiers of the empire. Soon afterthe reign of Augustus, they obliged the Dacians ,who subsisted by fishing on the banks of theriver Teyss or Tibiscus, to retire into the hillycountry, and to abandon to the victorious Sar-matians the fertile plains of the Upper Hungary,which are bounded by the course of the Danube and the semi-circular inclosure of the Carpa-thian mountains." In this advantageous posi-tion, they watched or suspended the moment ofattack, as they were provoked by injuries or ap-peased by presents; they gradually acquiredthe skill of using more dangerous weapous; andalthough the Sarmatiaus did not illustrate theitname by any memorable exploits, they occasion-ally assisted their eastern and western neigh-bours, the Goths and the Germans , with a for-midable body of cavalry. They lived under theirregular aristocracy of their chieftains;* butafter they had received into their bosom the fu-gitive Vandals, who yielded to the pressure of

11 The Sannatian Jazygoe were settled on the banks of the Pathissusor Tibiscus, when Pliny, in the year 79, published his Natural History .See 1. iv, c. 25. In the time of Strabo and Ovid, sixty or seventy yearsbefore, they appear to have inhabited beyond the Getas, along the coastof the Enxine.

* PriucipesSarinatarum Jazygntn penes qnos civitatis regimenplebem quoque et vim equitum qua sola valent offcrebant. Tacit. Hist,iii, 5. This offer was made in the civil war between Vitellius andVespasian .