Note 433 — ON AIRS, WATERS, AND PLACES.

The name Sauromatæ or Sarmatæ was applied by the ancient geographers to certain inhabitants of that vast and, to them, nearly unexplored country, extending from the Sinus Codanus or Baltic Sea, to the Euxine or Black Sea. It comprehends, then, a large portion of Russia, Poland, and perhaps Prussia. (See Pomponius Mela, iii., 4; Ptolemy, Geograph.; and Maltebrun, Geograph., vol. i., p. 126.) That the Sarmatians and Scythians were the same race of men, although some of the authorities make a distinction between them, can scarcely admit of a doubt. Our author, it will be remarked, seems to restrict the name to a peculiar race of Scythians, who lived near the Palus Mæotis (or Sea of Asaph). From the account which he gives of them it is impossible to doubt that he alludes to the Amazonians, so celebrated in ancient legends. The opinion which I entertain of them is pretty fully stated in the Argument to this treatise. That our author should not have doubted the real existence of the Amazonians need excite no wonder, considering the very positive and very circumstantial account of them given by his contemporary Herodotus (iv., 110–18).