48 THE ALAN OR ALAUNT. 



Sarmatia was almost unknown to the ancients. Juvenal 

 says " Ultra Sauromates fugere etc.,'' Lib. i, satiro ii. The 

 southern portion adjoining the Paulus Moetis had for its 

 principal town Cimmerium. Between Colchis and the Caspian 

 or Hyrcanian sea, were Iberia and Albania, famous through- 

 out classic lore, for the mighty dogs they produced. 



The Sarmatians were a savage uncivilized nation, naturally 

 warlike, and famous for painting their bodies, to make them 

 appear more terrible in the field of battle. They passed 

 among the Greeks and Latins as barbarians, and joined by 

 the savage hordes of Scythia, under the names of Huns, 

 Goths, Vandals, Alans, Etc., in the third and fourth centuries 

 they ruined the empire. The Sarmatians usually lived in the 

 mountains without any habitation except their chariots, and 

 existed by plunder and the milk of their flocks. 



In this description (gathered from Strabo. Diodorus, Flor- 

 entius, Lucan, Juvenal, and Ovid) we see the counterpart of 

 the ancient Britons. 



De la Barre Duparq in his Historical Study of " The Dogs 

 of War " says under the dogs of the Cimbri, that the dogs of 

 the Alans \vere trained by their masters in the roughness and 

 custom of biting, in order to serve and fight against their 

 enemies. 



Mannert 4, -410, makes out the Albanians to be Alans, and 

 the progenitors of the European Alani, which if correct is 

 suggestive of affinity between the dogs of the Alani with the 

 ancient dogs of Albania, and it^is probable the Asiatic mastiff 

 ranged from Mount Ararat along the Caucasus into Northern 

 Europe in one direction, and also along the south of the 

 Caspian, through the valleys of Mons Caspius, the modern 

 Elburz mountains of Persia, through Hyrcania (then covered 



