BOOK IV. XII. 79-8i 



mously and from the point where it first enters 

 lUyria it is called the Hister ; aftcr receiving 60 

 tributary rivers, nearly half of which are navigable, 

 it is discharged into the Black Sea by six vast channels. 

 The first of these is the mouth of Piczina, close to the 

 island of that name, at which the nearest channel, 

 called the Iloly River, is swallowed up in a marsh 

 19 miles in extent. Opening from the same channel 

 and above Istere spreads a lake measuring 63 

 miles round, named the Saltings. The second is 

 called the Xarakian Mouth ; the third, next the 

 island of Sarmatica, Fair Mouth; the fourth, 

 False Mouth ; then comes the island of Mosquito 

 Crossing, afterwards the North Mouth and the Barren 

 Mouth. These mouths are each of them so large 

 that for a distance of forty miles, so it is said, the 

 sea is overpowered and the water tastes fresh. 



From this point all the races in general are Popuiaiions 

 Scythian, though various sections have occupied "Znube"'" 

 the lands adjacent to the coast, in one place the 

 Getae, called by the llomans Dacians, at another the 

 Sarmatae, called by the Greeks Sauromatae, and the 

 section of them called Waggon-dwellers or Aorsi, 

 at another the base-born Scythians, descendcd from 

 slaves, or else the Cave-dwellers, and then the 

 Alani and Rhoxolani. The higher parts between 

 the Danube and the Hercynian Forest " as far as 

 tlie wintcr quarters of Pannonia at Carnuntum and 

 the plains and level country of the German frontiers 

 there are occupied by the Sarmatian lazyges, while 

 the Dacians whom they have driven out hold the 

 mountains and forests as far as the river Theiss. 

 From the river Maros, or else the Dora if it is that 

 which scparatcs thern from the Suebi and the 



179 



