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S A R 
that they should quit the country, on which they had seized 
and which they had unjustly held, and retire to another at 
a greater distance from the empire. The country which 
they abandoned was restored by Constantius to the ancient 
proprietors, who settled there again, 24 years after (A. D. 
358) they had been driven out by their rebellious slaves. 
For these great achievements the victorious emperor Con¬ 
stantius took the surname of Sarmaticus. The Sarmatians, 
notwithstanding their great obligations to the Romans, a 
few years after broke into Pannonia, atid laid waste that 
province, while the Roman troops were employed against 
the Alemans in Rhsetia. In the year 374 they joined the 
Quadians, and, in conjunction with them, committed dread¬ 
ful ravages in Pannonia, and from thence advanced into 
Upper Mcesia; but they were there defeated with great 
slaughter by Theodosius, afterwards emperor. In the year 
376, Athanaric, one of the chiefs of the Goths, being 
forced by the Huns to abandon his own country, re¬ 
tired with hig people to a place called Caucalanda, dispos¬ 
sessing the Sarmatians, to whom it belonged. In 378 the 
Sarmatians, informed that the Goths, who had been 
admitted by Valens into the empire, had taken up arms 
against the Romans, resolved to pass the Danube, and join 
them; but Theodosius, afterwards emperor, meeting them 
in Thrace, defeated them with great slaughter. The vic¬ 
tory is said to have been so complete, that Gratian, then 
emperor, could not believe the account which Theodosius 
himself gave upon his return to court, till he was informed 
of the truth by persons sent on purpose to view the field 
of battle. In the year 407, they entered Gaul, with the 
Vandals, Sueves, Franks, Burgundians, and other Barba¬ 
rians, and committed dreadful devastation. Those who re¬ 
mained in Sarmatia were afterwards subdued by Attila, 
and served, with their princes, in his army, when he in¬ 
vaded Gaul in 451. Upon that prince’s death, they shook 
off the yoke; and, having recovered their ancient liberty, 
submitted to Marcian, then emperor, who allowed them to 
settle in Pannonia, Moesia, and the other provinces border¬ 
ing on the Danube, where they continued quiet, till they 
were reduced by the Goths. Those who resided among 
the Goths became, in process of time, one nation with 
them. From those who remained in Sarmatia, the present 
Poles and Tartars are thought to have sprung. Univ. Hist. 
vol. xvii. Gibbon's Hist. Rom. Emp. vol. iii. 
The Sarmatians, after the example of most other idola¬ 
trous nations, had gods both natural and animated. Those 
of the first sort were the Sun and Moon, Pogwid or the 
Air, Tafia or Jupiter, Lacto or Pluto, Nia or Ceres, Mar- 
zane or Venus, and Zicuonia or Diana. Among their ani¬ 
mated deities were Lelus and Politus, which, according to 
the Polish historians, were the same with Castor and Pollux, 
whose names were retained by the Sarmatians, after their 
worship was abolished, and they had embraced Christianity, 
and which they pronounced with expressions of joy at their 
feasts. The Sarmatians, according to Vossius, were led 
into an acquaintance with these divinities by holding 
commerce with the people settled on the banks of the 
Danube. 
SARMATICA LUES, in Medicine, a name given by 
some authors to the plica Polonica. 
SARMENIUS LAPIS, a name given by the writers of 
the middle ages to a stone said to be used in the polishing of 
gold, and to have virtues in medicine also; such as pre¬ 
venting abortion, and the like. 
It seems to have been only a corrupt way of spelling 
samius lapis, a stone to which Pliny has attributed the 
same virtue. 
SARMENTACEiE, in Botany, the eleventh natural 
order among the fragmenta of Linnaeus, nearly answering 
to Jussieu’s Asparagi. The name alludes to the long 
twining or trailing stems prevalent in this order, and 
the genera are Glodiosa, Erythronium, Alstromeria, 
Uvularia, Convallaria, Ruscus, Asparagus, Medeola, 
Tullium, Paris, Smilax, Dioscorea, Tamus, Raiania, 
S A R 
Menispermum, Centella, Cissampelos, Aristolochia, Asarum 
and Cytinus. 
SARMENTOSUS CAULIS, in Botany, a trailing or 
twining stem. 
SARN, s. A British word for pavement, or stepping- 
stones, still used in the same sense in Berkshire and Hamp¬ 
shire. 
SARNABITIVA, a small river of Brazil, in the province 
of Porto Seguro, which runs east, and enters the Atlantic 
Ocean. 
SARNAU, or Sarnowo, a small town of Prussian 
Poland, containing 1500 inhabitants; 53 miles south of Posen, 
and 37 north of Breslau. 
SARNELLI (Pompey), a learned Italian prelate in the 
17th and 18th centuries, was born at Polignano in the year 
1649. Being destined for the clerical profession, he was 
sent from the schools of his native country to pursue his 
studies at Naples. He commenced his career as an author 
about the year 1668, and published some pieces connected 
with the belles-lettres department, which met with a very 
favourable reception. In the year 1675, after he had been 
admitted to priests’ orders, pope Clement X. gave him the 
appointment of honorary prothonotary. Four years after 
this, he became an inmate with cardinal Maria-Vincent 
Orsini, bishop of Manfredonia, and upon the translation of 
that prelate to the church of Cesena, in the Romagna, in 
1679, he appointed Sarnelli his grand vicar. He continued 
with the cardinal after he had been promoted to the arch¬ 
bishopric of Benevento, and accompanied him to the con¬ 
claves which were held after the deaths of pope Innocent 
XI. and Alexander VIII. He obtained considerable pre¬ 
ferment in the church, and died in the year 1724. He was 
author of “ Lettere ecclesiastiche,” in 9 vols. 4to.; “ II 
Clero secolare nel suo Splendore, overo della vita commune 
clericale;” “ Bestiarum Schola ad Homines erudiendos ab 
ipsa rerum natura provide instituta, &c., decern et centum 
Lectionibus explicata;” and many pieces of a biographical, 
chronological, and topographical nature. 
SARNEN, a small town of Switzerland, the chief place 
of the upper division of the canton of Unterwalden, situated 
on the Aa, where it falls into the lake of Sarnen. It is 
tolerably built, has a neat church and council-house, and 
contains 2000 inhabitants; 9 miles south of Lucerne. 
SARNESFIELD, a parish of England, in Herefordshire; 
24 miles west-by-south of Weobley. 
SARNEY, North and South, two villages of England, 
in Gloucestershire, near Cirencester. 
SARNIA, Sarmia, Sarma, or Armia Insula, in 
Ancient Geography, an island situated in the sea which 
separates the Gauls from Great Britain. 
SARNO, a small river in the west of the kingdom of 
Naples, in the Principato Citra, which takes its rise near the 
town of Sarno, and falls into the sea, opposite the island of 
Revigliano. 
SARNO, an inland town in the west of the kingdom of 
Naples, in the Principato Citra, near the eastern base of 
Mount Vesuvius. It has 12,000 inhabitants, but is remark¬ 
able for little except the superior quality of the silk raised in 
its environs. It has an old castle belonging to the Barberini 
family, who bear the title of dukes of Sarno. It is the see of 
a bishop ; 20 miles east of Naples, and 12 north-by-west of 
Salerno. 
SARON, in Greek Mythology, was regarded as the par¬ 
ticular god of the sailors, and the Greeks, for that reason, 
gave him a name from an arm of the sea of Corinth, or from 
the Saronic gulf. 
SARONIA [Sapavia], among the Greeks, a festival kept 
in honour of Diana, surnamed Saronia, from Saro, the third 
king of Trcezene, by whom a temple was erected, and this 
festival instituted to her. 
SARONICUS SINUS, or Saronic Gulf, inAncient Geo¬ 
graphy, a gulf of the iEgean sea. It was situated between the 
two promontories of Sunium in Attica, and Scylleum in the 
Argolide. There are not less than twenty islands in it; but 
only 
