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• The Works of Edward Gibbon
• The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
• Chapter Xvi
• Chapter Xvii
• Chapter Xviii
• Chapter Xix
• Chapter Xx
• Chapter Xxi
• Appendix Additional Notes By the Editor
• 1.: The Rescript of Antoninus Concerning the Christians — ( P. 30 )
• 2.: Exile of Marcellus and Eusebius, Bishops of Rome — ( P. 77 )
• 3.: Persecutions of the Christians In the First and Second Centuries, — ( C. Xvi .)
• 4.: Augusteum and Forum of Constantine — ( P. 104-106 ) 1
• 5.: The New Monarchy — ( C. Xvii .)
• 6.: Dioceses and Provinces — ( P. 126 Sqq. )
• 7.: The Organisation of the Army Under the New System — ( P. 136 Sqq. )
• 8.: Protectores and Domestici — ( P. 150 )
• 9.: The Tragedy of Fausta and Crispus — ( P. 175 Sqq. )
• 10.: Divisions of the Empire, 293 to 378 — ( P. 183 , 196 )
• 11.: The Sarmatians — ( P. 186 )
• 12.: Battle of Singara — ( P. 200 )
• 13.: Sources and Chronology of Armenian History Under Trdat and His Successors — ( C. Xix .)
• 14.: Constantine and Christianity — ( C. Xx .)
• 15.: Ecclesiastical Geography — ( P. 314 )

11.

THE SARMATIANS — (

P. 186

)

It is often asserted that “Sarmatian” was a generic name for Slavonic peoples. It is certain that a great many Slavonic tribes must have been often described under the name, but it is extremely doubtful whether any of the chief Sarmatian peoples — the Bastarnae, the Roxolani (? Rox-alani) or Jazyges — were Slavonic. I believe that Šafarik, in taking up a negative position on this question, was right (Slawische Alterthümer, ed. Wuttke, i. 333 sqq.). But I cannot think that he has quite made out the Slavonic race of the Carpi (ib. 213-214), though this is accepted by Jireček (Gesch. der Bulgaren, p. 77); he has a more plausible case, perhaps, for the Kostoboks. On the other hand it is extremely likely, though it cannot be absolutely proved, that in the great settlements of non-German peoples, made in the third and fourth centuries in the Illyrian peninsula by the Roman Emperors, some Slavonic tribes were included. This is an idea which was developed by Drinov in his rare book on the Slavic colonisation of the Balkan lands, and has been accepted by Jireček. There is much probability in the view that Slavonic settlers were among the 300,000 Sarmatae, to whom Constantine assigned abodes in 334 It is an hypothesis such as, in some form, is needed to account for the appearance of Slavonic names before the beginning of the sixth century in the Illyrian provinces.

Šafarik tried to show that the Alani, Roxolani, Bastarnae, Jazyges, &c., were of Iranian race, allied to the Persians and Medes, — like the Scythians of Herodotus.