The inhabitants of the coasts of this fourth great Gulf of Europe, as far as Istropolis, have been already[2785] mentioned in our account of Thrace. Passing beyond that spot we come to the mouths of the Ister. This river rises in Germany in the heights of Mount Abnoba[2786], opposite to Rauricum[2787], a town of Gaul, and flows for a course of many miles beyond the Alps and through nations innumerable, under the name of the Danube. Adding immensely to the volume of its waters, at the spot where it first enters Illyricum, it assumes the name of Ister, and, after receiving sixty rivers, nearly one half of which are navigable, rolls into the Euxine by six[2788] vast channels. The first of these is the mouth of Peuce[2789], close to which is the island of Peuce itself, from which the neighbouring channel takes its name; this mouth is swallowed up in a great swamp nineteen miles in length. From the same channel too, above Istropolis, a lake[2790] takes its rise, sixty-three miles in circuit; its name is Halmyris. The second mouth is called Naracu-Stoma[2791]; the third, which is near the island of Sarmatica, is called Calon-Stoma[2792]; the fourth is known as Pseudo-Stomon[2793], with its island called Conopon-Diabasis[2794]; after which come the Boreon-Stoma[2795] and the Psilon-Stoma[2796]. These mouths are each of them so considerable, that for a distance of forty miles, it is said, the saltness of the sea is quite overpowered, and the water found to be fresh. CHAP. 25.—DACIA, SARMATIA. On setting out from this spot, all the nations met with are Scythian in general, though various races have occupied the adjacent shores; at one spot the Getæ[2797], by the Romans called Daci; at another the Sarmatæ, by the Greeks called Sauromatæ, and the Hamaxobii[2798] or Aorsi, a branch of them; then again the base-born Scythians and descendants of slaves, or else the Troglodytæ[2799]; and then, after them, the Alani[2800] and the Rhoxalani. The higher[2801] parts again, between the Danube and the Hercynian Forest[2802], as far as the winter quarters of Pannonia at Carnuntum[2803], and the borders of the Germans, are occupied by the Sarmatian Iazyges[2804], who inhabit the level country and the plains, while the Daci, whom they have driven as far as the river Pathissus[2805], inhabit the mountain and forest ranges. On leaving the river Marus[2806], whether it is that or the Duria[2807], that separates them from the Suevi and the kingdom of Vannius[2808], the Basternæ, and, after them, other tribes of the Germans occupy the opposite sides[2809]. Agrippa considers the whole of this region, from the Ister to the ocean, to be 2100 miles in length, and 4400 miles in breadth to the river Vistula in the deserts[2810] of Sarmatia. The name “Scythian” has extended, in every direction, even to the Sarmatæ and the Germans; but this ancient appellation is now only given to those who dwell beyond those nations, and live unknown to nearly all the rest of the world.