2. The accredited identity between the Alani and the Oseti of Caucasus; a tribe undoubtedly _not_ Turkish. Let us analyze the grounds of this belief. The Oseti name themselves _Irôn_, but are named by the Turks and Georgians, _Osi_; by the Russians, _Yassy_; by the Arabians, _As_. This is the first fact. The second is a pair of quotations from Carpin and Barbaro:-- _a._ Alains ou Asses.--_Carpin._ _b._ La _Alania_ è derivata da populo delli _Alani_, liquali nella lor lingua si chiamano _As_.--_Barbaro._ Now the most that this proves is, that the same name which the Alans gave to themselves, the Georgians, &c. gave to the _Irôn_; a fact which is by no means conclusive. On the other hand, it shows that the two indigenous names, _As_ and _Irôn_, were different. This subject will be noticed again when speaking of the Oseti. At present it is not unnecessary to add, that the name _Uz_ (Οὐζ) has already been mentioned as a name of a tribe in this locality; and that, possibly, it may=_As_. If so, the _Alans_, _Uzi_, and _Cumani_, are the same people at different times. Nothing is more likely than this, especially as we know that _Alani_ was not a native name, and have good reasons for thinking the same of the term _Cumani_. Again, the Oseti, a limited mountain tribe of the Middle Caucasus, with all its supposed affinities in Media and Persia--since the same writers who identify the Alans with Oseti, identify the Oseti with the Medes--could never have passed as Scythians. Now the Alans did so pass, as is shown by a remarkable passage in Lucian:--"so said Makentæs, being the same in dress and the same in language as the Alani (ὁμόσκευος καὶ ὁμόγλωττος τοῖς Ἀλανοῖς ὤν); since these things are common to the Alani and the Skythæ; except that the Alani are not altogether so long-haired as the Skythæ. In this respect, however, Makentæs was like a Skythian, inasmuch as he had shaved himself to the extent to which an Alan head of hair falls short of a Skythian one."[25] _The Khazars and Huns._--The evidence derived from the use of the term _Khaghan_, or _Khan_, so diagnostic of the Turk and Mongol families, is wanting in respect to the Huns of Attila. Neither he nor his brother is anywhere so designated. On the other hand, it is erroneous to suppose that the Huns of Attila are the only Huns of history. The Byzantine historians--even writers who say little or nothing about Attila,--deal with the name Hun, as a well-known and recognised geographical or ethnological term, applied to the tribes between the Don and Volga. Hence they speak of sections of the Hun nation. The most satisfactory of these is the identification of the _Akatir_ with the Huns--Ἀκατίροις Οὔννοις--Priscus. Now the _Akatir_ are, undoubtedly, the _Khazars_, since the intermediate form Ἀκαζίροι occurs; the Greek form of _Khazars_ being Χάζαροι.