214 : 10. Scythians. According to Zaborowski, 1, the Scythians were the earliest known Nordic nomads of Scythia, or southern Russia, from whom no doubt came the Achæans, Cimmerians, etc., and later the Persian conquerors, the leaders of the Kassites and Mitanni, etc. The Sacæ were an eastern branch of the Scythians (and likewise the Massagetæ), who threw off branches into India. Possibly the Wu-Suns and the Epthalites, or White Huns, were eastern offshoots. Owing to the fact that Scythia has been swept time and again by various hordes moving east and west, and has served no doubt as a meeting-ground for Alpines, Nordics and Mongols, these may all, at some period or another, have been called Scythians because they inhabited this little-known territory. But the indications are strongly in favor of the original Scythians being Nordics. It is in this sense that the name is here applied. Minns, _Scythians and Greeks_, and D’Arbois de Jubainville, 4, t. I, are two other authorities who have discussed the Scythians at length. 214 : 11. Cimmerians. See the note to p. 173. On the Persians, see the notes to p. 254. For the Sacæ, the note to p. 259 : 21; for the Massagetæ, the same; for the Kassites, that to p. 239 : 13. These last are Non-Aryan, according to some authors, including Prince, but Hall, _The Ancient History of the Near East_, says they are undeniably Aryans. For the Mitanni see the note to p. 239 : 16. 214 : 26–215 : 3. See p. 161 of this book. 215 : 15. See p. 160 of this book. 215 : 25. Dante Alighieri. It is interesting to know that the name Aligheri is Gothic, a corruption of Aldiger. It belongs to such German names as those which include the word “_ger_,” spear, as in Gerhard, Gertrude, etc. This name came into the family through Dante’s grandmother on the father’s side, a Goth from Ferrara, whose name was Aldigero. With regard to the origin of his grandfather and mother, the attempt to connect him with Roman families is known to be a pure fiction on the part of the Italian biographers, who thought it more glorious to be a Roman than anything else; but his descent from pure Germanic parentage is practically proved, since the grandfather was a warrior, knighted by the emperor Conrad, and Dante himself declares that he belonged to the petty nobility. Even to the beginning of the fifteenth century many Italians are described in old documents as Alemanni, Langobardi, etc., _ex alamanorum genere_, _legibus vivens Langobardorum_, etc. Though the majority of them had adopted Roman law, whereby the documentary evidence of their descent usually disappeared, they were thoroughly Germanic in blood, especially those to whom Rome owes much. See Franz Xaver Kraus, Dante, pp. 21–25, and Savigny, _Geschichte des römischen Rechte im Mittelalter_, I, chap. III. 216 : 1. See the notes to p. 254 : 13–15. 216 : 4. Nordic Sacæ. See the notes to p. 259 : 21. 216 : 9. See the notes to pp. 70 and 242 : 5.