PART 7 – Ch.XLI.8

The great Pelasgian empire

(The Pelasgian language)

PART 7

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XLI. 8. The Sarmatic language.

In Ovid’s poems, the Getae and the Sarmatians appear as two neighboring and related peoples, having the same customs (Trist. II. 198-199; III. 10. 4-5; III. 3. 5-7) and the same Latin barbarian language.

“It seems to me”, says he, “that I myself have forgotten the Latin language and have started to speak like the Getae and the Sarmatians” (Trist. V. 12. 55 seqq). “I, myself, Roman poet, am forced to speak the language of the Sarmatians” (Trist. V. 7. 55 seqq). “Will the Getae and the Sarmatians read my writings?” (Trist. IV. 1. 94). “Rome must not count me among her poets. I am a genial poet among the Sarmatians” (Trist. V. 1. 74). Ovid wrote these verses around the end of his carrier. After six years of exile at Tomis, he spoke very well the language of the barbarian populations from the lower Danube; this he tells us himself. So, his words about the resemblance between the Getic, Sarmatian and Latin language, deserve to be trusted, and reflect the seriousness which characterizes the work of this erudite poet.

In the times of the Roman empire, under the name of Sarmatians were understood all the populations of European Scythia. The Sarmatic dialect though, about which Ovid speaks, was only that from the western and northern shores of the Black Sea. In the other parts of European Scythia there existed also other idioms (Herodotus, lib. IV. 24), more or less removed from that from the mouths of the Istru.

We find a precious historical note about the language spoken by the Scythians from near the Euxine Pontos, in the writings of Lucianus, born around 120-135ad.

A man from among the Barbarians from the Euxine Pontos, says he, who by his genealogy belonged to a royal family, had come to emperor Nero for some business; here he, together with others, looked with so much interest to this emperor, when he danced, that, although he could not catch all the words sung by him, he understood everything (Opera, ed. Biponti, 1790, vol. V. p. 158-159).

Stephanos Byzantinos also tells us that the Scythians were a Thracian people, ethnos Thrachion (see Schythai), meaning that they spoke the same language as the Getae, whom Herodotus calls “the bravest and most righteous among all the Thracians”.

Among the Sarmatian peoples which spoke a Latin barbarian language, Horace also mentions the inhabitants of the Cimmerian Bosporus (Crimea), and the Gelonii from the extremities of Europe. The Gelonii, according to an ancient tradition of the Greeks, were from the same family of the Agathyrsii from the river Maris (Mures). They had migrated from the country of the Arimii in the times of Hercules, and dwelt above the Meotic Lake, at a distance of 15 days (lib. IV. 10. 21. 108. 109).

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