Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/481

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B. VII. C. III. § 12.
GETÆ AND DACI.
467

maintain the obedience of his subjects, he availed himself of the assistance of Decæneus a sorcerer,[1] who had travelled in Egypt, and who, by predictions he had learnt to draw from certain natural signs, was enabled to assume the character of an oracle, and was almost held in the veneration of a god, as we have related when noticing Zamolxis.[2] As an instance of their implicit obedience, we may relate that they were persuaded to root up their vines and live without wine. However, Bœrebistas was murdered in a sedition before the Romans sent an army against him. Those who succeeded to his government divided it into several states. Lately, when Augustus Cæsar sent an army against them, they were divided into five states, at another time they were four, for such divisions are but temporary in duration, and variable in their extent.

12. There was, from ancient times, another division of these people which still exists; thus, some they call Dacians and others Getæ: the Getæ extend towards the Euxine and the east, but the Dacians are situated on the opposite side towards Germany and the sources of the Danube,[3] whom I consider to have been called Daci from a very early period. Whence also amongst the Attics the names of Getæ and Davi were customary for slaves. This at least is more probable than to consider them as taken from the Scythians who are named Daæ,[4] for they live far beyond Hyrcania,[5] and it is not likely that slaves would be brought all that way into Attica. It was usual with them to call their slaves after the name of the nation from whence they were brought, as Lydus and Syrus,[6] or else by a name much in use in their own country, as, for a Phrygian, Manes or Midas; for a Paphlagonian, Tibius. The nation which was raised to so much power by Bœrebistas has since been completely reduced by

  1. ↑ ἄνδρα γόητα, one who used a kind of howling incantation while repeating spells.
  2. ↑ See book vii. chap. iii. § 5, page 456.
  3. ↑ Gossellin observes that the Dacians did not extend to the sources of the Danube, but to Bohemia, near the middle of the course of the Danube.
  4. ↑ Gossellin seems to think that these Daæ are identical with the inhabitants of Daghistan. Davus is not found as the name of a slave amongst the Greeks till after the conquests of Alexander the Great.
  5. ↑ Hyrcania comprehended the Corcan and Daghistan.
  6. ↑ From Lydia and Syria.
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