[Footnote 36: Cellarius has collected the opinions of the
ancients concerning the European and Asiatic Sarmatia; and M.
D'Anville has applied them to modern geography with the skill and
accuracy which always distinguish that excellent writer.]

[Footnote 37: Ammian. l. xvii. c. 12. The Sarmatian horses were
castrated to prevent the mischievous accidents which might happen
from the noisy and ungovernable passions of the males.]

[Footnote 38: Pausanius, l. i. p. 50,. edit. Kuhn. That
inquisitive traveller had carefully examined a Sarmatian cuirass,
which was preserved in the temple of Aesculapius at Athens.]

[Footnote 39: Aspicis et mitti sub adunco toxica ferro,
Et telum causas mortis habere duas.

Ovid, ex Ponto, l. iv. ep. 7, ver. 7.

See in the Recherches sur les Americains, tom. ii. p. 236 -
271, a very curious dissertation on poisoned darts. The venom
was commonly extracted from the vegetable reign: but that
employed by the Scythians appears to have been drawn from the
viper, and a mixture of human blood. The use of poisoned arms,
which has been spread over both worlds, never preserved a savage
tribe from the arms of a disciplined enemy.]
The tender Ovid, after a youth spent in the enjoyment of
fame and luxury, was condemned to a hopeless exile on the frozen
banks of the Danube, where he was exposed, almost without
defence, to the fury of these monsters of the desert, with whose
stern spirits he feared that his gentle shade might hereafter be