¹ Pliny's Danubian ethnography more or less covers the territories of contemporary Romania, Moldova, and parts of Hungary, Slovakia and Ukraine. The list of specific tribal groups reflects the latest in Roman military intelligence in the middle of the first century c.e., differing from Strabo's comparable account (7.3.1–19), penned some thirty years earlier, on several points, the most crucial difference being the location of the Sarmatian Iazyges. Whereas in Strabo's Geography these people inhabited the plains of Moldavia and the Dobrogea as well as regions further north along the Black Sea coast (7.3.17)—where Ovid also locates them in his exilic poetry (Pont. 4.7.7–12)—Pliny's ethnography clearly places them further west in the Hungarian Plain. This migration is well attested archaeologically, e.g. M. Párducz, Denkmäler der Sarmatenzeit Ungarns [A Szarmatakor Emlékei Magyarországon], vols. 1–3 (Budapest, 1941–50); Vaday, A., ‘Die sarmatischen Denkmäler des Komitats Szolnok’, Antaeus 17–18 (1989)Google Scholar, text 9–351, images 1–159; A.V. Simonenko, ‘On the tribal structure of some migration waves of Sarmatians to the Carpathian Basin’, in E. Istvánovits and V. Kulcsár (edd.), International Connections of the Barbarians of the Carpathian Basin in the 1st – 5th Centuries a.d. (Nyíregyháza, 2001), 117–24; E. Istvánovits and V. Kulksár, Sarmatians: History and Archaeology of a Forgotten People (Mainz, 2017); T.C. Hart, ‘Beyond the river, under the eye of Rome: ethnographic landscapes, imperial frontiers, and the creation of a Danubian borderland’ (Diss., University of Michigan, 2017).

² I follow the text of Zehnacker, H. and Silberman, A. (edd.), Pline l'Ancien: Histoire Naturelle, Livre IV (Paris, 2015)Google Scholar.

³ H. Rackham (ed.), Pliny: Natural History, Books 3–7 (Cambridge, MA, 1942). All further translations are mine unless otherwise noted.

⁴ Herodotus popularized, but did not invent, a picture of the Pontic Scythians as pastoral nomads who lived largely without cities or agriculture (i.e. Hdt. Book 4, especially 4.2 and 4.97). His observations were based on the actual peoples of his day, filtered through his own Ionian perspective (Hartog, F., The Mirror of Herodotus: The Representation of the Other in the Writing of History [Berkeley, 1988]Google Scholar), but subsequent authors tended to build off of such paradigmatic stereotypes when describing Scythians (and other foreigners), rather than paint a wholly new picture: see further Shaw, B., ‘Eaters of flesh, drinkers of milk: the ancient Mediterranean ideology of the pastoral nomad’, Ancient Society 13/14 (1982), 5–31Google Scholar; Isaac, B., The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity (Princeton, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ch. 1, 55–168; Hart (n. 1), ch. 2, 74–130. For a succinct synthesis of the literary and archaeological evidence for Herodotus’ original Scythians, see R. Batty, Rome and the Nomads: The Pontic-Danubian Realm in Antiquity (Oxford, 2007), 204–14. Herodotus wrote at a time when Scythian cultural and political influence was penetrating from the Pontic steppe into the Carpathian Basin, which may help explain the author's clear identification of the Danube as the divider between Scythia and the rest of the Oikoumene. As we shall see, by Pliny's day, population movements north of the Danube had changed the cultural landscape completely.

⁵ Rackham (n. 3). The major translated editions in English, French and Italian offer similar readings:

1. A)

   A) ‘The name “Scythian” has extended, in every direction, even to the Sarmatae and the Germans, but this ancient appellation is now only given to those who dwell beyond those nations, and live unknown to nearly all the rest of the world.’ (J. Bostock and H.T. Riley [edd.], The Natural History of Pliny, vol. 1 [London, 1855])

2. B)

   B) ‘The name of Scythians has spread in every direction, as far as the Sarmatae and the Germans, but this old designation has not continued for any except the most outlying sections of these races, living almost unknown to the rest of mankind.’ (Rackham [n. 3])

3. C)

   C) ‘Il nome degli Sciti si era espanso per ogni dove, sino ai Sarmati e ai Germani, ma tale originaria definizione ha resistito soltanto per una parte di questi popoli, che vive ai margini estremi, quasi sconosciuta al resto dell'umanità.’ (I. Calvino et al. [edd.], Gaio Plinio Secondo: Storia Naturale I: Cosmologia e Geografia [Turin, 1982])

4. D)

   D) ‘Le nom des Scythes s'est étendu de tous côtés aux Sarmates et aux Germains; mais cette ancienne appelation n'est restée qu'aux tribus les plus lointaines de ces peuples, qui vivent presque inconnues des autres mortels.’ (Zehnacker and Silberman [n. 2])

⁶ The closest Pliny comes to using transire in this manner is at 11.73, when he explains that the lifespan of wasps ‘does not extend beyond two years’, but notice that the preposition in is not used in this instance (uita bimatum non transit).

⁷ See also 3.100, 7.206, 15.77, 18.161, 18.235, 30.42, 31.22, 35.15, 36.189.

⁸ The standard German edition of G. Winkler and R. König (edd.), C. Plinius Secundus: Naturkunde: Lateinisch-Deutsch: Bücher III/IV (Munich, 1988) follows this closer but still incorrect reading of transire in at 4.81: ‘Der Name Skythen ist überall auf die Sarmaten und Germanen übergegangen, und jene alte Bezeichnung ist keinen anderen Stämmen geblieden als denen, die als äusserste dieser Stämme leben und den übrigen Menschen beinahe unbekannt sind.’ Batty's translation also falls somewhat closer to this reading: ‘The name of the Scythians has spread everywhere, both amongst the Sarmatians and the Germans; but the original designation has not endured for any except the most outlying peoples, living almost unknown to the rest of mankind’ (Batty [n. 4], 204).

⁹ For further examples, see also HN 13.11, 14.83, 18.85, 21.15, 22.112, 23.54, 25.103, 29.139, 31.95.

¹⁰ The semi-completed work was dedicated to Titus in 77 or 78 c.e. (G.B. Conte, Latin Literature: A History, transl. J.B. Solodow [Baltimore, 1994], 498).

¹¹ Strabo's description seems to encompass the entire Carpathian Basin as well as the Wallachian Plain and Moldavia. The narrow beginnings of ‘Getia’ probably fall within modern Slovakia, east of the river Morava between the Danube and the westernmost tip of the Northern Carpathians. The southern edge of Strabo's zone is clearly set at the Danube, while the northern margin seems to follow the arc of the Carpathians north and east before dipping south to merge with the Tyregetae, presumably in the plains around the mouth of the river Tyras, known today as the Dniester. A further example of Strabo's ‘Geticization’ of Herodotus’ Scythian landscape can be seen in his brief discussion of the coastal plain running north from the Danube to the Dniester. The geographer calls this corridor the Desert of the Getae, but notes that it is the same place ‘where Dareius, the son of Hystaspis, was caught, when he crossed the Ister to attack the Scythians, and ran the risk of dying of thirst, army and all’ (Strabo 7.3.14).

¹² For the transient Sarmatian communities on the Wallachian and Bulgarian Plains, see Strabo 7.3.17. For the persistence of ‘Herodotean’ Scythians north of the Crimea, see Strabo 11.2.1, 12. Strabo notes, however, that his knowledge gets spotty in this trans-Euxine region, the further east he goes, forcing him to rely on old stories and myths (11.62–4). This is a somewhat unusual admission for an ancient author, although by no means unique. For similar qualification, see Tacitus’ concluding statement in the Germania (46.6).

¹³ Strabo 7.3.10 […] πέντε μυριάδας σωμάτων παρὰ τῶν Γετῶν, ὁμογλώττου τοῖς Θρᾳξὶν ἔθνους, ‘50,000 individuals of the Getae, a people speaking the same language as the Thracians’.

¹⁴ Strabo 7.3.13 παρὰ μὲν οὖν τοῖς Ἕλλησιν οἱ Γέται γνωρίζονται μᾶλλον διὰ τὸ συνεχεῖς τὰς μεταναστάσεις ἐφ᾿ ἑκάτερα τοῦ Ἴστρου ποιεῖσθαι καὶ τοῖς Θρᾳξὶ καὶ τοῖς Μυσοῖς ἀναμεμῖχθαι.

¹⁵ Mattern, S.P., Rome and the Enemy: Imperial Strategy in the Principate (Berkeley, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, chs. 2 (24–80) and 5 (162–210).

¹⁶ B. Isaac, The Limits of Empire: The Roman Army in the East (Oxford, 1990), 394–9.

¹⁷ Sen. QNat. 1 Prl.9–10.

¹⁸ For analysis of the emendation of regem to rege, see Sarnowski, T., ‘Ti. Plautius Silvanus, Tauric Chersonesos and the classis Moesica’, Dacia. Nouvelle Série 50 (2006), 85–92Google Scholar, at 85.

¹⁹ The same sense of the Danube as a divider between worlds (i.e. Scythia and us) can be seen in Tacitus’ brief description of a Roxolani raid into Moesia (Hist. 1.79). On this passage, see Ash, R., ‘Rhoxolani blues (Tacitus, Histories 1.79): Virgil's Scythian ethnography revisited’, in Miller, J.F. and Woodman, A. (edd.), Latin Historiography and Poetry in the Early Empire: Generic Interactions (Leiden, 2010), 141–54Google Scholar, who points out that the description of the slaughter of the snowbound Sarmatians offers a playful inversion of Scythian tropes explored in Verg. G. 3.367–75 (Ash [this note], 147–50).

²⁰ While the numbers given by Silvanus are fantastical, the act of settling suppliant barbarians inside the Roman frontier was not uncommon. For a useful list of literary evidence for resettlements, see Croix, G.E.M. de Ste., The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World (Ithaca, NY, 1981), 509–18Google Scholar. See, also, Strabo 7.3.10 (n. 12 above).

²¹ Cass. Dio 72.33.1: ἐπειδὴ δὲ τὰ Σκυθικὰ αὖθις αὐτοῦ ἐδεήθη, γυναῖκα τῷ υἱεῖ θᾶττον δι᾿ αὐτὰ ἢ ἐβούλετο Κρισπῖναν συνῴκισεν, ‘when Scythian affairs once again required [Marcus Aurelius’] attention, because of the political situation, he gave his son the woman Crispina in marriage more quickly than he wished.’

²² Dexippus entitled his history the Scythica, and uses that term in the text when referring to raiders from beyond the Danube and the Black Sea.

²³ e.g. Them. Or. 14.181b, 15.185b, 16.207c, 16.210d, 16.211d, 16.212a.

²⁴ e.g. Priscus, frr. 2, 6.2, 11.1.43–4, 15.4.1–2.

²⁵ Most notably in the writings of Menander Protector (sixth century c.e.), Maurice (seventh century), Constantine Porphyrogenitus (tenth century) and Anna Comnena (twelfth century): see Hart (n. 1), ch. 6, 279–311.