Res Gestae

Ammianus Marcellinus

Ammianus Marcellinus. Ammianus Marcellinus, with an English translation, Vols. I-III. Rolfe, John C., translator. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press; W. Heinemann, 1935-1940 (printing).

This race of untamed men, without encumbrances, aflame with an inhuman desire for plundering others’ property, made their violent way amid the rapine and slaughter of the neighbouring peoples as far as the Halani, once known as the Massagetae. And since we have come to this point, it is in place to tell of the origin and dwelling-place of this people also, and to point out the confused opinions of geographers, who after many different attempts to deal with the subject have at last come upon the core of the truth.[*](The passage is fragmentary and the exact meaning is uncertain. Only the general sense can be given.)

The Hister,[*](The Danube.) filled to overflowing by a great number of tributaries, flows past the Sauromatians, and these extend as far as the river Tanais,[*](The Don.) which

v3.p.389

separates Asia from Europe. On the other side of this river[*](The Hister (Danube).) the Halani, so called from the mountain range of the same name,[*](Alanos (῎ἄλανος).) inhabit the measureless wastes of Scythia; and by repeated victories they gradually wore down the peoples whom they met and like the Persians incorporated them under their own national name.