468 STRABO. CASAUB. 304. civil dissensions and contests with the Romans ; however, they are still able to set out 40,000 men armed for the wars. 13. The river Maros 1 flows through their country into the Danube, 2 on which the Romans transported their military stores ; for thus they termed the upper part of that river from its sources to the cataracts, which flows chiefly through the country of the Dacians, but the part below that point which flows through the country of the Getse as far as the Black Sea, they call the Ister. 3 The Dacians speak the same lan- guage as the Getae. The Geta3 are best known among the Greeks on account of the frequent wandering expeditions they make on both sides of the Danube, and their being mixed among the Thracians and Mysians. The like is the case with regard to the nation of the Triballi, a Thracian people ; for they have received many refugees on occasions when their more powerful neighbours have driven out the weaker, for from time to time the Scythians of the opposite side of the river, and the Bastarnas, and the Sarmatians, 4 be- come victorious, and those who are driven out cross over and some of them take up their residence either in the islands of the river or in Thrace, while on the other side the inhabitants are distressed by the Illyrians. At one time when the Getas and the Dacians had increased to the greatest numbers, they were able to set on foot an army of two hundred thousand men, but now they are reduced to about forty thousand men, and are even likely to become subject to the Romans ; still they are not yet quite under their sway on account of their trust in the Germans, who are enemies to the Romans. 14. Between [the Getse and] the Black Sea, from the Danube to the Dniester, 5 lies the desert of the Getse. 6 It is entirely a plain and destitute of water. It was there that Darius the son of Hystaspes, at the time he crossed the Danube, was in danger of being cut off with his whole army 1 Mdpicroc TTOTCTJUO^. 2 6 Aavovtoc. 3 6 "Iffrpof. Stephen of Byzantium says that the Ister was called A.avovf3tQ, and that in very ancient times it was called Matoas. Accord- ing to Ptolemy the lower part of the Danube was called Ister from Axi- opolis, now Rassovat ; according to Agathemerus, from Vicuna. 4 Saupojudrai. 5 The ancient Tyras. 6 Bessarabia and the southern part of Moldavia.
