Sarmătæ, or Sauromătæ, the inhabitants of Sarmatia. See: [Sarmatia].
Sarmătia, an extensive country at the north of Europe and Asia, divided into European and Asiatic. The European was bounded by the ocean on the north, Germany and the Vistula on the west, the Jazygæ on the south, and the Tanais on the east. The Asiatic was bounded by Hyrcania, the Tanais, and the Euxine sea. The former contains the modern kingdoms of Russia, Poland, Lithuania, and Little Tartary; and the latter, Great Tartary, Circassia, and the neighbouring country. The Sarmatians were a savage uncivilized nation, often confounded with the Scythians, naturally warlike, and famous for painting their bodies to appear more terrible in the field of battle. They were well known for their lewdness, and they passed among the Greeks and Latins by the name of barbarians. In the time of the emperors they became very powerful, and disturbed the peace of Rome by their frequent incursions; till at last, increased by the savage hordes of Scythia, under the barbarous names of Huns, Vandals, Goths, Alans, &c., they successfully invaded and ruined the empire in the third and fourth centuries of the christian era. They generally lived on the mountains without any habitation, except their chariots, whence they have been called Hamaxobii. They lived upon plunder, and fed upon milk mixed with the blood of horses. Strabo, bk. 7, &c.—Mela, bk. 2, ch. 4.—Diodorus, bk. 2.—Florus, bk. 4, ch. 12.—Lucan, bk. 1, &c. Juvenal, satire 2.—Ovid, Tristia, bk. 3, &c.
Sarmatĭcum mare, a name given to the Euxine sea, because on the coast of Sarmatia. Ovid, bk. 4, ex Ponto, poem 10, li. 38.
Sarmentus, a scurrilous person, mentioned by Horace, bk. 1, satire 5, li. 56.
Sarnius, a river of Asia, near Hyrcania.
Sarnus, a river of Picenum, dividing it from Campania, and falling into the Tuscan sea. Statius, bk. 1, Sylvæ, poem 2, li. 265.—Virgil, Æneid, bk. 7, li. 738.—Strabo, bk. 5.
Saron, a king of Trœzene, unusually fond of hunting. He was drowned in the sea, where he had swum for some miles in pursuit of a stag. He was made a sea god by Neptune, and divine honours were paid to him by the Trœzenians. It was customary for sailors to offer him sacrifices before they embarked. That part of the sea where he was drowned was called Saronicus sinus, on the coast of Achaia, near the isthmus of Corinth. Saron built a temple to Diana at Trœzene, and instituted festivals to her honour, called from himself Saronia, Pausanias, bk. 2, ch. 30.—Mela, bk. 2, ch. 3.—Strabo, bk. 8.
Saronĭcus sinus, now the gulf of Engia, a bay of the Ægean sea, lying at the south of Attica, and on the north of the Peloponnesus. The entrance into it is between the promontory of Sunium and that of Scyllæum. Some suppose that this part of the sea received its name from Saron, who was drowned there, or from a small river which discharged itself on the coast, or from a small harbour of the same name. The Saronic bay is about 62 miles in circumference, 23 miles in its broadest, and 25 in its longest part, according to modern calculation.
Sarpēdon, a son of Jupiter by Europa the daughter of Agenor. He banished himself from Crete, after he had in vain attempted to make himself king in preference to his elder brother Minos, and he retired to Caria, where he built the town of Miletus. He went to the Trojan war to assist Priam against the Greeks, where he was attended by his friend and companion Glaucus. He was at last killed by Patroclus, after he had made a great slaughter of the enemy, and his body, by order of Jupiter, was conveyed to Lycia by Apollo, where his friends and relations paid him funeral honours, and raised a monument to perpetuate his valour. According to some mythologists, the brother of king Minos, and the prince who assisted Priam, were two different persons. This last was king of Lycia, and son of Jupiter by Laodamia the daughter of Bellerophon, and lived about 100 years after the age of the son of Europa. Apollodorus, bk. 3, ch. 1.—Herodotus, bk. 1, ch. 173.—Strabo, bk. 12.—Homer, Iliad, bk. 16.——A son of Neptune, killed by Hercules for his barbarous treatment of strangers.——A learned preceptor of Cato of Utica. Plutarch, Cato.——A town of Cilicia, famous for a temple sacred to Apollo and Diana.——Also a promontory of the same name in Cilicia, beyond which Antiochus was not permitted to sail by a treaty of peace which he had made with the Romans. Livy, bk. 38, ch. 38.—Mela, bk. 1, ch. 13.——A promontory of Thrace.——A Syrian general who flourished B.C. 143.
Sarra, a town of Phœnicia, the same as Tyre. It receives its name from a small shell-fish of the same name which was found in the neighbourhood, and with whose blood garments were dyed. Hence came the epithet of sarranus, so often applied to Tyrian colours, as well as to the inhabitants of the colonies of the Tyrians, particularly Carthage. Silius Italicus, bk. 6, li. 662; bk. 13, li. 205.—Virgil, Georgics, bk. 2, li. 506.—Festus, Lexicon of Festus.