CHAPTER VI

CONQUEST OF THE SARMATIANS, CONSEQUENT ON THE REBELLION OF THEIR SLAVES

WITH respect to the Sarmatians, God Himself brought them beneath the rule of Constantine, and subdued a nation swelling with barbaric pride in the following manner. Being attacked by the Scythians, they had intrusted their slaves with arms, in order to repel the enemy. These slaves first overcame the invaders, and then, turning their weapons against their masters, drove them all from their native land. The expelled Sarmatians found that their only hope of safety was in Constantine’s protection: and he, whose familiar habit it was to save mens’ lives, received them all within the confines of the Roman empire. Those who were capable of serving, he incorporated with his own troops: to the rest he allotted lands to cultivate for their own support: so that they themselves acknowledged that their past misfortune had produced a happy result, in that they now enjoyed Roman liberty in the place of savage barbarism. In this manner God added to his dominions many and various barbaric tribes.