[244]
Now there was a nation of the Alans, which we have formerly mentioned
some where as being Scythians and inhabiting at the lake Meotis. This nation
about this time laid a design of falling upon Media, and the parts beyond
it, in order to plunder them; with which intention they treated with the
king of Hyrcania; for he was master of that passage which king Alexander
[the Great] shut up with iron gates. This king gave them leave to come
through them; so they came in great multitudes, and fell upon the Medes
unexpectedly, and plundered their country, which they found full of people,
and replenished with abundance of cattle, while nobody durst make any resistance
against them; for Paeorus, the king of the country, had fled away for fear
into places where they could not easily come at him, and had yielded up
every thing he had to them, and had only saved his wife and his concubines
from them, and that with difficulty also, after they had been made captives,
by giving them a hundred talents for their ransom. These Alans therefore
plundered the country without opposition, and with great ease, and proceeded
as far as Armenia, laying all waste before them. Now Tiridates was king
of that country, who met them, and fought them, but had like to have been
taken alive in the battle; for a certain man threw a net over him from
a great distance, and had soon drawn him to him, unless he had immediately
cut the cord with his sword, and ran away, and prevented it. So the Alans,
being still more provoked by this sight, laid waste the country, and drove
a great multitude of the men, and a great quantity of the other prey they
had gotten out of both kingdoms, along with them, and then retreated back
to their own country.
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