Sermende is the mutilated and disguised name of Sarmatia, which did not exist under that name in the time of Alfred, but which he inserted on the authority of his original author Orosius.

"Sarmatia fell, unwept, without a crime.

The goods were carried thence overland to the province of Sarmatia and the river Tanais or Don, which is the division between Europe and Asia.

" SECTION I. The Ambassador, after passing through Germany, Poland, Russia, and the Tartarian Deserts, or Upper European Sarmatia, arrives at Caffa or Theodosia.

Contarini, after crossing European Sarmatia, arrives at Moscow, the capital of White Russia, and is presented to the Grand Duke.

This is perhaps the only instance wherein Poland; a portion of European Sarmatia, is considered as belonging geographically to Germany.

x.) says, "It is supposed that Odin was the chief of a tribe of barbarians, who dwelt on the banks of Lake Maeotis, till the fall of Mithridates, and the arms of Pompey menaced the north with servitude; that Odin, yielding with indignant fury to a power which he was unable to resist, conducted his tribe from the frontiers of Asiatic Sarmatia into Sweden.