222 THE ROMAN CONQUESTS. [CHAP.
the priests, who acted as arbitrators, when disputes arose with the
neighbouring tribes; while the third comprehended the soldiers
and the cultivators of the soil, and the fourth the mass of the
common people, who were employed in menial tasks, and were
regarded as slaves of the king. Their domestic organisation was
patriarchal, the property of each family being possessed in com-
mon, and administered by the eldest member of the family1. The
condition of the Albani, on the other hand, was
TheAlbani. ... ,__ ...
much more primitive. We learn that they did not
use money for purposes of traffic, but made their exchanges in
kind, and that they were unacquainted for the most part with
weights and measures. The custom of human sacrifices also pre-
vailed amongst them, and like the Gauls and the Lusitani, they
were wont on these occasions to divine from the bodies of the
victims. Their occupations were mainly pastoral, and where they
cultivated the soil the implements they used were of the rudest
description; but, notwithstanding this, the crops which they
obtained were exceedingly rich in consequence of the fertility of
the soil—a description which applies at the present day to the
corresponding district of Shirvan, which lies between the Kur, the
Caspian Sea, and the eastern part of the Caucasus. Though
naturally a peaceful race, they were able to put a large military
force into the field, so that they opposed Pompey with an army of
The Tribes s*xtv thousand infantry and twelve thousand cavalry8,
bordering on The tribes which bordered on the coast of the
the Euxine, — .
Euxine to the northward of the Phasis were very
numerous, and as many as seventy of them were said to frequent
the Greek colony of Dioscurias (Sukhum Kaleh), which lay in
their neighbourhood, as a trading centre8. We learn also that
they spoke different dialects, and this was no doubt the result of
the conformation of the ground in those parts, which is broken up
into a number of separate valleys by the spurs of the Caucasus.
The name of one of them, which appears in Greek as Heniochi,
can be recognised in the modem form Hainuch. Some of them
led a piratical life, attacking the merchant ships in the Black Sea,
or making descents on various parts of the coast, for which
1 Strabo, u. 3, i, 6.
* ML, n. 4. > Ibid., xi. «. 16.