Gibbon ('Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire', chap.

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." See also Mallet, 'Northern Antiquities', and Crichton and Wheaton's 'Scandinavia' (Edinburgh Cabinet Library): "Among the fugitive princes of Scythia, who were expelled from their country in the Mithridatic war, tradition has placed the name of Odin, the ruler of a potent tribe in Turkestan, between the Euxine and the Caspian." Ed.] [Footnote N: Sertorius, one of the Roman generals of the later Republican era (see Plutarch's biography of him, and Corneille's tragedy).

On being proscribed by Sylla, he fled from Etruria to Spain; there he became the leader of several bands of exiles, and repulsed the Roman armies sent against him.

Mithridates VI .-- referred to in the previous note--aided him, both with ships and money, being desirous of establishing a new Roman Republic in Spain.

From Spain he went to Mauritania.