Scythia
(
Σκυθιά, and
Σκυθικὴ sc.
γῆ). A name variously used by the ancients at different
periods of history. The Scythia of Herodotus comprises, to speak generally, the southeastern
parts of Europe, between the Carpathian Mountains and the river Tanaïs (Don). The
Greeks became acquainted with this country through their settlements on the Euxine; and
Herodotus, who had himself visited the coasts of the Euxine, collected all the information he
could obtain about the Scythians and their country, and embodied the results in a most
interesting digression, which forms the first part of his fourth book. He describes the
country as a square of 4000 stadia (400 geographical miles) each way, the western boundary
being the Ister (Danube) and the mountains of the Agathyrsi; the southern the shores of the
Euxine and Palus Maeotis, from the mouth of the Ister to that of the Tanaïs, this
side being divided into two equal parts, of 2000 stadia each, by the mouth of the Borysthenes
(Dnieper); the eastern boundary was the Tanaïs, and on the north Scythia was divided
by deserts from the Melanchlaeni, Androphagi, and Budini. It corresponded to the southern part
of Russia in Europe. The people who inhabited this region were called by the Greeks
Σκύθαι, a word of doubtful origin, which first occurs in Hesiod;
but, in their own language,
Σκόλοτοι, i. e. Slavonians. They
were believed by Herodotus to be of Asiatic origin; and his account of them, taken in
connection with the description given by Hippocrates of their physical peculiarities, has been
regarded as proof that they were a part of the great Mongol race, who wandered, from unknown
antiquity, over the steppes of Central Asia; yet the general drift of opinion at the present
time is toward assigning to them Aryan affinities. Herodotus says further that they were
driven out of their abodes in Asia, north of the Araxes, by the Massagetae; and that,
migrating into Europe, they drove out the Cimmerians. If this account be true, it can hardly
but have some connection with the irruption of the Cimmerians into Asia Minor, in the reign of
the Lydian king Ardys, about B.C. 640.
The Scythians were a nomadic people, that is, shepherds or herdsmen, who had no fixed
habitations, but roamed over a vast tract of country at their pleasure, and according to the
wants of their cattle. They lived in a kind of covered wagons, which Aeschylus describes as
“lofty houses of wicker-work, on well-wheeled chariots” (
Prom.
Vinc. 710). They were filthy in their habits, never washing, fought on horseback,
scalped their enemies, and drank out of their skulls when slain. They kept large troops of
horses, and were most expert in cavalry exercises and archery; and hence, as the Persian king
Darius found, when he invaded their country (B.C. 507), it was almost impossible for an
invading army to act against them. They simply retreated, wagons and all, before the enemy,
harassing him with their light cavalry, and leaving famine and exposure, in their bare
steppes, to do the rest. Like all nomadic races, they were divided into several hordes, the
chief of whom were called the Royal Scythians; and to these all the rest owned some degree of
allegiance. Their government was a sort of patriarchal monarchy or chieftainship. An important
modification of their habits had, however, taken place, to a certain extent, before Herodotus
described them. The fertility of the plains on the north of the Euxine, and the influence of the Greek settlements at the mouth of the Borysthenes and along the
coast, had led the inhabitants of this part of Scythia to settle down as cultivators of the
soil, and had brought them into commercial and other relations with the Greeks. Accordingly,
Herodotus mentions two classes or hordes of Scythians who had thus abandoned their nomad life;
first, on the west of the Borysthenes, two tribes of Hellenized Scythians, called Callipidae
and Alazones; then, beyond these, “the Scythians who are ploughers (
Σκύθαι ἀροτῆρες), who do not grow their corn for food, but for
sale”; these dwelt about the river Hypanis (Boug), in the region now called the
Ukraine, which is still, as it was to the Greeks, a great cornexporting country. Again, on the
east of the Borysthenes were “the Scythians who are husbandmen” (
Σκύθαι γεωργοί), i. e. who grew corn for their own consumption:
these were called Borysthenitae by the Greeks; their country extended
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Scythian Horseman. (Sculptures at Kertch).
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three days' journey east of the Borysthenes to the river Panticapes. Beyond these,
to the east, dwelt “the nomad Scythians (
νομάδες
Σκύθαι), who neither sow nor plough at all.” Herodotus expressly states
that the tribes east of the Borysthenes were not Scythian. Of the history of these Scythian
tribes there is little to state, beyond the tradition already mentioned, that they migrated
from Asia and expelled the Cimmerians; their invasion of Media, in the reign of Cyaxares, when
they held the supremacy of Western Asia for twenty-eight years, and the disastrous expedition
of Darius into their country. In later times they were gradually overpowered by the
neighbouring people, especially the Sarmatians, who gave their name to the whole country. (See
Sarmatia.) Meanwhile, the conquests of Alexander
and his successors in Central Asia had made the Greeks acquainted with tribes beyond the Oxus
and the Iaxartes, who resembled the Scythians, and belonged, in fact, to the same race, and to
whom, accordingly, the same name was applied. Hence, in writers of the time of the Roman
Empire, the name of Scythia denotes the whole of Northern Asia, from the river Rha (Volga) on
the west, which divided it from Asiatic Sarmatia, to Serica on the east, extending to India on
the south. It was divided by Mount Imaüs into two parts, called respectively Scythia intra Imaüm, i. e. on the northwestern side of the
range, and Scythia extra Imaüm, on its southeastern side.
The later Scythians overran Parthia (B.C. 128), and also invaded Northern India, where they
maintained themselves for several centuries. The Jats and Rajputs of modern India have by some
scholars been regarded as the descendants of these Scythian invaders.
See the editions of Herodotus by Rawlinson and Sayce;
Neumann, Die Hellenen im
Skythenland (1855); Müllenhoff and
Kuno, Die
Skythen (1871);
Fressl, Skytho-Saken (1886); and
Krause, TuiskoLand (1891).