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φαλακροί. The ‘bald’ men seem to be a Calmuck tribe; they resemble this race in their flat noses (σιμοί) and ‘large chins’, and in the scantiness of their hair; but Rawlinson denies the resemblance. Bunbury (i. 197) maintains that the shaven sacerdotal caste has been confused with the whole people, and urges their ‘sacredness’ (§ 5) as a proof of this. Others see in their peacefulness a merchants’ truce (so Westberg, u. s.).

H. here applies three of the four anthropological criteria of race (cf. viii. 144. 2 n.). The Argippaei are marked off as a distinct people by physical features (i. e. ‘descent’) and by ‘language’; but the evidence of ‘custom’ is various; while they have a Scyth dress, their food is different from the Scythian, cf. Myres, A. and C. p. 135. The criterion of ‘religion’ is not used here (contrast viii. 144. 2).


ἄσχυ. The ‘Ponticum’ is the wild cherry, the use of which by the Calmucks is exactly described by H.: the very name ‘atchi’ (= ‘acid’) survives among the Tartars (Reinach, A. R. M. p. 196).


ὑπὸ δενδρέῳ. For a tree used as a tent-pole cf. Tac. Germ. 46.

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