EUROPE.

Manner of making

Solemn contracts were made amongst the ScythiCHAP. VII. ans in the following manner. Wine was poured into a large earthen vessel and mixed with blood, taken by a bodkin or dagger from the parties contracting. The parties then dipped a scimetar, some arrows, a battleaxe, and a javelin into the vessel, and made many solemn protestations, and at last drank it, together with the most distinguished of their followers.'

contracts.

Sepulchres of the Scy

The sepulchres of the Scythian kings were in the thian kings. country of the Gerrhi, on the Borysthenes, as far as Funeral that river was navigable. There, when the king ceremonies. died, a large square grave was prepared. Meantime

the corpse was covered with wax, and the stomach cut open and emboweled, and filled with bruised cypress, incense, parsley, and anise-seed, and sewn up again. The body was then placed in a chariot and carried from one tribe to another, the people of each following it as it was brought them, and wounding themselves in the same way that the Royal Scythians did, namely, by cutting off part of their ear, shaving off their hair, wounding their arm, lacerating their forehead and nose, and driving arrows through their left hand. When the When the corpse had been thus carried through the several provinces, it was at last taken to the burying-place amongst the Gerrhi, who were the most remote people under the Scythian rule. Here the Scythians placed the body in the square grave on a bed of leaves; and fixing spears on each side of the corpse, they laid pieces of wood over it and covered it with mats. In the remaining space of the excavation they buried one of the king's buried with concubines, whom they strangled; also his cupthe king. bearer, cook, master-of-horse, body-servant, messenger, and horses; together with golden goblets, and the firstlings of all his other property, except silver and brass, which, indeed, they never used. Over the whole they heaped up a large mound, which they tried to make as big as possible. When a year had elapsed, they took fifty of those of the remaining servants who had been the most closely

Favourite concubine, servants, and goods

Fifty attendants

killed and placed on

tumulus.

attendant upon the departed monarch, and who were EUROPE. all native Scythians; for the king had no servants CHAP. VII. bought with money, but was served by whoever he horseback chose to select. These fifty they strangled, together round the with fifty of the finest horses. They then emboweled both men and horses, and stuffed them with chaff, and sewed them up again; and a stake was run through each horse from the tail to the neck, and another through each man. The men were placed upon the horses, the stakes inside them fitting into a hole made in the horses' stakes. The figures were at last mounted on the insides of two half-wheels, and elevated on posts, so that the legs were all suspended in the air. The two half-wheels supported the horse's stomach, one under his shoulders, and the other under his hinder parts. Each of these figures was fastened to another post, and all were thus arranged round the tumulus.1 2

thians.

The common people were buried in a somewhat Burial of different manner. The corpse was laid in a chariot private Seyand carried about by the nearest relatives amongst their friends, who each in turn entertained the attendants, and set the same things before the dead body as before the others. This was done for forty days, after which the body was buried, and the relatives and friends purified themselves in the following manner. Having first washed and thoroughly Manner of cleansed their heads, they made a tent by stretching on thick woollen cloths over three sticks fixed in the ground, and inclining towards each other. They then threw red-hot stones into a vessel placed underneath this tent, and creeping under the woollen covering, which was kept very tight and close, they placed some hemp seed on the hot stones. A smoke and steam now arose, which no Greek vapour-bath could surpass; and the Scythians, intoxicated with

1 iv. 77.

2 Barrows or tumuli are found all over New Russia, but are most numerous in the neighbourhood of the Sea of Azoff. The Tartar name for them is Kurgan. The Calmucks are still in the habit of burying horses, arms, etc. with their chiefs.

3 iv. 73.

purifica

EUROPE. the vapour, soon began to shout aloud; and this CHAP. VII. served them in the place of washing, as they never bathed their bodies in water. The women, on the other hand, used to pound pieces of cypress, cedar, and frankincense against a rough stone, and smear this paste over their face and bodies, and this not only gave their skin a pleasant odour, but when taken off the next day left them clean and shining.1

Hatred of

foreign customs.

Costume.

slaves.

3

2

The Scythians most studiously avoided all foreign customs, and especially those of Hellas, and both Anacharsis and Scylas lost their lives in endeavouring to introduce Hellenic usages. As to their costume, they appear to have carried a bow and horsewhip, and to have worn a girdle with a small cup attached. The Sacae, who were a Scythian nation, and whom Herodotus calls Scythian Amyrgians, wore loose trousers, and felted caps terminating in a point; they also carried the bows which were peculiar to their country, together with daggers, and battle-axes Blinding of called sagares." The Scythians were accustomed to blind their slaves, to prevent their skimming off the best of the milk. This milk was their chief drink, and in milking they operated in a very peculiar fashion; for they inserted bone tubes like flutes into the vulva of the animal, and one blew up this tube whilst another milked. They themselves declared that they adopted this method because, by inflating the veins of the mare, the latter become filled, whilst the udder is depressed. The milk was directly afterwards poured into wooden measures, and the blind slaves stirred it; and the cream which settled on the top was afterwards skimmed off, and considered to be the most valuable. The Scytaking une thian nomades, Herodotus says, used to take unand drink- mixed wine and drink hard. The Spartans said that

Mode of milking cattle.

Habit of

ing very

hard.

their king Cleomenes learnt this habit from the Scythians, and became insane: hence it was usual in Lacedaemon, when they wished for stronger drink, to

1 iv. 75.

2 iv. 76-80.

5 vii. 64.

3 iv. 3. • iv. 2.

4 iv. 10.

say, "Pour out like a Scythian.'" The people re- EUROPE. sembled the Aegyptians, inasmuch as they held those CHAP. VII. citizens in the least respect who carried on trade or Contempt handicraft.2

of trade.

thia.

made from

The population of Scythia Herodotus could never Difficulty in learn with accuracy, for he heard very different ascertaining the populaaccounts. Some thought the Scythians were very tion of Seynumerous, and others the contrary. Near the bitter spring Exampaeus, however, he saw a large brazen Cauldron cauldron, six digits in thickness, and capable of arrowheads, holding 600 amphorae, which was said to have been one being entirely made of arrow-heads; for King Ariantas, every Scywishing to know the number of his subjects, commanded every Scythian, upon pain of death, to bring him one point of an arrow, and these he melted together, and left in the shape of this vast cauldron as a monument behind him.3

furnished by

thian.

Scythian

Of the Scythian language only a few trifles can Meagre rebe gathered. The Scythian names of their deities mains of the are already given at p. 162. Besides, Arima in the language. Scythian language signified "one," and Spou, "the eye:" thence the Arimaspi, or "one-eyed men."4 Also Aior, "a man," and Pata, "to kill:" hence Aiorpata, "manslayers," which was the name by which the Greeks called the Amazones.5

6

customs of

The TAURI, who inhabited the acte of Taurica, Barbarous practised the following customs. They sacrificed to the Tauri. the virgin Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon, all who suffered shipwreck on their coasts, not excepting the Hellenes. According to some, after performing the preparatory ceremonies,' they struck the victim on the head with a club. According to others, they threw the body down the precipice upon which their temple was built, but impaled the head upon a stake. Others, again, agreed as to what was done to the head, but said that the body was not thrown

1 vi. 84. 6 iv. 99.

2 ii. 167.

3 iv. 81.

4 iv. 27.

5 iv. 110.

7 The preparatory ceremonies consisted in sprinkling the victim with the lustral water, cutting the hair from his head, which was burned, and scattering on his forehead the sacred barley mixed with salt. Eurip. Iph. in Tauris, 40.

EUROPE. from the precipice, but buried in the earth. When CHAP. VII. these people had subdued any of their enemies, each one cut off a head and stuck it upon a long pole, and placed it above his house, usually above the chimney; and these heads they said were to be the guardians of their whole household. The Tauric nation lived by war and pillage.' This account of the Tauri completes Herodotus's geography of Scythia.

1 iv. 103.