ESSAY III. EXTENT OF HIS PERSONAL OBSERVATION. 205 so separating the Royal Scythians from the Sauromatæ.8 His notion is fairly expressed by Heeren nearly in these words :-"The boundaries which Herodotus assigns to Scythia are as follows: on the south, the coast of the Black Sea, from the mouth of the Danube to the Palus Mæotis; on the east, the Don or Tanais to its rise out of the lake Ivan (?); on the north, a line drawn from this lake to that out of which the Tyras or Dniestr flows; and on the west,.a line from thence to the Danube." Thus Scythia comprised the modern governments of Kherson, Poltawa, Ekaterinoslav, Kharkov, Koursk, the Don Cossacks, Voronez, Riazan, Orlov, Tula, Mogilev, Tchernizov, Minsk, Volhynia (part), Kiev, and Podolsk, together with the provinces of Bessarabia, Moldavia, and Wallachia; and consisted of the two great basins of the Don and Dniepr, the minor basins of the Dniestr and the Boug, and the northern half of the basin of the Lower Danube from Orsova to the sea. 6. Of this region Herodotus personally knew but little. He had made the coast voyage from the Straits of Constantinople to the town of Olbia, situated on the right bank of the Hypanis (Boug), near the point at which that river falls into the sea. He had likewise penetrated into the interior as far as Exampæus, four days' journey up the course of the same stream; but it does not appear that he had ever crossed the Borysthenes (Dniepr), nor that he had any personal acquaintance with the country east of that river. He regarded the Tauric Chersonese, not as a peninsula, but as a great promontory like Attica or Iapygia, and was unaware of the existence of the Sibaché Moré, or Putrid Sea. He imagined the Palus Mæotis to be a sea not very much smaller than the Euxine, and thought the Tanais (Don) ran into it with a south course. He had also notions with respect to the rivers east of the Borysthenes which it is very difficult to reconcile with existing geographical facts. Still his description of the general features of the region is remarkably accurate, and might almost pass for an account of the same country at the present day. A recent traveller, whose journeys took him pretty nearly over the entire extent of Herodotus's Scythia, notices the following particulars as among those which most strike a person on traversing the region: Herod. iv. chs. 20, 21. 9"Asiatic Nations," vol. ii. p. 257, note, E. T. The Rev. W. Palmer, whose obser. vations, made upon the spot, have been kindly communicated to me by his brother, the Rev. E. Palmer, Fellow of Balliol. 206 HIS GENERAL CORRECTNESS. APP. BOOK IV. "First, the size of the rivers and their abundance in good fish. (Cf. Herod. iv. 53.) Secondly, the general flatness of the country. Thirdly, the total absence of wood over the southern part of Herodotus's square; while, as one gets beyond it, or near its borders, there is wood. Fourthly, that the bare country, or steppes, up the Boug (Hypanis) and the Dniepr (Borysthenes) is still a corn-growing country, and the parts to the east of these still abound rather in cattle, so corresponding with the situation of the agricultural and nomade Scythians of Herodotus's time. Fifthly, that the abundance of light carts moving in all directions, with or without tracks, reminds one of Herodotus's observation that the nature of the country made the tribes inhabiting it what they were." 7. We seem to see in Herodotus a remarkable knowledge of leading geographical facts, combined, either really or apparently, with mistakes as to minutiæ. Niebuhr 2 observed long ago upon the superiority of our author to later geographers in his implied denial of that Rhipaan mountain-chain supposed generally to bound Scythia upon the north; and further noticed his acquaintance (indicated by what he says of the sources of the Hypanis) with the great marshy district of Volhynia. The writer to whom reference was made above, adds other similar points :— "What Herodotus says of the Don rising in a vast lake seems to show that there were rumours in the south of the existence and size of the great lakes of North Russia, out of the largest of which (the Onega) the Volga, not the Don, does in fact rise. So Herodotus knew that the Caspian was an inland sea, which later writers did not; he knew, which they did not either, that the bare plains of the nomade Scythians did not extend to the ocean, but that northwards beyond them the country became woody; that in one part of this further country the people became wolves' for some days annually, that is, wore wolf-skins in winter (as they do still), there being no wood to shelter wolves, and consequently few wolves to furnish skins in the south; that in another part there were people who lived by hunting in a woody country; that going to the north-east, above the royal Scythians and across the Don, one arrived after a time at the roots of high and rugged mountains, namely, of the Ural range (which was also unknown to later writers); he knew also that from the Ural Mountains it was that the gold came which so abounded in See his "Researches into the History of the Scythians, Getæ, &c.," p. 42, E. T. ESSAY III. POSSIBLE CHANGES SINCE HIS TIME. 207 Scythia, while iron and silver were wanting. With regard to the parts more to the north, he rightly understood the figure of the air being full of feathers to mean that there was more and more snow as one went northwards, and that it lay longer, till one could go no further for the want of people and means of subsistence. He speaks of people who slept (.e. lived in-doors in comparative darkness) half the year (which is not the same as if he had said that the night lasted half the year, as it does nearer the pole). He had heard not only of the great lakes in the north, but of the ocean being beyond all. His remarks on the climate, especially concerning the abundance of rain and thunder in summer, and the extreme rareness of both in winter, contrary to what one is used to in the Levant, and again concerning the extreme rareness of earthquakes, are such as still strike people who go to the north." 8. This general accuracy inclines one to suspect that possibly where Herodotus appears to be in error, he may have given a true account of the state of things in his own day, which account is now inapplicable in consequence of changes that have occurred since his time. Professor Pallas 3 was among the first to conjecture that vast alterations in the levels of the countries about the Black Sea and Palus Mæotis have taken place in comparatively recent times. Sir R. Murchison, in his Geology of Russia,' expresses himself as of the same opinion.1 It is possible that the Putrid Sea has been formed by a late depression of the land, and that the Kosa Arabatskaia marks the line of the ancient coast. The Taurida would then have deserved to be called a promontory (ǎктŋ), and not a peninsula (χερρόνησος). The courses of the rivers from the Borysthenes (Dniepr) to the Don may have been completely altered, many (as the Panticapes, Hypacyris, and Gerrhus) having been dried up, and others (as the Donetz and the Dniepr itself) having formed themselves new beds. The Palus Mæotis may have had its limits greatly contracted, partly by the deposits of the rivers, partly by an elevation of the countries along the line of the Manitch; and may have been in former times not so very unworthy of being compared for size with the Euxine.5 On the other hand, it must not be forgotten that the personal observation of Herodotus did not extend beyond the Borysthenes; and that it is exactly in the parts of Scythia which he had not 3 "Travels," vol. i. pp. 78-87, and 302-307. See pp. 573-575. Herodotus extends the Palus to a distance of three days' journey east of the Tanais (ch. 116), which would make it cover a good deal of the country supposed by Pallas to have been formerly submerged. 208 IDENTIFICATIONS OF RIVERS AND PLACES. APP. BOOK IV. visited that his descriptions cease to be applicable to the existing condition of things. This circumstance favours the notion that the divergence of his descriptions from fact arose from insufficient information. 9. With respect to the identification of the several rivers and places mentioned by Herodotus, it may be considered as absolutely certain that the Ister is the Danube, the Porata the Pruth, the Tyras the Dniestr (=Danas-Tyr), the Hypanis the Boug, the Borysthenes the Dniepr (=Dana-Bor), and the Tanais the Don. The other rivers of Scythia-the Gerrhus, the Panticapes, the Hypacyris, the Lycus, the Hyrgis or Syrgis, and the Oarus-cannot so readily be determined. We may be certain, however, that the Gerrhus was not the Moloshnia Vodi, as Rennell supposes (Geography, p. 71), since it fell into the Euxine near Carcinitis; and that the Panticapes was neither the Desna, nor the Psol, since it joined the Borysthenes at its embouchure. The little stream which enters the sea by Kalantchak would seem to represent either the Gerrhus or the Hypacyris. The Donetz may be the Syrgis. The Oarus is perhaps the Volga. There is, however, the utmost uncertainty with respect to all identifications east of the Isthmus of Perekop. Of places, Herodotus notices but few in Scythia. Olbia, at the mouth of the Hypanis, is the only town mentioned by him. Its site is marked by ruins and mounds, and determined beyond a question by coins and inscriptions. It lies on the right bank of the river, near its embouchure in the liman of the Dniepr, and is now called Stomogil, or "the Hundred Mounds."7 Opposite is the promontory called by Herodotus Cape Hippolaüs, where in his time was a temple of Ceres. Further east is the Course of Achilles, the Kosa Tendra and Kosa Djarilgatch of our maps. The site of Carcinitis is occupied probably by the modern town of Kalantchak. The Crimea is Herodotus's Taurica; the peninsula of Kertch his "rugged Chersonese." Further inland we may identify Podolia as the country of the Alazonians; Transylvania as that of the Agathyrsi, whose river Maris must be the Marosch; Volhynia and Lithuania as the habitation of the Neuri; part of Tambov as that of the Budini and Geloni; and the steppe between the Don and the Volga as that of the Sauromatæ. The situa tions of the Thyssagetæ, Iyrcæ, Argippæi, and Issedones, it is impossible to fix with any exactitude. The 'Map of the Scythia of Herodotus' prefixed to this volume gives the probable position of these nations. 6 Heeren's A. Nat. ii. p. 262. 7 Vide supra, note on Book iv. ch. 53. ( 209 ) NOTE A. ON THE WORDS THYSSAGETÆ AND MASSAGETÆ. THE etymology of the names of these tribes is of some interest in its bearing on their ethnic classification. It has been generally supposed that the Getæ, whether compared with the Játs of India or the Goths of Europe, must be of the Arian stock, and Massa for "great" belongs to the same family of languages; but it may be doubted if any of the Arian dialects furnish a correspondent for Thyssa, with the signification of "small" or "lesser." That term seems to be Scythic. At any rate, in primitive Babylonian túr or tús (compare interchange of cup and dus) has two significations, one a chief," and the other "small" or "lesser," and in each of these senses the term has been preserved to modern times. Thus, the Cuneiform Tur, used as the determinative of rank, is to be recognized in the Biblical Tartan, Tirsatha (for Turtan, Tursatha), in the Chaldee Turgis, a general," and in the modern Lur Tüshmál J↳ 66 66 (Persian Ketkhoda) “chief of the house," the ordinary title of the "white beards" of the mountain tribes; while Tur for "lesser," which in Cuneiform is used as the standard monogram for "a son," and which is translated in Assyrian by Zikhir (Heb. Ty, Arab.) is still found in the title of Turkhan given to the "Heir Apparent or "Crown Prince " by the Uzbegs of Khiva. Massa also for "greater," although closely resembling the Zend maz (for Sanscrit maha), which was actually in use in Persia within modern times (as in, Mas-maghan, “Chief of the Magi," the title of the kings of Mazenderan at the time of the Arab conquest), may perhaps with equal reason be compared with the Babylonian Scythic term mas or mis, which signified "much" or "many" (Assyrian madut), and the monogram for which was thus ordinarily used as the sign of the plural number (compare the Scythic name Пap@аμаoлáτηs, "chief of the Parthians"). To illustrate the connection of madut, "much," with mis, "greater," we may compare "multus" and "magis."-[H. C. R.] VOL. III. P |