46

THE BORYSTHENES.

Book IV.

upon the Alazonians; and the place where it rises is called in the Scythic tongue Exampœus, which means in our language, "The Sacred Ways." The spring itself bears the same name. The Tyras and the Hypanis approach each other in the country of the Alazonians, but afterwards separate, and leave a wide space between their streams.

1

53. The fourth of the Scythian rivers is the Borysthenes.3 Next to the Ister, it is the greatest of them all; and, in my judgment, it is the most productive river, not merely in Scythia, but in the whole world, excepting only the Nile, with which no stream can possibly compare. It has upon its banks the loveliest and most excellent pasturages for cattle; it contains abundance of the most delicious fish; its water is most pleasant to the taste; its stream is limpid, while all the other rivers near it are muddy; the richest harvests spring up along its course, and where the ground is not sown, the heaviest crops of grass; while salt forms in great plenty about its mouth without human aid, and large fish are taken in

9 The etymology of this term is discussed in the Appendix, Essay ii. 'On the Ethnography of the European Scyths.'

i That is, between the 47th and 48th parallels. The fact here noticed by Herodotus strongly proves his actual knowledge of the geography of these countries.

2 The Borysthenes is the Dniepr. It had got the name as early as the compilation of the anonymous Periplus Pont. Eux. (See p. 150.)

66

3 Something of the same enthusiasm which appears in the description of Herodotus breaks out also in modern travellers when they speak of the Dniepr. Among the rivers of Southern Russia," says Madame de Hell, "the Dniepr claims one of the foremost places, from the length of its course, the volume of its waters, and the deep bed which it has excavated for itself across the plains; but nowhere does it present more charming views than from the height I have just mentioned, and its vicinity. After

having spread out to the breadth of nearly a league, it parts into a multitude of channels that wind through forests of oaks, alders, poplars, and aspens, whose vigorous growth bespeaks the richness of a virgin soil. The groups of islands, capriciously breaking the surface of the waters, have a melancholy beauty and a primitive character scarcely to be seen except in those vast wildernesses where man has left no traces of his presence. Nothing in our country at all resembles this land of landscape. For some time after my arrival at Doutchina I found an endless source of delight in contemplating these majestic scenes." (Travels, pp. 56, 57, E. T.)

4 Dio Chrysostom notes the value of this salt as an article of trade with the other Greeks and with the Scyths of the interior (Or. xxxvi. p. 43). The salines of Kinburn, at the extremity of the promontory which forms the southern shore of the liman of the Dniepr, are still of the greatest

6

47

it of the sort called Antacæi, without any prickly bones, and good for pickling." Nor are these the whole of its marvels. As far inland as the place named Gerrhus, which is distant forty days' voyage from the sea, its course is known, and its direction is from north to south; but above this no one has traced it, so as to say through what countries it flows. It enters the territory of the Scythian Husbandmen after running for some time across a desert region, and continues for ten days' navigation to pass through the land which they inhabit. It is the only river besides the Nile the sources of which are unknown to me, as they are also (I believe) toll the other Greeks. Not long before it reaches the sea the Borysthenes is joined by the Hypanis, which pours its waters into the same lake. The land that lies between them, a narrow point like the beak of a ship, is called Cape Hippolaus. Here is a temple dedicated to Ceres, and opposite the

importance to Russia, and supply vast tracts of the interior. (See Dr. Clarke's Russia, Appendix, No. VIII. p. 759.)

The sturgeon of the Dniepr have to this day a great reputation. Caviare (the τάριχος Αντακαῖον of Athenæus) is made from the roes of these fish at Kherson and Nicolaef. For a scientific description of the sturgeon of the Dniepr, see Kirby's Bridgewater Treatise, vol. i. p. 107.

The Dniepr is navigable for barges all the way from Smolensko to its mouth, a distance of not less than 1500 miles. The navigation is indeed greatly impeded by the rapids below Ekaterinoslav; but still for a month or six weeks in the spring, at the time of the spring floods, they are passed by boats. (See Dr. Clarke's Russia, App. VIII. p. 756; and De Hell's Travels, p. 20, E. T.) Herodotus does

not seem to have been aware of the rapids, which may possibly have been produced by an elevation of the land since his time. (See Murchison's Geology of Russia, vol. i. p. 573.) It is uncertain what distance he intended by a day's voyage up the course of a river, but there seems to

be no sufficient reason for altering the number forty in the text, as Matthiæ and Larcher suggest.

7 The word in the Greek (λos) is rather "marsh" than "lake," and the liman of the Dniepr is in point of fact so shallow as almost to deserve the name. "In summer it has hardly six feet of water." (Report of Russian Engineers; Clarke, 1. s. c.)

8 This description, which is copied by Dio (Or. xxxvi. p. 437), and which would exactly suit the promontory of Kinburn, applies but ill to the land as it now lies between the two rivers. Has the author's memory played him false, or are we to suppose that the form of the land has changed since his time?

" Or "Cybêlé," for the reading is doubtful. Bahr gives Μητρὸς for Δήμητρος on the authority of many of

DARIO

the best MSS.; and among the coins found on the site of Olbia, the head

48

THE HYPACYRIS.

Book IV.

temple upon the Hypanis is the dwelling-place of the Borysthenites. But enough has been said of these streams.

54. Next in succession comes the fifth river, called the Panticapes, which has, like the Borysthenes, a course from north to south, and rises from a lake. The space between this river and the Borysthenes is occupied by the Scythians who are engaged in husbandry. After watering their country, the Panticapes flows through Hylæa, and empties itself into the Borysthenes.

55. The sixth stream is the Hypacyris, a river rising from a lake, and running directly through the middle of the Nomadic Scythians. It falls into the sea, near the city of

of Cybêlé, with the well-known crown of towers, occurs frequently. (See Mionnet's Description des Médailles, &c., Supplément, tom. ij. pp. 14-15.)

1 Olbia, called also Borysthenes (supra, ch. 18, note 9), was on the western or right bank of the Hypanis, as sufficiently appears from this pas sage. Its site is distinctly marked by mounds and ruins, and has been placed beyond a doubt by the discovery of numerous coins and inscriptions. (Clarke, pp. 614-623; Choix des Médailles Antiques d'Olbiopolis ou Olbia, faisant partie du cabinet du Conseiller d'Etat De Blaramberg, Paris, 1822.) It is now called Stomogil, "the Hundred Mounds," and lies about 12 miles below Nicolaef, on the opposite side of the Bog, 3 or 4 miles from the junction of the Bog with the liman of the Dniepr. (De Hell, p. 34, E. T.)

It is curious to find Olbia placed on the wrong bank of the Hypanis by Major Rennell in his great map of Western Asia, published so late as 1831.

2 On the Panticapes, see ch. 18, note. This and the next two rivers defy identification with any existing stream. Great changes have probably occurred in the physical geography of Southern Russia since the time of Herodotus. (Murchison's Geology of Russia, pp. 573-577.) The Dniepr in

his time seems to have had a large delta, enclosed within the mouth which he knew as the Borysthenes, and that called by him the Gerrhus, though this latter can scarcely have parted from the main stream at so great a distance from the sea as he imagined. It is possible that there have been great changes of level in Southern Russia since his time, and the point of departure may perhaps have been as high as Krylov, in lat. 49°, as represented in the map prefixed to this volume; but perhaps it is more probable that the delta did not begin till about Kakofka, where the Borysthenes may have thrown off a branch which passed into the Gulf of Perekop by Kalantchak (see Murchison, p. 574, note); or, finally, Herodotus may have been completely at fault, and the true Gerrhus of his day may, like that of Ptolemy (iii. 5), have really fallen into the Palus Mæotis, being the modern Molotchina,

as Rennell supposes. (Geography of Herod. p. 71.)

This place is called Carciné by Pliny (H. N. iv. 12) and Mela (ii. 1), Carcina by Ptolemy (1. s. c.), Car. cinitis by Hecatæus (Fr. Hist. Gr, vol. i. p. 10, Fr. 153) and Herodotus, Carcinites, or Coronites, by the anonymous author of the Peripl. Pont. Eux. (p. 148). It gave name to the bay on the western side of the Taurio

CHAP. 55-57.

3

THE GERRHUS-THE TANAIS.

4

49

Carcinitis, leaving Hylæa and the course of Achilles to the right.

56. The seventh river is the Gerrhus, which is a branch thrown out by the Borysthenes at the point where the course of that stream first begins to be known, to wit, the region called by the same name as the stream itself, viz. Gerrhus. This river on its passage towards the sea divides the country of the Nomadic from that of the Royal Scyths. It runs into the Hypacyris.

57. The eighth river is the Tanais, a stream which has its source, far up the country, in a lake of vast size,5 and which empties itself into another still larger lake, the Palus Mæotis, whereby the country of the Royal Scythians is divided from that of the Sauromatæ. The Tanais receives the waters of a tributary stream, called the Hyrgis.6

Chersonese (Plin. 1. s. c.; Mel. 1. s. c., &c.), the modern Gulf of Perekop. It does not appear to have been a Greek settlement. Perhaps it may have been a Cimmerian town, and have contained the Cymric Caer in its first syllable.

4 This is the modern Kosa Tendra and Kosa Djarilgatch, a long and narrow strip of sandy beach extending about 80 miles from nearly opposite Kalantchak to a point about 12 miles south of the promontory of Kinburn, and attached to the continent only in the middle by an isthmus about 12 miles across. (Strabo vii. p. 445) and Eustathius (ad Dionys. Perieg. 306) compare it to a fillet, Pliny (H. N. iv. 12) and Mela (ii. 1) to a sword. It is carefully described by Strabo, Eustathius, and the anonymous author of the Periplus, less accurately by Mela. Various accounts were given of the name. At the western extremity there was a grove sacred to Achilles (Strab. p. 446), or, according to others, to Hecaté (Anon. Peripl. P. E. p. 149). Marcianus Capella placed here the tomb of Achilles (vi. p. 214), who was said by Alcaus to have "ruled over Scythia" (Fr. 49, Bergk.) The worship of Achilles

VOL. III.

was strongly affected by the Pontic Greeks. He had a temple in Olbia (Strab. 1. s. c.), on the coins of which his name is sometimes found (Mionnet, Supplément, tom. ii. p. 32); another in the present Isle of Serpents (Arrian, Peripl. P. Eux. p. 135); a third on the Asiatic side of the Straits of Kertch, at the narrowest point (Strab. xi. p. 756); and, as some think, a fourth on a small island at the mouth of the Borysthenes, dedicated to him by the Olbiopolites. (See Köhler's Mémoire sur les îles et la course consacrées à Achille; and comp. Dio Chrysost. Or. xxxvi. p. 439.) His head also appears occasionally on the coins of Chersonesus (Mionnet, ut supra, pp. 1 and 3); and in an inscription found at Olbia, and given accurately in Köhler's Remarques sur un ouvrage, &c., p. 12, he is (apparently) entitled "Ruler of the Pontus" (ΠΟΝΤΑΡΧΗΣ).

5 The Tanais (the modern Don) rises from a small lake, the lake of Ivan-Ozero, in lat. 54° 2′. long. 38° 3'. The Volga flows in part from the great lake of Onega.

6 There are no means of identify. ing this river. Mr. Blakesley regards it as the Seiersky, in which he finds

E

50

RELIGION OF THE SCYTHIANS.

Book IV.

58. Such then are the rivers of chief note in Scythia. The grass which the land produces is more apt to generate gall in the beasts that feed on it than any other grass which is known to us, as plainly appears on the opening of their carcases.

59. Thus abundantly are the Scythians provided with the most important necessaries. Their manners and customs come now to be described. They worship only the following gods, namely, Vesta, whom they reverence beyond all the rest, Jupiter, and Tellus, whom they consider to be the wife of Jupiter; and after these Apollo, Celestial Venus, Hercules, and Mars. These gods are worshipped by the whole nation : the Royal Scythians offer sacrifice likewise to Neptune. In the Scythic tongue Vesta is called Tabiti, Jupiter (very properly, in my judgment) Papaus, Tellus Apia, Apollo Etosyrus, Celestial Venus Artimpasa, and Neptune Thamimasadas. They use no images, altars, or temples, except in the worship of Mars; but in his worship they do use them.

some vestige of the ancient title." I should be inclined rather to look on it as representing the Donetz, if any dependence could be placed on this part of our author's geography. He calls it in another place the Syrgis (infra, ch. 123.)

7 The religion of the Scythians appears by this account to have consisted chiefly in the worship of the elements. Jupiter (Papaus), while he was the father of the gods, was also perhaps the air; Vesta (Tabiti) was fire, Tellus (Apia) earth, Neptune (Thamimasadas) water, Apollo (Oitosyrus) the sun, and celestial Venus (Artimpasa) the moon. The supposed worship of Mars was probably the mere worship of the scymitar (cf. Grote's Hist. of Greece, vol. iii. p. 323). What that of Hercules may have been it is impossible to determine; but it is worthy of remark that Herodotus has no Scythian name for Hercules, any more than he has for Mars. The subjoined representation of a Scythian god is not uncommon in the tombs. M. Dubois calls it "the Scythian Hercules," but there is

nothing which determinately fixes its character. It has rather the appearance of a god of drinking.

8 The probable etymology of these names is given in the Appendix, Essay ii., 'On the Ethnography of the European Scyths.'

8