6

:

GREEK VERSION OF THE NATIVE STORY.

BOOK IV.

the year. His pay therefore is as much land as he can ride round on horseback in a day. As the extent of Scythia is very great, Colaxais gave each of his three sons a separate kingdom, one of which was of ampler size than the other two in this the gold was preserved. Above, to the northward of the furthest dwellers in Scythia, the country is said to be concealed from sight and made impassable by reason of the feathers which are shed abroad abundantly. The earth and air are alike full of them, and this it is which prevents the eye from obtaining any view of the region."

8. Such is the account which the Scythians give of themselves, and of the country which lies above them. The Greeks who dwell about the Pontus tell a different story. According to them, Hercules, when he was carrying off the

6 This tradition, and the triple command at the time of the invasion (infra, ch. 120), indicate, apparently, a permanent division of the Royal Horde into three distinct tribes.

7 Vide infra, ch. 31, where Herodotus explains that the so-called feathers are snow-flakes.

8 The principal Greek cities upon the Pontus were the following:-1. On the south coast, Heraclea Pontica (the modern Eregli), a colony of the Megarians; Sinôpé, which retains its name, a colony of the Milesians; Trapezus (Trebizond) and Cotyora (Ordu), colonies from Sinôpé itself; and Amisus (Samsun), a colony of the Phocæans re-established by the Athenians (cf. Strab. xii. p. 792, with Scymnus Chius, Fr. 181; and Arrian, Peripl. P. Eux. p. 128). 2. On the east coast, Phasis (Poti) and Dioscurias (near Soukoum Kileh), colonies of the Milesians (Steph. Byz. ad voc. páσis; Arrian, Peripl. P. Eux. p. 123). 3. On the north, Panticapæum and Phanagoreia, guarding the Straits of Kertch-the former a colony of the Milesians, and in later times the capital of the kingdom of the Bosphorus-the latter a colony of the Teians (Anon. Peripl. P. E. p. 134; Scymn. Ch. Fr. 153); Theodosia, at

8

the site of the modern Kaffa, also a colony of the Milesians (Arrian, Peripl. P. Eux. p. 131; Anon. Peripl. p. 143); Chersonesus at Kamiesch, near Sebastopol, a colony from Heraclea Pontica (Scymn. Ch. Fr. 75; Anon. Peripl. p. 146); and Olbia, or Borysthenes, on the right bank of the Boug, a little above its junction with the Dniepr, a colony of the Milesians (infra, ch. 78). 4. On the west, Tyras, near the mouth of the Dniestr; Istrus, or Istria, a little south of the lowest mouth of the Danube; Tomi, 30 miles further south; Odessus, near the modern Varna; and Apollonia, now Sizeboli (infra, ch. 90), colonies of the Milesians (see Herod. ii. 33; Scymn. Ch. 11. 19, 24, and 56; Anon. Peripl. pp. 153, 157, 158, 160, and 162); Callatis and Mesembria (Misevri), colonies respectively of the Heracleots and the Chalcedonians (Scymn. Ch. 16; and Anon. Peripl. pp. 158, 161). Besides these, there were a number of smaller settlements, especially along the southern coast. One or two colonies were likewise planted on the shores of the Sea of Azov, as Tanais at the mouth of the Tanais (Don), and Tyrambé above the northernmost mouth of the Kuban river (Strabo, xi. p. 755).

CHAP. 7-9.

WANDERINGS OF HERCULES IN SCYTHIA.

7

cows of Geryon, arrived in the region which is now inhabited by the Scyths, but which was then a desert. Geryon lived outside the Pontus, in an island called by the Greeks Erytheia, near Gades,1 which is beyond the Pillars of Hercules upon the Ocean. Now some say that the Ocean begins in the east, and runs the whole way round the world; but they give no proof that this is really so.2 Hercules came from thence into the region now called Scythia, and, being overtaken by storm and frost, drew his lion's skin about him, and fell fast asleep. While he slept, his mares, which he had loosed from his chariot to graze, by some wonderful chance disappeared.

9. On waking, he went in quest of them, and, after wandering over the whole country, came at last to the district called "the Woodland," where he found in a cave a strange being, between a maiden and a serpent, whose form from the waist upwards was like that of a woman, while all below was like a snake. He looked at her wonderingly; but nevertheless

9 The island of Erytheia, near Gades (Cadiz), is mentioned both by Strabo and Pliny. The former says it was distant one stade, the latter 100 paces from the above (Strab. iii. p. 233; Plin. iv. 22). Probably Erytheia was one of the two islands included commonly by the Greeks in the name of Gades (Tadipa). See the Voyage of Scylax, sub voc. "Iẞnpes. It is thought by some (Bähr ad loc.) that Erytheia was the little isle of Trocadero, which intervenes between St. Leon and the mainland; but perhaps Mariana is right (Hist. Hispan. i. 21) in sup. posing that the deposits of the Guadalquivir have joined both Erytheia and the island on which Gades was built to the continent.

The name, Gades or Gadira (τà Tadepa), has been supposed to be Kadesh, "the holy, or Kader, "powerful." It is rather Kadur, an enclosure," which agrees with Pliny's meaning of " Gadir," "in Punic an enclosure" (sepem). Of the then two islands (the E.) one was called Erytheia, or Aphrodisias, or "by the

natives of Juno,' and according to Timæus the larger (W.) one was called the greater Cotinusa, by the Romans Tartessos, by the Poni Gadir. The name Erytheia was owing to the Tyrians having originally come from the Red Sea." (Plin. iv. 22; cp. Solin. Hisp. c. 23.) Hesiod, as well as Pliny, mentions Erytheia as the island of Geryon. Strabo describes Gades as inferior in size to Rome alone; it had many large ships trading in the Mediterranean and the outer sea. Pomp. Mela (iii. 6) speaks of "Gades and the temple of the Egyptian (Tyrian ?) Hercules there," and of Erytheia inhabited by Geryon, as of a different island (v. Plin. ib.).— [G. W.]

2 Herodotus considered that the eastern and northern boundaries of the earth were unknown, and that the general belief that the sea encompassed the land was a pure conjecture resting on no certain data. (Supra, iii. 116, and infra, chs. 36 and 45.) 3 Vide infra, ch. 18.

8

HERCULES AND THE SERPENT-MAIDEN.

Book IV.

inquired, whether she had chanced to see his strayed mares anywhere. She answered him, "Yes, and they were now in her keeping; but never would she consent to give them back, unless he took her for his mistress." So Hercules, to get his mares back, agreed; but afterwards she put him off and delayed restoring the mares, since she wished to keep him with her as long as possible. He, on the other hand, was only anxious to secure them and to get away. At last, when she gave them up, she said to him, "When thy mares strayed hither, it was I who saved them for thee: now thou hast paid their salvage; for lo! I bear in my womb three sons of thine. Tell me, therefore, when thy sons grow up, what must I do with them? Wouldst thou wish that I should settle them here in this land, whereof I am mistress, or shall I send them to thee ?" Thus questioned, they say Hercules answered, "When the lads have grown to manhood, do thus, and assuredly thou wilt not err. Watch them, and when thou seest one of them bend this bow as I now bend it, and gird himself with this girdle thus, choose him to remain in the land. Those who fail in the trial, send away. Thus wilt thou at once please thyself and obey me."

10. Hereupon he strung one of his bows-up to that time he had carried two-and showed her how to fasten the belt. Then he gave both bow and belt into her hands. Now the belt had a golden goblet attached to its clasp. So after he had given them to her, he went his way; and the woman, when her children grew to manhood, first gave them severally their names. One she called Agathyrsus, one Gelônus, and the other, who was the youngest, Scythes. Then she remembered the instructions she had received from Hercules, and, in obedience to his orders, she put her sons to the test. Two of them, Agathyrsus and Gelônus, proving unequal to

4 Among the Greeks the belt was worn round the loins at the bottom of the cuirass or breastplate, to which it was commonly attached, and which it

served to fasten. It was usually closed by a clasp or hooks of metal. (See Hom. Il. iv. 132.)

СНАР. 9-11.

ACCOUNT PREFERRED BY HERODOTUS.

9

the task enjoined, their mother sent them out of the land; Scythes, the youngest, succeeded, and so he was allowed to remain. From Scythes, the son of Hercules,5 were descended the after kings of Scythia; and from the circumstance of the goblet which hung from the belt, the Scythians to this day wear goblets at their girdles." This was the only thing which the mother of Scythes did for him. Such is the tale told by the Greeks who dwell around the Pontus.

11. There is also another different story, now to be related, in which I am more inclined to put faith than in any other. It is that the wandering Scythians once dwelt in Asia, and there warred with the Massagetæ, but with ill success; they therefore quitted their homes, crossed the Araxes, and entered the land of Cimmeria. For the land which is now inhabited by the Scyths was formerly the country of the Cimmerians. On their coming, the natives, who heard how numerous the invading army was, held a council. At this meeting opinion was divided, and both parties stiffly maintained their own view; but the counsel of the Royal tribe was the braver. For the others urged that the best thing to be

5 Diodorus substitutes Jupiter for Hercules (ii. 43), which is a trace of the genuine Scythian legend (supra, ch. 5). It is plain that the whole story as told by the Pontic Greeks (chs. 8-10) is a mere Grecised version of the Scythic tradition (chs. 5-7).

6 The Scythians represented on the vase figured below (ch. 81), have all belts round their middle, but none appear to have goblets attached. Herodotus, however, would be an unexceptionable witness to the fact.

7 It seems impossible that the Araxes can here represent any river but the Wolga. (Cf. Heeren, As. Nat. ii. p. 258.) To imagine it either the Aras or the Jaxartes leads to inextricable confusion. Araxes (Aras)

seems to have been a name common in the days of Herodotus to all the great streams flowing into the Caspian, just as Don has been to all the great Scythian rivers (Tan-ais, Dan-aper or

Dniepr, Danaster or Dniestr, Donau, Don-aub or Dan-ube, &c.), and as Avon is to SO many English streams. Whether Herodotus was aware of the fact that there were several rivers Araxes is a different question. Probably he was not. Hence the vague

ness and unsatisfactoriness of his geography of the Caspian regions.

That the Wolga was sometimes called the Araxes is evident from the tradition reported by Aristotle (Meteorol. i. 13), Scymnus Chius (1. 128), and the author of the Periplus (p. 138), that the Tanais branched off from the Araxes. This Araxes could only be the Wolga. [Ars or Aras signified in primitive Scythic the same as Wolga in Arian Slavonic, viz. "great ;" and the name was thus applied to any great river.-H. C. R.]

8 On the Cimmerians, see the Essays appended to this Book, Essay i.

ΙΟ

ACCOUNT PREFERRED BY HERODOTUS.

Book IV.

done was to leave the country, and avoid a contest with so vast a host; but the Royal tribe advised remaining and fighting for the soil to the last. As neither party chose to give way, the one determined to retire without a blow and yield their lands to the invaders; but the other, remembering the good things they had enjoyed in their homes, and picturing to themselves the evils which they had to expect if they gave them up, resolved not to flee, but rather to die. and at least be buried in their fatherland. Having thus decided, they drew apart in two bodies, the one as numerous as the other, and fought together. All of the Royal tribe were slain, and the people buried them near the river Tyras, where their grave is still to be seen. Then the rest of the Cimmerians departed, and the Scythians, on their coming, took possession of a deserted land.

12. Scythia still retains traces of the Cimmerians; there are Cimmerian castles, and a Cimmerian ferry,1 also a tract called Cimmeria, and a Cimmerian Bosphorus. It appears likewise that the Cimmerians, when they fled into Asia to escape the Scyths, made a settlement in the peninsula where the Greek city of Sinópé was afterwards built.

9 Niebuhr thinks that the Cimmerians, whose tombs might be seen in the time of Herodotus near the Tyras, fell in a last encounter with the invading Scyths; and he uses this as an argument to prove that the Cimmerians fled, not eastward, but westward; entering Asia, not by the route of the Phasis, but by the passage of the Bosphorus. (Scythia, p. 52, E. T.)

1 Larcher translates, "les villes de Cimmerium, et de Porthmies Cimmé. riennes." And certainly there was a town called Cimmeris or Cimmerium, and a village named Porthmium, in these parts. (Hecat. Fr. 2; Strabo, xi. p. 721; Plin. vi. 6; Scymn. Ch. 148; Anon. Peripl. Pont. Eux. § 2 and § 5; Steph. Byz. ad voc. Пopeμía.) But I cannot think that Herodotus would use either τείχεα οι πορθμήϊα to designate a town. Schweighæuser's rendering,

The Scyths,

"Cimmerium castellum, et Cimmerium portorium," is much nearer the truth than Larcher's version.

2 The name Cimmeria still clings to these regions, not only in the EskiKrim (Old Krim), which marks the site of the ancient town of Cimmerium, but also in the well-known words, Crimea and Crim Tartary.

3 It has been already remarked (Appendix to Book i. Essay i. § 14, ad. fin.) that the promontory of Sinôpé was pro. bably one of the points to which the Cimmerians finally fled, and in which they maintained themselves when the fortune of war turned against them, and Alyattes drove them out of Lydia. Such a region would not have presented any temptation to them on their first entrance into Asia Minor, but would have served admirably for a refuge when they were compelled to fly.