CHAP. 24-27. THE ISSEDONIANS. 19 credit. The region east of the bald-headed men is well known to be inhabited by the Issedonians, but the tract that lies to the north of these two nations is entirely unknown, except by the accounts which they give of it. 26. The Issedonians are said to have the following customs. When a man's father dies, all the near relatives bring sheep to the house; which are sacrificed, and their flesh cut in pieces, while at the same time the dead body undergoes the like treatment. The two sorts of flesh are afterwards mixed together, and the whole is served up at a banquet. The head of the dead man is treated differently: it is stripped bare, cleansed, and set in gold. It then becomes an ornament on which they pride themselves, and is brought out year by year at the great festival which sons keep in honour of their fathers' death, just as the Greeks keep their Genesia. In other respects the Issedonians are reputed to be observers of justice and it is to be remarked that their women have equal authority with the men.2 our knowledge extends as far as this nation. 1 Thus 27. The regions beyond are known only from the accounts of the Issedonians, by whom the stories are told of the one-eyed race of men and the gold-guarding griffins. These stories are 3 Damastes, the contemporary of Herodotus, placed the Issedonians immediately above the Scythians. Above them were the Arimaspi, extending to the Rhipsan mountains. Beyond these were the Hyperboreans, reaching to the Northern Sea (Fr. 1). The Issedonians were also mentioned by Hecatæus (Fr. 168). 9 Compare the Scythian custom with respect to the sculls of enemies (infra, ch. 65). A similar practice to theirs is ascribed by Livy to the Boii, a tribe of Gauls (xxiii. 24). Rennell relates that he had himself seen drinking-cups made in this fashion, which had been brought from temples in the country which he assigns to the Issedonians (Geography of Herodotus, p. 144). These were ceremonial observances at the tombs of the departed, annually, on the day of the deceased person's birth. They are to be distinguished from the veKúria, which were similar observances on the anniversary of the death. (Hesych. ad voc. yevéσia.) It has been usual to scout as fables all stories of Amazons, or even of any established equality in any nation of women with men. But the travels of Dr. Livingstone have proved that in parts of Southern Africa such a position is actually occupied by the female sex to this day (p. 622-3); [and among the Nairs of Malabar the institutions all incline to a gynocracy, each woman having several husbands, and property passing through the female line in preference to the male.-H. C. R.j It is certain also that some nations have affected the government of Queens, as the Idumæan Arabs (see vol. i. p. 376, and compare the account in 2 Kings, ch. x. of the "Queen of the South "), and perhaps the Ethiopians. 3 German critics (as Bähr, Völcker, Rhode, Wahl, &c.) have regarded this tale as deserving of serious attention, and have given various explanations of its meaning, which may be found in Bahr's Excursus (vol. ii. pp., 653-5). To me it seems to be a mere Arabian Nights' story, of a piece with those many others wherein large birds play an important part (supra, note, on Book iii. ch. 111). Aristeas picked up the tale in Scythia, and from him it passed both to Eschylus (P. V. 828) and Herodotus. Later writers merely copy from them. The only truth contained in the tale is the productiveness of the Siberian gold-region (Murchison's Geology of 20 THE CLIMATE OF SCYTHIA. BOOK IV received by the Scythians from the Issedonians, and by them passed on to us Greeks: whence it arises that we give the oneeyed race the Scythian name of Arimaspi, "arima" being the Scythic word for "one," and "spû" for "the eye.” 4 28. The whole district whereof we have here discoursed has winters of exceeding rigour. During eight months the frost is so intense, that water poured upon the ground does not form mud, but if a fire be lighted on it mud is produced. The sea freezes, and the Cimmerian Bosphorus is frozen over. At that season the Scythians who dwell inside the trench make warlike expeditions upon the ice, and even drive their wagons across to the country of the Sindians." Such is the intensity of the cold 6 Russia, vol. i. p. 476-91), and the jealous care of the natives to prevent the intrusion of strangers. The griffin has been found as an ornament in Scythian tombs, the drawing, however, being Greek. It was the special emblem of Panticapæum, and is often met with on the coins. The Greek griffin is curiously like the Persepolitan (Ker Porter, vol. i. p. 672, pl. 52), and both are apparently derived from the winged lion of the Assyrians, which was the emblem of the god Nergal, or Mars. ་།་དུང་ནང་རྐ On these and other Scythic words, see the Essay at the close of this Book, "On the Ethnography of the Scythians." Macrobius (Saturn. 7) ignorantly reproves Herodotus for saying that the sea freezes.-[G. W.] • See note on ch. 46. 7 The Sindi are not unfrequently mentioned in the inscriptions of the Leuconidæ, whose subjects they appear to have been (Dubois, 4 Série, pl. xxvi.). They dwelt on the Asiatic side of the Bosporus or Straits of Kertch, in the immediate neighbourhood of Phanagoria (Scylax, Peripl. p. 75; Strab. xi. p. 723; Plin. H. N. vi. 5 ; Dionys. Perieg. 681; Steph. Byz. ad voc. Zivdoí). They are coupled in the inscriptions with the Mæota (Mætæ), the Torete, and the Dandarii. CHAP. 28-30. THE CLIMATE OF SCYTHIA. 8 21 during eight months out of the twelve, and even in the remaining four the climate is still cool. The character of the winter likewise is unlike that of the same season in any other country; for at that time, when the rains ought to fall, in Scythia there is scarcely any rain worth mentioning, while in summer it never gives over raining; and thunder, which elsewhere is frequent then, in Scythia is unknown in that part of the year, coming only in summer, when it is very heavy. Thunder in the wintertime is there accounted a prodigy; as also are earthquakes,' whether they happen in winter or summer. Horses bear the winter well, cold as it is, but mules and asses are quite unable to bear it; whereas in other countries mules and asses are found to endure the cold, while horses, if they stand still, are frostbitten. 29. To me it seems that the cold may likewise be the cause which prevents the oxen in Scythia from having horns. There is a line of Homer's in the Odyssey which gives a support to my opinion : "Libya too, where horns bud quick on the foreheads of lambkins." 2 He means to say, what is quite true, that in warm countries the horns come early. So too in countries where the cold is severe animals either have no horns, or grow them with difficulty—the cold being the cause in this instance. 30. Here I must express my wonder-additions being what The clearing of forests and the spread of agriculture have tended to render the climate of these regions less severe than in the time of Herodotus. Still, even at the present day, the south of Russia has a six months' winter, lasting from October to April. From November to March the cold is, ordinarily, very intense. The great rivers are frozen over, and remain icebound from four to five months. The sea freezes to a considerable distance from the shore. The harbours are blocked up, and all commerce ceases till the return of spring. The summer is now intensely hot. "In these countries there are really but two seasons; you pass from intense cold to a Senegal heat. . . The sea-breezes alone make it possible to endure the heat, which in July and August almost always amounts to 94° or 95°." (De Hell, pp. 49-50.) That Herodotus gives a true account of the state of things in his own day is apparent from the concurrent testimony of Hippocrates (De Aëre, Aquâ, et Locis. § 96) and Ovid (Tristia, and Epist. ex Ponto passim), both eye-witnesses. There was a smart shock of earthquake in the winter which M. de Hell passed on the banks of the Dnieper (1838-9). See his Travels, p. 45. Still the description on the whole suits the present day. (See Appendix, Essay iii. § 7, ad fin.) 1 Pallas is said to have noticed the lack of horns in these regions as extending also to rams, goats, &c. (Mustoxidi's Nove Muse di Erodoto tradotte, &c. Not. ad loc.) But it is certainly not the cold which checks their growth. The vast size of the horns of the Elk and Reindeer is well-known. Indeed heat rather than cold would seem to check the growth of horns. When cattle were introduced from Spain and Portugal into Paraguay, which is 15 degrees nearer the Equator, they lost their horns in a few generations (Prichard's Nat. Hist. of Man, p. 48). ? Odyss. iv. 85. 22 SNOW-STORMS OF NORTHERN EUROPE. BOOK IV. my work always from the very first affected that in Elis, where the cold is not remarkable, and there is nothing else to account for it, mules are never produced. The Eleans say it is in consequence of a curse, and their habit is, when the breeding-time comes, to take their mares into one of the adjoining countries, and there keep them till they are in foal, when they bring them back again into Elis. 5 31. With respect to the feathers which are said by the Scythians to fill the air, and to prevent persons from penetrating into the remoter parts of the continent, or even having any view of those regions, my opinion is, that in the countries above Scythia it always snows, less, of course, in the summer than in the winter-time. Now snow when it falls looks like feathers, as every one is aware who has seen it come down close to him. These northern regions, therefore, are uninhabitable by reason of the severity of the winter; and the Scythians, with their neighbours, call the snow-flakes feathers because, I think, of the likeness which they bear to them. I have now related what is said of the most distant parts of this continent whereof any account is given. 32. Of the Hyperboreans nothing is said either by the Scythians or by any of the other dwellers in these regions, unless it be the Issedonians. But in my opinion, even the Issedonians are silent concerning them; otherwise the Scythians would have repeated their statements, as they do those concerning the oneeyed men. Hesiod, however, mentions them, and Homer also in the Epigoni, if that be really a work of his." 6 • Прoσn is more properly an addition than a digression. Probably this chapter was added at Thurii (see the Introductory Essay, vol. i. ch. i. p. 27). 4 According to Plutarch (Quæst. Græc. vol. ii. p. 303) Enomaüs, king of Elis, out of his love for horses, laid heavy curses on the breeding of mules in that country. Both he, and Pausanias (V. v. § 2) vouch for the continued observance of the practice which Herodotus goes on to mention. Larcher (ad loc.) conjectures that the curse of Enomaüs was the cause of the abolition of the chariot-race at Olympia, in which the cars were drawn by mules. But as Enomaüs, according to the tradition, preceded Pelops (Strabo, viii. p. 515) his curse should rather have prevented the introduction of the mule chariot-race. 5 Supra, ch. 7, ad fin. • No mention of the Hyperboreans appears in any extant work of Hesiod. The passage referred to by Herodotus was probably contained in the lost poem, entitled Tis repíodos. (Cf. Strabo, vii. p. 436.) 'Modern critics consider the Epigoni to have been composed a little later than the time of Hesiod, i. e. about в. c. 750-700. (Vide Clinton's F. H. vol. i. p. 384.) It was an Epic poem, in hexameter verse, on the subject of the second siege of Thebes by the sons of those killed in the first siege. It was a sequel to another very ancient Epic, the Thebaïs, which was upon the first Theban war. The first line of the Epigoni is preserved, and proves this. It ran thus Νῖν εἶν ̓ ὁπλοτέρων ἀνδρῶν ἀρχώμεθα, Μοῦσαι. CHAP. 31-33. 8 ACCOUNT OF THE HYPERBOREANS. 23 33. But the persons who have by far the most to say on this subject are the Delians. They declare that certain offerings, packed in wheaten straw, were brought from the country of the Hyperboreans into Scythia, and that the Scythians received them and passed them on to their neighbours upon the west, who continued to pass them on, until at last they reached the Adriatic. From hence they were sent southward, and when they came to Greece, were received first of all by the Dodonæans. Thence they descended to the Maliac Gulf, from which they were carried across into Euboea, where the people handed them on from city to city, till they came at length to Carystus. The Carystians took them over to Tenos, without stopping at Andros; and the Tenians brought them finally to Delos. Such, according to their own account,' was the road by which the offerings Many very ancient writers, among others, Callinus (Pausan. Ix. ix. 3), ascribed the poem to Homer. In the judgment of Pausanias (1. s. c.) it was, next to the Iliad and the Odyssey, the best of the ancient Epics. 8 Very elaborate accounts have been given of the Hyperboreans both in ancient and modern times. Hecatæus of Abdera, a contemporary of Alexander the Great, wrote a book concerning them (see Müller's Fr. Hist. Gr. vol. ii. pp. 384-8). They are really not a historical, but an ideal nation. The North Wind being given a local seat in certain mountains called Rhipæan (from pirh, a blast "), it was supposed there must be a country above the north wind, which would not be cold, and which would have inhabitants. Ideal perfections were gradually ascribed to this region. According to Pindar, Hercules brought from it the olive, which grew thickly there about the sources of the Danube (Ol. iii. 249). When the country had been made thus charming it was natural to attach good qualities to the inhabitants. Accordingly they were made worshippers of Apollo (Pindar, 1. s. c.), observers of justice (Hellan. Fr. 96), and vegetarians (ibid.). As geographical knowledge grew, it was necessary to assign them a distinct position, or to banish them to the realms of fable. Herodotus preferred the latter alternative, Damastes the former. Damastes placed them greatly to the north of Scythia, from which they were separated by the countries of the Issedones and the Arimaspi. Southward their boundary was the (supposed) Rhipsan mountain-chain; northward it was the ocean. (Fr. 1.) This arrangement sufficed for a time. When, however, it was discovered that no mountain-chain ran across Europe above Scythia, and that the Danube, instead of rising in the north (compare Pind. Ol. iii. 25, with Isth. vi. 34), rose in the west, a new position had to be sought for the Hyperboreans, and they were placed near the Italian Alps (Posidon. Fr. 90, and compare below, note ), and confounded with the Gauls (Heraclid. Pont. ap. Plut. Cam. 22) and the Etruscans or Tarquinians (Hierocl. Fr. 3). A different, and probably a later tradition, though found in an earlier writer, is that which assigned them an island as large as Sicily, lying towards the north, over against the country of the Celts, fertile and varied in its productions, possessed of a beautiful climate, and enjoying two harvests a year (Hecat. Abder. Fr. 2). In this island it is not difficult to recognise our own country. Callimachus (Hymn. in Delnm. 284, &c.) follows the same tradition as Herodotus. Pausanias records a different one. According to him, the offerings passed from the Hyperboreans to the Arimaspi, from them to the Issedonians, thence to the Scyths, who conveyed them to Sinope, whence the Greeks passed them on to Attica, from which they were brought to Delos. (Pausan. I. xxxi. § 2.) Athenian vanity seems to have invented this story, which accords with the geographical scheme of Damastes. Niebuhr (Roman Hist. vol. i. p. 85. E. T.) regards the Herodotean account as the genuine tradition, and conjectures that the Hyperboreans were "a Pelasgian |