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THE TAURIC TERRITORY.

Book IV.

stand that my resolve is changed, and that you are to guard the bridge with all care, and watch over its safety and preservation. By so doing ye will oblige me greatly." When Darius had thus spoken, he set out on his march with all speed.

3

99. Before you come to Scythia, on the sea coast, lies Thrace. The land here makes a sweep, and then Scythia begins, the Ister falling into the sea at this point with its mouth facing the east. Starting from the Ister I shall now describe the measurements of the sea-shore of Scythia. Immediately that the Ister is crossed, Old Scythia begins, and continues as far as the city called Carcinitis, fronting towards the south wind and the mid-day. Here upon the same sea, there lies a mountainous tract projecting into the Pontus, which is inhabited by the Tauri, as far as what is called the Rugged Chersonese, which runs out into the sea upon the east. For the boundaries of Scythia extend on two sides to two different seas, one upon the south, and the other towards the east, as is also the case with Attica. And the Tauri occupy a position in Scythia like that which a people would hold in Attica, who, being foreigners and not Athenians, should inhabit the highland

3 Herodotus considers that the Cimmerians maintained themselves in parts of Eastern Scythia, as, e.g. in the Rugged Chersonese, long after they were forced to relinquish the rest of their territory. Old Scythia is the part from which they were driven at the first.

4 The mountains lie only along the southern coast of the Crimea. All the rest of the peninsula belongs to the steppes. "We beheld towards the south," says Dr. Clarke, "a ridge of mountains upon the coast; but unless a traveller follows the sinuosity of the southern shore of the Crimea, all the rest of the peninsula is as flat as Salisbury Plain." (Travels, p. 461. See the view on next page.)

5

of Sunium, from Thoricus to

the eastern part of the Crimea, called the Peninsula of Kertch, which in his day, and for many centuries later, formed the kingdom of the Bosphorus. This tract is hilly and uneven, presenting a strong contrast with the steppe, but it scarcely deserves an epithet applied also to Western Cilicia - a truly rugged country. Probably the general character of the south coast of the Crimea was considered to extend along its whole length.

6 This seems to be the meaning of the rare word, youvòs, here. See the authorities quoted by Schweighæuser (not. ad loc.). In this sense it is an apt description of the place. Comp. Soph. Αj. ἵν ̓ ὑλᾶεν ἔπεστι πόντον πρόβλημα ἁλίκλυστον, ἄκραν ὑπὸ πλάκα Σουviou. And Dr. Chandler's description:

88

BOUNDARIES OF SCYTHIA.

7

Book IV

the township of Anaphlystus, if this tract projected into the sea somewhat further than it does. Such, to compare great things with small, is the Tauric territory. For the sake of those who may not have made the voyage round these parts of Attica, I will illustrate in another way. It is as if in Iapygia a line were drawn from Port Brundusium to Tarentum, and a people different from the Iapygians inhabited the promontory. These two instances may suggest a number of others where the shape of the land closely resembles that of Taurica.

8

100. Beyond this tract, we find the Scythians again in possession of the country above the Tauri and the parts bordering on the eastern sea, as also of the whole district lying west of the Cimmerian Bosphorus and the Palus Mæotis, as far as the river Tanais, which empties itself into that lake at its upper end. As for the inland boundaries of Scythia, if we start from the Ister, we find it enclosed by the following tribes, first the Agathyrsi, next the Neuri, then the Androphagi, and last of all, the Melanchlani.

101. Scythia then, which is square in shape, and has two of its sides reaching down to the sea, extends inland to the same distance that it stretches along the coast, and is equal every

"We now approach Cape Sunium, which is steep, abrupt, and rocky. On it is the ruin of the temple of Minerva Sunias, overlooking from its lofty situation the subject deep." (Travels, vol. ii. p. 7.)

7 The sites of Thoricus and Anaphlystus are marked by the villages of Thorico and Anaphiso, the former on the east, the latter on the west side of the peninsula. They were both fortified posts in later times, for the protection of the neighbouring silver-mines. (Xen. de Redit. iv. § 43.)

8 This passage, as Mitford and Dahlmann have observed, was evidently written in Magna Græcia. (Mitford's Greece, vol. ii. p. 356; Dahlmann's Life of Herod. p. 35.)

Herodotus at Thurii would have Iapygia (the Terra di Otranto) before his eyes, as it were. Writing from Ionia, or even from Greece Proper, he would never have thought of such an illustration. Brundusium and Ta rentum remain in the Brindisi and Taranto of the present day.

From both comparisons it may be gathered that Herodotus did not look upon the Tauric Peninsula as joined to the continent by a narrow isthmus, but as united by a broad tract. (Niebuhr's Scythia, p. 39, E. T.) What if changes in the land have taken place, and the Putrid Sea did not exist in his time? Scylax calls the tract an ἀκροτήριον (p. 70), and Strabo is the first who speaks of it as a Xeppóvnoos or peninsula (vii. p. 445).

CHAP. 99-103.

way.

CUSTOMS OF THE TAURI.

89

For it is a ten days' journey from the Ister to the Borysthenes, and ten more from the Borysthenes to the Palus Mæotis, while the distance from the coast inland to the country of the Melanchlani, who dwell above Scythia, is a journey of twenty days. I reckon the day's journey at two hundred furlongs. Thus the two sides which run straight inland are four thousand furlongs each, and the transverse sides at right angles to these are also of the same length, which gives the full size of Scythia.9

102. The Scythians, reflecting on their situation, perceived that they were not strong enough by themselves to contend with the army of Darius in open fight. They, therefore, sent envoys to the neighbouring nations, whose kings had already met, and were in consultation upon the advance of so vast a host. Now they who had come together were the kings of the Tauri, the Agathyrsi, the Neuri, the Androphagi, the Melanchlæni, the Gelôni, the Budini, and the Sauromatæ.

103. The Tauri have the following customs. They offer in sacrifice to the Virgin all shipwrecked persons, and all Greeks compelled to put into their ports by stress of weather. The mode of sacrifice is this. After the preparatory ceremonies, they strike the victim on the head with a club. Then, according to some accounts, they hurl the trunk from the precipice whereon the temple stands,1 and nail the head to a cross. Others grant that the head is treated in this way, but deny that the body is thrown down the cliff-on the contrary, they say, it is buried. The goddess to whom these sacrifices are offered the Tauri themselves declare to be Iphigenia 2 the

See the Appendix, Essay iii., 'On the Geography of Scythia.'

This temple occupied a promontory on the south coast of the Crimea, not far from Criumetopon (Cape Aia). The promontory itself was named by the Greeks Parthenium, from the temple (Strab. vii. p. 446; Plin. H. N. iv. 12; Mela, ii. i., &c.). It is thought that the monastery of St. George occupies the site.

2 The virgin goddess of the Tauri was more generally identified by the Greeks with their Own Artemis : hence Artemis got the epithet of Taupomóλos. (Cf. Diod. Sic. iv. 44; Etym. Mag. ad voc. Scholiast. ad Soph. Aj. 172.) The legend of Iphigenia is probably a mere Greek fancy, having the Tauric custom of offering human sacrifices as its basis. In the time of Herodotus the Tauri

THE AGATHYRSI.

daughter of Agamemnon. When they take prisoners in war they treat them in the following way. The man who has taken a captive cuts off his head, and carrying it to his home, fixes it upon a tall pole, which he elevates above his house, most commonly over the chimney. The reason that the heads are set up so high, is (it is said) in order that the whole house may be under their protection. These people live entirely by war and plundering.

104. The Agathyrsi are a race of men very luxurious, and very fond of wearing gold on their persons. They have wives in common, that so they may be all brothers, and, as members of one family, may neither envy nor hate one another. In other respects their customs approach nearly to those of the Thracians.6