Chapter XVII (2)

Such stationary cultivators were doubtless regarded by the predominant mass of the Scythians as degenerate brethren; and some historians maintain that they belonged to a foreign race, standing to the Scythians merely in the relation of subjects,[459]—an hypothesis contradicted implicitly, if not directly, by the words of Herodotus, and no way necessary in the present case. It is not from them, however, that Herodotus draws his vivid picture of the people, with their inhuman rites and repulsive personal features. It is the purely nomadic Scythians whom he depicts, the earliest specimens of the Mongolian race (so it seems probable)[460] known to history, and prototypes of the Huns and Bulgarians of later centuries. The sword, in the literal sense of the word, was their chief god,[461]—an iron scymetar solemnly elevated upon a wide and lofty platform, which was supported on masses of fagots piled underneath,—to whom sheep, horses, and a portion of their prisoners taken in war, were offered up in sacrifice: Herodotus treats this sword as the image of the god Arês, thus putting an Hellenic interpretation upon that which he describes literally as a barbaric rite. The scalps and the skins of slain enemies, and sometimes the skull formed into a drinking-cup, constituted the decoration of a Scythian warrior: whoever had not slain an enemy, was excluded from participation in the annual festival and bowl of wine prepared by the chief of each separate horde. The ceremonies which took place during the sickness and funeral obsequies of the Scythian kings (who were buried at Gerrhi, at the extreme point to which navigation extended up the Borysthenês), partook of the same sanguinary disposition. It was the Scythian practice to put out the eyes of all their slaves; and the awkwardness of the Scythian frame, often overloaded with fat, together with extreme dirt of body, and the absence of all discriminating feature between one man and another, complete the brutish portrait.[462] Mare’s milk (with cheese made from it) seems to have been their chief luxury, and probably served the same purpose of procuring the intoxicating drink called _kumiss_, as at present among the Bashkirs and the Kalmucks.[463]

[459] Niebuhr (Dissertat. _ut sup._ p. 360), Boeckh (Introd.
Inscrip. _ut sup._ p. 110), and Ritter (Vorhalle der Geschichte,
p. 316) advance this opinion. But we ought not on this occasion
to depart from the authority of Herodotus, whose information
respecting the people of Scythia, collected by himself on the
spot, is one of the most instructive and precious portions of his
whole work. He is very careful to distinguish what is Scythian
from what is not: and these tribes, which Niebuhr (contrary
to the sentiment of Herodotus) imagines _not_ to be Scythian,
were the tribes nearest and best known to him; probably he had
personally visited them, since we know that he went up the river
Hypanis (Bog) as high as the Exampæus, four days’ journey from
the sea (iv, 52-81).

That some portions of the same ἔθνος should be ἀροτῆρες, and
other portions νόμαδες, is far from being without parallel; such
was the case with the Persians, for example (Herodot. i, 126),
and with the Iberians between the Euxine and the Caspian (Strabo,
xi, p. 500).

The Pontic Greeks confounded Agathyrsus, Gelônus, and Scythês in
the same genealogy, as being three brethren, sons of Hêraklês by
the μιξοπάρθενος Ἔχιδνα of the Hylæa (iv, 7-10). Herodotus is
more precise: he distinguishes both the Agathyrsi and Gelôni from
Scythians.

[460] Both Niebuhr and Boeckh account the ancient Scythians to be
of Mongolian race (Niebuhr in the Dissertation above mentioned,
Untersuchungen über die Geschichte der Skythen, Geten, und
Sarmaten, among the Kleine Historische Schriften, p. 362; Boeckh,
Corpus Inscriptt. Græcarum, Introductio ad Inscriptt. Sarmatic.
part xi, p. 81). Paul Joseph Schafarik, in his elaborate
examination of the ethnography of the ancient people described as
inhabiting northern Europe and Asia, arrives at the same result
(Slavische Alterthümer, Prag. 1843, vol. i, xiii, 6, p. 279).

A striking illustration of this analogy of race is noticed by
Alexander von Humboldt, in speaking of the burial-place and the
funeral obsequies of the Tartar Tchinghiz Khan:—

“Les cruautés lors de la pompe funèbre des grands-khans
ressemblent entièrement à celles que nous trouvons décrites par
Hérodote (iv, 71) environ 1700 ans avant la mort de Tchinghiz, et
65° de longitude plus à l’ouest, chez les Scythes du Gerrhus et
du Borysthène.” (Humboldt, Asie Centrale, vol. i, p. 244.)

Nevertheless, M. Humboldt dissents from the opinion of Niebuhr
and Boeckh, and considers the Scythians of Herodotus to be of
Indo-Germanic, not of Mongolian race: Klaproth seems to adopt
the same view (see Humboldt, Asie Centrale, vol. i, p. 401, and
his valuable work, Kosmos, p. 491, note 383). He assumes it as
a certain fact, upon what evidence I do not distinctly see,
that no tribe of Turk or Mongol race migrated westward out of
Central Asia until considerably later than the time of Herodotus.
To make out such a negative, seems to me impossible: and the
marks of ethnographical analogy, so far as they go, decidedly
favor the opinion of Niebuhr. Ukert also (Skythien, pp. 266-280)
controverts the opinion of Niebuhr.

At the same time it must be granted that these marks are not very
conclusive, and that many nomadic hordes, whom no one would refer
to the same race, may yet have exhibited an analogy of manners
and characteristics equal to that between the Scythians and
Mongols.

The principle upon which the Indo-European family of the human
race is defined and parted off, appears to me inapplicable to any
particular case wherein the _language_ of the people is unknown
to us. The nations constituting that family have no other point
of affinity except in the roots and structure of their language;
on every other point there is the widest difference. To enable
us to affirm that the Massagetæ, or the Scythians, or the Alani,
belonged to the Indo-European family, it would be requisite that
we should know something of their language. But the Scythian
language may be said to be wholly unknown; and the very few
words which are brought to our knowledge do not tend to aid the
Indo-European hypothesis.

[461] See the story of the accidental discovery of this Scythian
sword when lost, by Attila, the chief of the Huns (Priscus ap.
Jornandem de Rebus Geticis, c. 35, and in Eclog. Legation. p. 50).

Lucian in the Toxaris (c. 38, vol. ii, p. 546, Hemst.) notices
the worship of the akinakes, or scymetar, by the Scythians in
plain terms without interposing the idea of the god Arês: compare
Clemen. Alexand. Protrept. p. 25, Syl. Ammianus Marcellinus, in
speaking of the Alani (xxxi, 2), as well as Pomponius Mela (ii,
1) and Solinus (c. 20), copy Herodotus. Ammianus is more literal
in his description of the Sarmatian sword-worship (xvii, 12).
“Eductisque mucronibus, quos pro numinibus colunt,” etc.

[462] Herodot. iv, 3-62, 71-75; Sophoklês, Œnomaus,—ap. Athenæ.
ix, p. 410; Hippokratês, De Aëre, Locis et Aquis, ch. vi, s.
91-99, etc.

It is seldom that we obtain, in reference to the modes of life of
an ancient population, two such excellent witnesses as Herodotus
and Hippokratês about the Scythians.

Hippokratês was accustomed to see the naked figure in its highest
perfection at the Grecian games: hence, perhaps, he is led to
dwell more emphatically on the corporeal defects of the Scythians.

[463] See Pallas, Reise durch Russland, and Dr. Clarke, Travels
in Russia, ch. xii, p. 238.

If the habits of the Scythians were such as to create in the near observer no other feeling than repugnance, their force at least inspired terror. They appeared in the eyes of Thucydidês so numerous and so formidable, that he pronounces them irresistible, if they could but unite, by any other nation within his knowledge. Herodotus, too, conceived the same idea of a race among whom every man was a warrior and a practised horse-bowman, and who were placed by their mode of life out of all reach of an enemy’s attack.[464] Moreover, Herodotus does not speak meanly of their intelligence, contrasting them in favorable terms with the general stupidity of the other nations bordering on the Euxine. In this respect Thucydidês seems to differ from him.

[464] Thucyd. ii, 95; Herodot. ii, 46-47: his idea of the
formidable power of the Scythians seems also to be implied in his
expression (c. 81), καὶ ὀλίγους, ὡς Σκύθας εἶναι.

Herodotus holds the same language about the Thracians, however,
as Thucydidês about the Scythians,—irresistible, if they could
but act with union (v, 3).

On the east, the Scythians of the time of Herodotus were separated only by the river Tanais from the Sarmatians, who occupied the territory for several days’ journey north-east of the Palus Mæôtis: on the south, they were divided by the Danube from the section of Thracians called Getæ. Both these nations were nomadic, analogous to the Scythians in habits, military efficiency, and fierceness: indeed, Herodotus and Hippokratês distinctly intimate that the Sarmatians were nothing but a branch of Scythians,[465] speaking a Scythian dialect, and distinguished from their neighbors on the other side of the Tanais, chiefly by this peculiarity,—that the women among them were warriors hardly less daring and expert than the men. This attribute of Sarmatian women, as a matter of fact, is well attested,—though Herodotus has thrown over it an air of suspicion not properly belonging to it, by his explanatory genealogical mythe, deducing the Sarmatians from a mixed breed between the Scythians and the Amazons.

[465] The testimony of Herodotus to this effect (iv, 110-117)
seems clear and positive, especially as to the language.
Hippokratês also calls the Sauromatæ ἔθνος Σκυθικόν (De Aëre,
Locis et Aquis, c. vi, sect. 89, Petersen).

I cannot think that there is any sufficient ground for the
marked ethnical distinction which several authors draw (contrary
to Herodotus) between the Scythians and the Sarmatians. Boeckh
considers the latter to be of Median or Persian origin, but
to be, also, the progenitors of the modern Sclavonian family:
“Sarmatæ, Slavorum haud dubie parentes,” (Introduct. ad Inscr.
Sarmatic. Corp. Inscr. part xi, p. 83.) Many other authors have
shared this opinion, which identifies the Sarmatians with the
Slavi; but Paul Joseph Schafarik (Slavische Alterthümer, vol. i,
c. 16) has shown powerful reasons against it.

Nevertheless, Schafarik admits the Sarmatians to be of Median
origin, and radically distinct from the Scythians. But the
passages which are quoted to prove this point from Diodorus (ii,
43), from Mela (i, 19), and from Pliny (H. N. vi. 7), appear to
me of much less authority than the assertion of Herodotus. In
none of these authors is there any trace of inquiries made in or
near the actual spot from neighbors and competent informants,
such as we find in Herodotus. And the chapter in Diodorus, on
which both Boeckh and Schafarik lay especial stress, appears to
me one of the most untrustworthy in the whole book. To believe in
the existence of Scythian kings who reigned over all Asia from
the eastern ocean to the Caspian, and sent out large colonies
of Medians and Assyrians, is surely impossible; and Wesseling
speaks much within the truth when he says, “Verum hæc dubia
admodum atque incerta.” It is remarkable to see Boeckh treating
this passage as conclusive against Herodotus and Hippokratês.
M. Boeckh has also given a copious analysis of the names found
in the Greek inscriptions from Scythian, Sarmatian, and Mæotic
localities (_ut sup._ pp. 107-117), and he endeavors to establish
an analogy between the two latter classes and Median names. But
the analogy holds just as much with regard to the Scythian names.

The wide extent of steppe eastward and north-eastward of the Tanais, between the Ural mountains and the Caspian, and beyond the possessions of the Sarmatians, was traversed by Grecian traders, even to a good distance in the direction of the Altai mountains,—the rich produce of gold, both in Altai and Ural, being the great temptation. First, according to Herodotus, came the indigenous nomadic nation called Budini, who dwelt to the northward of the Sarmatians,[466] and among whom were established a colony of Pontic Greeks, intermixed with natives, and called Gelôni; these latter inhabited a spacious town built entirely of wood. Beyond the Budini eastward dwelt the Thyssagetæ and the Jurkæ, tribes of hunters, and even a body of Scythians who had migrated from the territories of the regal Scythians. The Issêdones were the easternmost people respecting whom any definite information reached the Greeks; beyond them we find nothing but fable,[467]—the one-eyed Arimaspians, the gold-guarding Grypes, or Griffins, and the bald-headed Argippæi. It is impossible to fix with precision the geography of these different tribes, or to do more than comprehend approximatively their local bearings and relations to each other.

[466] The locality which Herodotus assigns to the Budini creates
difficulty. According to his own statement, it would seem that
they ought to be near to the Neuri (iv, 105), and so in fact
Ptolemy places them (v, 9) near about Volhynia and the sources of
the Dniester.

Mannert (Geographie der Griech. und Römer, Der Norden der Erde,
v, iv, p. 138) conceives the Budini to be a Teutonic tribe; but
Paul Joseph Schafarik (Slavische Alterthümer, i, 10, pp. 185-195)
has shown more plausible grounds for believing both them and the
Neuri to be of Slavic family. It seems that the names Budini
and Neuri are traceable to Slavic roots; that the wooden town
described by Herodotus in the midst of the Budini is an exact
parallel of the primitive Slavic towns, down even to the twelfth
century; and that the description of the country around, with its
woods and marshes containing beavers, otters, etc. harmonizes
better with southern Poland and Russia than with the neighborhood
of the Ural mountains. From the color ascribed to the Budini,
no certain inference can be drawn: γλαυκόν τε πᾶν ἰσχυρῶς ἐστὶ
καὶ πυῤῥόν (iv, 108). Mannert construes it in favor of Teutonic
family, Schafarik in favor of Slavic; and it is to be remarked,
that Hippokratês talks of the Scythians generally as extremely
πυῤῥοί (De Aëre, Locis et Aquis, c. vi: compare Aristot. Prob.
xxxviii, 2).

These reasonings are plausible; yet we can hardly venture to
alter the position of the Budini as Herodotus describes it,
eastward of the Tanais. For he states in the most explicit manner
that the route as far as the Argippæi _is thoroughly known_,
traversed both by Scythian and by Grecian traders, and all
the nations in the way to it known (iv, 24): μέχρι μὲν τούτων
πολλὴ περιφάνεια τῆς χώρης ἐστὶ καὶ τῶν ἔμπροσθεν ἐθνέων· καὶ
γὰρ Σκυθέων τινες ἀπικνέονται ἐς αὐτοὺς, τῶν οὐ χαλεπόν ἐστὶ
πυθέσθαι, καὶ Ἑλλήνων τῶν ἐκ Βορυσθένεός τε ἐμπορίου καὶ τῶν
ἄλλων Ποντικῶν ἐμπορίων. These Greek and Scythian traders,
in their journey from the Pontic seaports into the interior,
employed seven different languages and as many interpreters.

Völcker thinks that Herodotus or his informants confounded the
Don with the Volga (Mythische Geographie, sect. 24, p. 190),
supposing that the higher parts of the latter belonged to the
former; a mistake not unnatural, since the two rivers approach
pretty near to each other at one particular point, and since the
lower parts of the Volga, together with the northern shore of the
Caspian, where its embouchure is situated, appear to have been
little visited and almost unknown in antiquity. There cannot be a
more striking evidence how unknown these regions were, than the
persuasion, so general in antiquity, that the Caspian sea was a
gulf of the ocean, to which Herodotus, Aristotle, and Ptolemy
are almost the only exceptions. Alexander von Humboldt has some
valuable remarks on the tract laid down by Herodotus from the
Tanais to the Argippæi (Asie Centrale, vol. i, pp. 390-400).

[467] Herodot. iv, 80.

But the best known of all is the situation of the Tauri (perhaps a remnant of the expelled Cimmerians), who dwelt in the southern portion of the Tauric Chersonesus (or Crimea), and who immolated human sacrifices to their native virgin goddess,—identified by the Greeks with Artemis, and serving as a basis for the affecting legend of Iphigeneia. The Tauri are distinguished by Herodotus from Scythians,[468] but their manners and state of civilization seem to have been very analogous. It appears also that the powerful and numerous Massagetæ, who dwelt in Asia on the plains eastward of the Caspian and southward of the Issêdones, were so analogous to the Scythians as to be reckoned as members of the same race by many of the contemporaries of Herodotus.[469]

[468] Herodot. iv, 99-101. Dionysius Periêgêtês seems to
identify Cimmerians and Tauri (v, 168: compare v, 680, where
the Cimmerians are placed on the Asiatic side of the Cimmerian
Bosphorus, adjacent to the Sindi).

[469] Herodot. i, 202. Strabo compares the inroads of the Sakæ,
which was the name applied by the Persians to the Scythians, to
those of the Cimmerians and the Trêres (xi, pp. 511-512).

This short enumeration of the various tribes near the Euxine and the Caspian, as well as we can make them out, from the seventh to the fifth century B. C., is necessary for the comprehension of that double invasion of Scythians and Cimmerians which laid waste Asia between 630 and 610 B. C. We are not to expect from Herodotus, born a century and a half afterwards, any very clear explanations of this event, nor were all his informants unanimous respecting the causes which brought it about. But it is a fact perfectly within the range of historical analogy, that accidental aggregations of number, development of aggressive spirit, or failure in the means of subsistence, among the nomadic tribes of the Asiatic plains, have brought on the civilized nations of southern Europe calamitous invasions, of which the prime moving cause was remote and unknown. Sometimes a weaker tribe, flying before a stronger, has been in this manner precipitated upon the territory of a richer and less military population, so that an impulse originating in the distant plains of Central Tartary has been propagated until it reached the southern extremity of Europe, through successive intermediate tribes, a phenomenon especially exhibited during the fourth and fifth centuries of the Christian era, in the declining years of the Roman empire. A pressure so transmitted onward is said to have brought down the Cimmerians and Scythians upon the more southerly regions of Asia. The most ancient story in explanation of this incident seems to have been contained in the epic poem (now lost) called _Arimaspia_, of the mystic Aristeas of Prokonnêsus, composed apparently about 540 B. C. This poet, under the inspiration of Apollo,[470] undertook a pilgrimage to visit the sacred Hyperboreans (especial votaries of that god) in their elysium beyond the Rhipæan mountains; but he did not reach farther than the Issêdones. According to him, the movement, whereby the Cimmerians had been expelled from their possessions on the Euxine sea, began with the Grypes or Griffins in the extreme north,—the sacred character of the Hyperboreans beyond was incompatible with aggression or bloodshed. The Grypes invaded the Arimaspians, who on their part assailed their neighbors the Issêdones;[471] these latter moved southward or westward and drove the Scythians across the Tanais, while the Scythians, carried forward by this onset, expelled the Cimmerians from their territories along the Palus Mæotis and the Euxine.

[470] Herodot. iv, 13. φοιβολαμπτὸς γενομένος.

[471] Herodot. iv, 13.

We see thus that Aristeas referred the attack of the Scythians upon the Cimmerians to a distant impulse proceeding in the first instance from the Grypes or Griffins; but Herodotus had heard it explained in another way, which he seems to think more correct,—the Scythians, originally occupants of Asia, or the regions east of the Caspian, had been driven across the Araxês, in consequence of an unsuccessful war with the Massagetæ, and precipitated upon the Cimmerians in Europe.[472]

[472] Herodot. iv, 11. Ἐστι δὲ καὶ ἄλλος λόγος, ἔχων ὧδε, τῷ
μάλιστα λεγομένῳ αὐτὸς προσκεῖμαι.

When the Scythian host approached, the Cimmerians were not agreed among themselves whether to resist or retire: the majority of the people were dismayed and wished to evacuate the territory, while the kings of the different tribes resolved to fight and perish at home. Those who were animated with this fierce despair, divided themselves along with the kings into two equal bodies and perished by each other’s hands near the river Tyras, where the sepulchres of the kings were yet shown in the time of Herodotus.[473] The mass of the Cimmerians fled and abandoned their country to the Scythians; who, however, not content with possession of the country, followed the fugitives across the Cimmerian Bosphorus from west to east, under the command of their prince Madyês son of Protothyês. The Cimmerians, coasting along the east of the Euxine sea and passing to the west of Mount Caucasus, made their way first into Kolchis, and next into Asia Minor, where they established themselves on the peninsula on the northern coast, near the site of the subsequent Grecian city of Sinôpê. But the Scythian pursuers, mistaking the course taken by the fugitives, followed the more circuitous route east of Mount Caucasus near to the Caspian sea;[474] which brought them, not into Asia Minor, but into Media. Both Asia Minor and Media became thus exposed nearly at the same time to the ravages of northern nomades.

[473] Herodot. iv, 11.

[474] Herodot. iv, 1-12.

These two stories, representing the belief of Herodotus and Aristeas, involve the assumption that the Scythians were comparatively recent emigrants into the territory between the Ister and the Palus Mæotis. But the legends of the Scythians themselves, as well as those of the Pontic Greeks, imply the contrary of this assumption; and describe the Scythians as primitive and indigenous inhabitants of the country. Both legends are so framed as to explain a triple division, which probably may have prevailed, of the Scythian aggregate nationality, traced up to three heroic brothers: both also agree in awarding the predominance to the youngest brother of the three,[475] though in other respects, the names and incidents of the two are altogether different, The Scythians call themselves Skoloti.

[475] Herodot. iv, 5-9. At this day, the three great tribes of
the nomadic Turcomans, on the north-eastern border of Persia
near the Oxus,—the Yamud, the Gokla, and the Tuka,—assert for
themselves a legendary genealogy deduced from three brothers
(Frazer, Narrative of a Journey in Khorasan, p. 258).

Such material differences, in the various accounts given to Herodotus of the Scythian and Cimmerian invasions of Asia, are by no means wonderful, seeing that nearly two centuries had elapsed between that event and his visit to the Pontus. That the Cimmerians—perhaps the northernmost portion of the great Thracian name, and conterminous with the Getæ on the Danube—were the previous tenants of much of the territory between the Ister and the Palus Mæotis, and that they were expelled in the seventh century B. C., by the Scythians, we may follow Herodotus in believing; but Niebuhr has shown that there is great intrinsic improbability in his narrative of the march of the Cimmerians into Asia Minor, and in the pursuit of these fugitives by the Scythians. That the latter would pursue at all, when an extensive territory was abandoned to them without resistance, is hardly supposable: that they should pursue and mistake their way, is still more difficult to believe: nor can we overlook the great difficulties of the road and the Caucasian passes, in the route ascribed to the Cimmerians.[476] Niebuhr supposes the latter to have marched into Asia Minor by the western side of the Euxine, and across the Thracian Bosphorus, after having been defeated in a decisive battle by the Scythians near the river Tyras, where their last kings fell and were interred.[477] Though this is both an easier route, and more in accordance with the analogy of other occupants expelled from the same territory, we must, in the absence of positive evidence, treat the point as unauthenticated.

[476] Read the description of the difficult escape of Mithridates
Eupator, with a mere handful of men, from Pontus to Bosphorus by
this route, between the western edge of Caucasus and the Euxine
(Strabo, xi, pp. 495-496),—ἡ τῶν Ἀχαιῶν καὶ Ζυγῶν καὶ Ἡνιόχων
παραλία,—all piratical and barbarous tribes,—τῇ παραλίᾳ χαλεπῶς
ᾔει, τὰ πολλὰ ἐμβαίνων ἐπὶ τὴν θάλασσαν: compare Plutarch,
Pompeius, c. 34. Pompey thought the route unfit for his march.

To suppose the Cimmerian tribes with their wagons passing along
such a track would require strong positive evidence. According
to Ptolemy, however, there were two passes over the range of
Caucasus,—the Caucasian or Albanian gates, near Derbend and
the Caspian, and the Sarmatian gates, considerably more to the
westward (Ptolemy, Geogr. v, 9; Forbiger, Handbuch der Alten
Geographie, vol. ii, sect. 56, p. 55). It is not impossible
that the Cimmerians may have followed the westernmost, and the
Scythians the easternmost, of these two passes; but the whole
story is certainly very improbable.

[477] See Niebuhr’s Dissertation above referred to, pp. 366-367.
A reason for supposing that the Cimmerians came into Asia Minor
from the west and not from the east, is, that we find them so
much confounded with the Thracian Trêres indicating seemingly a
joint invasion.

The inroad of the Cimmerians into Asia Minor was doubtless connected with their expulsion from the northern coast of the Euxine by the Scythians, but we may well doubt whether it was at all connected, as Herodotus had been told that it was, with the invasion of Media by the Scythians, except as happening near about the same time. The same great evolution of Scythian power, or propulsion by other tribes behind, may have occasioned both events,—brought about by different bodies of Scythians, but nearly contemporaneous.

Herodotus tells us two facts respecting the Cimmerian emigrants into Asia Minor. They committed destructive, though transient, ravages in many parts of Paphlagonia, Phrygia, Lydia, and Ionia,—and they occupied permanently the northern peninsula,[478] whereon the Greek city of Sinôpê was afterwards planted. Had the elegies of the contemporary Ephesian poet Kallinus been preserved, we should have known better how to appreciate these trying times: he strove to keep alive the energy of his countrymen against the formidable invaders.[479] From later authors, who probably, had these poems before them, we learn that the Cimmerian host, having occupied the Lydian chief town Sardis (its inaccessible acropolis defied them), poured with their wagons into the fertile valley of the Kaïster, took and sacked Magnêsia on the Mæander, and even threatened the temple of Artemis at Ephesus. But the goddess so well protected her own town and sanctuary,[480] that Lygdamis the leader of the Cimmerians, whose name marks him for a Greek, after a season of prosperous depredation in Lydia and Ionia, conducting his host into the mountainous regions of Kilikia, was there overwhelmed and slain. But though these marauders perished, the Cimmerian settlers in the territory near Sinôpê remained; and Ambrôn, the first Milesian œkist who tried to colonize that spot, was slain by them, if we may believe Skymnus. They are not mentioned afterwards, but it seems not unreasonable to believe that they appear under the name of the Chalybes, whom Herodotus mentions along that coast between the Mariandynians and Paphlagonians, and whom Mela notices as adjacent to Sinôpê and Amisus.[481] Other authors place the Chalybes on several different points, more to the east, though along the same parallel of latitude,—between the Mosynœki and Tibarêni,—near the river Thermôdôn,—and on the northern boundary of Armenia, near the sources of the Araxês; but it is only Herodotus and Mela who recognize Chalybes westward of the river Halys and the Paphlagonians, near to Sinôpê. These Chalybes were brave mountaineers, though savage in manners; distinguished as producers and workers of the iron which their mountains afforded. In the conceptions of the Greeks, as manifested in a variety of fabulous notices, they are plainly connected with Scythians or Cimmerians; whence it seems probable that this connection was present to the mind of Herodotus in regard to the inland population near Sinôpê.[482]

[478] Herodot. i, 6-15; iv, 12. φαίνονται δὲ οἱ Κιμμέριοι,
φεύγοντες ἐς τὴν Ἀσίην τοὺς Σκύθας, καὶ τὴν Χερσόνησον
~κτίσαντες~, ἐν τῇ νῦν Σινώπη πόλις Ἑλληνὶς οἴκισται.

[479] Kallinus, Fragment. 2, 3, ed. Bergk. ~Νῦν~ δ᾽ ἐπὶ Κιμμερίων
στρατὸς ἔρχεται ὀβριμοεργῶν (Strabo, xiii, p. 627; xiv, 633-647).
O. Müller (History of the Literature of Ancient Greece, ch.
x, s. 4) and Mr. Clinton (Fasti Hellenici, B. C. 716-635) may
be consulted about the obscure chronology of these events.
The Scythico-Cimmerian invasion of Asia, to which _Herodotus_
alludes, appears fixed for some date in the reign of Ardys the
Lydian, 640-629 B. C., and may stand for 635 B. C. as Mr. Clinton
puts it; and I agree with O. Müller that the fragment of the
poet Kallinus above cited alludes to _this_ invasion; for the
supposition of Mr. Clinton, that Kallinus here alludes to an
invasion past and not present, appears to be excluded by the
word νῦν. Mr. Clinton places both Kallinus and Archilochus (in
my judgment) half a century too high; for I agree with O. Müller
in disbelieving the story told by Pliny of the picture sold by
Bularchus to Kandaulês. O. Müller follows Strabo (i, p. 61) in
calling Madys a Cimmerian prince, who drove the Trêres out of
Asia Minor; whereas Herodotus mentions him as the _Scythian_
prince, who drove the Cimmerians _out_ of their own territory
_into_ Asia Minor (i, 103).

The chronology of Herodotus is intelligible and consistent
with itself: that of Strabo we cannot settle, when he speaks
of many different invasions. Nor does his language give us the
smallest reason to suppose that he was in possession of any
means of determining dates for these early times,—nothing at all
calculated to justify the positive chronology which Mr. Clinton
deduces from him: compare his Fasti Hellenici, B. C. 635, 629,
617. Strabo says, after affirming that Homer knew both the name
and the reality of the Cimmerians (i, p. 6; iii, p. 149),—καὶ
γὰρ καθ᾽ Ὅμηρον, ἢ ~πρὸ αὐτοῦ~ μικρὸν, λέγουσι τὴν τῶν Κιμμερίων
ἔφοδον γενέσθαι τὴν μέχρι τῆς Αἰολίδος καὶ τῆς Ἰωνίας,—“which
places the first appearance of the Cimmerians in Asia Minor a
century _at least_ before the Olympiad of Corœbus,” (says Mr.
Clinton.) But what means could Strabo have had to chronologize
events as happening _at or a little before_ the time of Homer? No
date in the Grecian world was so contested, or so indeterminable,
as the time of Homer: nor will it do to reason, as Mr. Clinton
does, _i. e._ to take the latest date fixed for Homer among many,
and then to say that the invasion of the Cimmerians _must_ be _at
least_ B. C. 876: thus assuming it as a certainty that, whether
the date of Homer be a century earlier or later, the invasion of
the Cimmerians must be made to fit it. When Strabo employs such
untrustworthy chronological standards, he only shows us—what
everything else confirms—that there existed no tests of any value
for events of that early date in the Grecian world.

Mr. Clinton announces this ante-Homeric calculation as a
chronological certainty: “The Cimmerians first appeared in
Asia Minor about a century before B. C. 776. An irruption is
_recorded_ in B. C. 782. Their last inroad was in B. C. 635. The
settlement of Ambrôn (the Milesian, at Sinôpê) may be placed at
about B. C. 782, twenty-six years before the era assigned to (the
Milesian or Sinôpic settlement of) Trapezus.”

On what authority does Mr. Clinton assert that a Cimmerian
irruption was _recorded_ in B. C. 782? Simply on the following
passage of Orosius, which he cites at B. C. 635: “Anno ante urbem
conditam tricesimo,—Tunc etiam _Amazonum gentis et Cimmeriorum_
in Asiam repentinus incursus plurimum diu lateque vastationem et
stragem intulit.” If this authority of Orosius is to be trusted,
we ought to say that the invasion of the Amazons was a _recorded_
fact. To treat a fact mentioned in Orosius, an author of the
fourth century after Christ, and referred to B. C. 782, as a
_recorded_ fact, confounds the most important boundary-lines in
regard to the appreciation of historical evidence.

In fixing the Cimmerian invasion of Asia at 782 B. C., Mr.
Clinton has the statement of Orosius, whatever it may be worth,
to rest upon; but in fixing the settlement of Ambrôn the Milesian
(at Sinôpê) at 782 B. C., I know not that he had any authority
at all. Eusebius does, indeed, place the foundation of Trapezus
in 756 B. C., and Trapezus is said to have been a colony from
Sinôpê; and Mr. Clinton, therefore, is anxious to find some date
for the foundation of Sinôpê anterior to 756 B. C.; but there is
nothing to warrant him in selecting 782 B. C., rather than any
other year.

In my judgment, the establishment of _any_ Milesian colony in
the Euxine at so early a date as 756 B. C. is highly improbable:
and when we find that the same Eusebius fixes the foundation of
Sinôpê (the metropolis of Trapezus) as low down as 629 B. C.,
this is an argument with me for believing that the date which he
assigns to Trapezus is by far too early. Mr. Clinton treats the
date which Eusebius assigns to Trapezus as certain, and infers
from it, that the date which the same author assigns to _Sinôpê_
is one hundred and thirty years _later_ than the reality: I
reverse the inference, considering the date which he assigns to
_Sinôpê_ as the more trustworthy of the two, and deducing the
conclusion, that the date which he gives for _Trapezus_ is one
hundred and thirty years at least _earlier_ than the reality.

On all grounds, the authority of the chronologists is greater
with regard to the later of the two periods than to the earlier,
and there is, besides, the additional probability arising out of
what is a suitable date for Milesian settlement. To which I will
add, that Herodotus places the settlement of the Cimmerians near
“that spot where Sinôpê is _now_ settled,” in the reign of Ardys,
soon after 635 B. C. Sinôpê was, therefore, _not_ founded at the
time when the Cimmerians went there, in the belief of Herodotus.

[480] Strabo i, p. 61; Kallimachus, Hymn. ad Dianam, 251-260—

... ἠλαίνων ἀλαπάζεμεν ἠπείλησε (Ἔφεσον)
Λύγδαμις ὑβριστὴς, ἐπὶ δὲ στρατὸν ἱππημόλγων
Ἤγαγε Κιμμερίων, ψαμάθῳ ἴσον, οἳ ῥα παρ᾽ αὐτὸν
Κεκλίμενοι ναίουσι βοὸς πόρον Ἰναχιώνης.
Ἆ δειλὸς βασιλέων ὅσον ἤλιτεν· οὐ γὰρ ἔμελλε
Οὔτ᾽ αὐτὸς Σκυθίηνδε παλίμπετες, οὔτε τις ἄλλος
Ὅσσων ἐν λειμῶνι Καϋστρίῳ ἦσαν ἅμαξαι,
Ἂψ ἀπονοστήσειν....

In the explanation of the proverb Σκυθῶν ἐρημία, allusion is
made to a sudden panic and flight of _Scythians_ from Ephesus
(Hesychius, v. Σκυθῶν ἐρημία),—probably this must refer to some
story of interference on the part of Artemis to protect the town
against these Cimmerians. The confusion between Cimmerians and
Scythians is very frequent.

[481] Herodot. i, 28; Mela, i, 19, 9; Skymn. Chi. Fragm. 207.

[482] The ten thousand Greeks in their homeward march passed
through a people called Chalybes between Armenia and the town of
Trapezus, and also again after eight days’ march westerly from
Trapezus, between the Tibarêni and Mosynœki: compare Xenophon,
Anabas. iv, 7, 15; v, 5, 1; probably different sections of the
same people. The last-mentioned Chalybes seem to have been the
best known, from their iron works, and their greater vicinity
to the Greek ports: Ephorus recognized them (see Ephori Fragm.
80-82, ed. Marx); whether he knew of the more easterly Chalybes,
north of Armenia, is less certain: so also Dionysius Periêgêtês,
v, 768: compare Eustathius, _ad loc._

The idea which prevailed among ancient writers, of a connection
between the Chalybes in these regions and the Scythians or
Cimmerians (Χάλυβος Σκυθῶν ἄποικος, Æschyl. Sept. ad Thebas, 729;
and Hesiod. ap. Clemen. Alex. Str. i, p. 132), and of which the
supposed residence of the Amazons on the river Thermôdôn seems to
be one of the manifestations, is discussed in Hoeckh, Kreta, book
i, pp. 294-305; and Mannert, Geographie der Griechen und Römer,
vi, 2, pp. 408-416: compare Stephan. Byz. v. Χάλυβες. Mannert
believes in an early Scythian emigration into these regions. The
ten thousand Greeks passed through the territory of a people
called Skythini, immediately bordering on the Chalybes to the
north; which region some identify with the Sakasênê of Strabo
(xi, 511) occupied, according to that geographer, by invaders
from Eastern Scythia.

It seems that Sinôpê was one of the most considerable places for
the export of the iron used in Greece: the Sinopic as well as the
Chalybdic (or Chalybic) iron had a special reputation (Stephan.
Byz. v. Λακεδαίμων).

About the Chalybes, compare Ukert, Skythien, pp. 521-523.

Herodotus seems to have conceived only one invasion of Asia by the Cimmerians, during the reign of Ardys in Lydia. Ardys was succeeded by his son Sadyattês, who reigned twelve years; and it was Alyattês, son and successor of Sadyattês, according to Herodotus, who expelled the Cimmerians from Asia.[483] But Strabo seems to speak of several invasions, in which the Trêres, a Thracian tribe, were concerned, and which are not clearly discriminated; while Kallisthenês affirmed that Sardis had been taken by the Trêres and Lykians.[484] We see only that a large and fair portion of Asia Minor was for much of this seventh century B. C. in possession of these destroying nomads, who, while on the one hand they afflicted the Ionic Greeks, on the other hand indirectly befriended them by retarding the growth of the Lydian monarchy.

[483] Herodot. i, 15-16.

[484] Strabo, xi, p. 511; xii, p. 552; xiii, p. 627.

The poet Kallinus mentioned both Cimmerians and Trêres (Fr. 2, 3,
ed. Bergk; Strabo. xiv, pp. 633-647).

The invasion of Upper Asia by the Scythians appears to have been nearly simultaneous with that of Asia Minor by the Cimmerians, but more ruinous and longer protracted. The Median king Kyaxarês, called away from the siege of Nineveh to oppose them, was totally defeated; and the Scythians became full masters of the country. They spread themselves over the whole of Upper Asia, as far as Palestine and the borders of Egypt, where Psammetichus the Egyptian king met them, and only redeemed his kingdom from invasion by prayers and costly presents. In their return, a detachment of them sacked the temple of Aphroditê at Askalon; an act of sacrilege which the goddess avenged both upon the plunderers and their descendants, to the third and fourth generation. Twenty-eight years did their dominion in Upper Asia continue,[485] with intolerable cruelty and oppression; until, at length, Kyaxarês and the Medes found means to entrap the chiefs into a banquet, and slew them in the hour of intoxication. The Scythian host once expelled, the Medes resumed their empire. Herodotus tells us that these Scythians returned to the Tauric Chersonese, where they found that, during their long absence, their wives had intermarried with the slaves, while the new offspring which had grown up refused to readmit them. A deep trench had been drawn across a line[486] over which their march lay, and the new-grown youth defended it with bravery, until at length,—so the story runs,—the returning masters took up their whips instead of arms, and scourged the rebellious slaves into submission.

[485] Herodot. i, 105. The account given by Herodotus of the
punishment inflicted by the offended Aphroditê on the Scythian
plunderers, and on their children’s children down to his time,
becomes especially interesting when we combine it with the
statement of Hippokratês respecting the peculiar incapacities
which were so apt to affect the Scythians, and the religious
interpretation put upon them by the sufferers (De Aëre, Locis, et
Aquis, c. vi, s. 106-109).

[486] See, in reference to the direction of this ditch, Völcker,
in the work above referred to on the Scythia of Herodotus
(Mythische Geographie, ch. vii, p. 177).

That the ditch existed, there can be no reasonable doubt; though
the tale given by Herodotus is highly improbable.

Little as we know about the particulars of these Cimmerian and Scythian inroads, they deserve notice as the first—at least the first historically known—among the numerous invasions of cultivated Asia and Europe by the nomads of Tartary. Huns, Avars, Bulgarians, Magyars, Turks, Mongols, Tartars, etc., are found in subsequent centuries repeating the same infliction, and establishing a dominion both more durable, and not less destructive, than the transient scourge of the Scythians during the reign of Kyaxarês.

After the expulsion of the Scythians from Asia, the full extent and power of the Median empire was reëstablished; and Kyaxarês was enabled again to besiege Nineveh. He took that great city, and reduced under his dominion all the Assyrians except those who formed the kingdom of Babylon. This conquest was achieved towards the close of his reign, and he bequeathed the Median empire, at the maximum of its grandeur, to his son Astyagês, in 595 B. C.[487]

[487] Herodot. i. 106. Mr. Clinton fixes the date of the capture
of Nineveh at 606 B. C. (F. H. vol. i. p. 269), upon grounds
which do not appear to me conclusive: the utmost which can be
made out is, that it was taken during the last ten years of the
reign of Kyaxarês.

As the dominion of the Scythians in Upper Asia lasted twenty eight years before they were expelled by Kyaxarês, so also the inroads of the Cimmerians through Asia Minor, which had begun during the reign of the Lydian king Ardys, continued through the twelve years of the reign of his son Sadyattês (629-617 B. C.), and were finally terminated by Alyattês, son of the latter.[488] Notwithstanding the Cimmerians, however, Sadyattês was in a condition to prosecute a war against the Grecian city of Milêtus, which continued during the last seven years of his reign, and which he bequeathed to his son and successor. Alyattês continued the war for five years longer. So feeble was the sentiment of union among the various Grecian towns on the Asiatic coast, that none of them would lend any aid to Milêtus except the Chians, who were under special obligations to Milêtus for previous aid in a contest against Erythræ: and the Milesians unassisted were no match for the Lydian army in the field, though their great naval strength placed them out of all danger of a blockade; and we must presume that the erection of those mounds of earth against the walls, whereby the Persian Harpagus vanquished the Ionian cities half a century afterwards, was then unknown to the Lydians. For twelve successive years the Milesian territory was annually overrun and ravaged, previous to the gathering in of the crop. The inhabitants, after having been defeated in two ruinous battles, gave up all hope of resisting the devastation, so that the task of the invaders became easy, and the Lydian army pursued their destructive march to the sound of flutes and harps. They ruined the crops and the fruit-trees, but Alyattês would not allow the farm-buildings or country-houses to be burnt, in order that the means of production might still be preserved, to be again destroyed during the following season. By such unremitting devastation the Milesians were reduced to distress and famine, in spite of their command of the sea; and the fate which afterwards overtook them during the reign of Crœsus, of becoming tributary subjects to the throne of Sardis, would have begun half a century earlier, had not Alyattês unintentionally committed a profanation against the goddess Athênê. Her temple at Assêssus accidentally took fire, and was consumed, when his soldiers on a windy day were burning the Milesian standing corn. Though no one took notice of this incident at the time, yet Alyattês on his return to Sardis was smitten with prolonged sickness. Unable to obtain relief, he despatched envoys to seek humble advice from the god at Delphi; but the Pythian priestess refused to furnish any healing suggestions until he should have rebuilt the burnt temple of Athênê,—and Periander, at that time despot of Corinth, having learned the tenor of this reply, transmitted private information of it to Thrasybulus, despot of Milêtus, with whom he was intimately allied. Presently there arrived at Milêtus a herald on the part of Alyattês, proposing a truce for the special purpose of enabling him to rebuild the destroyed temple,—the Lydian monarch believing the Milesians to be so poorly furnished with subsistence that they would gladly embrace this temporary relief. But the herald on his arrival found abundance of corn heaped up in the agora, and the citizens engaged in feasting and enjoyment: for Thrasybulus had caused all the provision in the town, both public and private, to be brought out, in order that the herald might see the Milesians in a condition of apparent plenty, and carry the news of it to his master. The stratagem succeeded. Alyattês, under the persuasion that his repeated devastations inflicted upon the Milesians no sensible privations, abandoned his hostile designs, and concluded with them a treaty of amity and alliance. It was his first proceeding to build two temples to Athênê, in place of the one which had been destroyed, and he then, forthwith, recovered from his protracted malady. His gratitude for the cure was testified by the transmission of a large silver bowl, with an iron footstand welded together by the Chian artist Glaukus,—the inventor of the art of thus joining together pieces of iron.[489]

[488] From whom Polyænus borrowed his statement, that Alyattês
employed with effect savage dogs against the Cimmerians, I do not
know (Polyæn. vii, 2, 1).

[489] Herodot. i, 20-23.

Alyattês is said to have carried on other operations against some of the Ionic Greeks: he took Smyrna, but was defeated in an inroad on the territory of Klazomenæ.[490] But on the whole, his long reign of fifty-seven years was one of tranquillity to the Grecian cities on the coast, though we hear of an expedition which he undertook against Karia.[491] He is reported to have been during youth of overweening insolence, but to have acquired afterwards a just and improved character. By an Ionian wife he became father of Crœsus, whom, even during his lifetime, he appointed satrap of the town of Adramyttium, and the neighboring plain of Thêbê. But he had also other wives and other sons, and one of the latter, Adramytus, is reported as the founder of Adramyttium.[492] How far his dominion in the interior of Asia Minor extended, we do not know, but very probably his long and comparatively inactive reign may have favored the accumulation of those treasures which afterwards rendered the wealth of Crœsus so proverbial. His monument, an enormous pyramidal mound upon a stone base, erected near Sardis, by the joint efforts of the whole Sardian population, was the most memorable curiosity in Lydia during the time of Herodotus; it was inferior only to the gigantic edifices of Egypt and Babylon.[493]

[490] Herodot. i, 18. Polyænus (vii, 2, 2) mentions a proceeding
of Alyattês against the Kolophonians.

[491] Nikolaus Damasken. p. 54, ed. Orelli; Xanthi Fragment. p.
243, Creuzer.

Mr Clinton states Alyattês to have _conquered_ Karia, and also
Æolis, for neither of which do I find sufficient authority (Fasti
Hellen. ch. xvii, p. 298).

[492] Aristoteles ap. Stephan. Byz. v. Ἀδραμυττεῖον.

[493] Herodot. i, 92-93.

Crœsus obtained the throne, at the death of his father, by appointment from the latter. But there was a party among the Lydians who had favored the pretensions of his brother Pantaleon; one of the richest chiefs of which party was put to death afterwards by the new king, under the cruel torture of a spiked carding-machine,—his property confiscated.[494] The aggressive reign of Crœsus, lasting fourteen years (559-545 B. C.), formed a marked contrast to the long quiescence of his father during a reign of fifty-seven years.

[494] Herodot. i, 92.

Pretences being easily found for war against the Asiatic Greeks, Crœsus attacked them one after the other. Unfortunately, we know neither the particulars of these successive aggressions, nor the previous history of the Ionic cities, so as to be able to explain how it was that the fifth of the Mermnad kings of Sardis met with such unqualified success, in an enterprise which his predecessors had attempted in vain. Milêtus alone, with the aid of Chios, had resisted Alyattês and Sadyattês for eleven years,—and Crœsus possessed no naval force, any more than his father and grandfather. But on this occasion, not one of the towns can have displayed the like individual energy. In regard to the Milesians, we may perhaps suspect that the period now under consideration was comprised in that long duration of intestine conflict which Herodotus represents (though without defining exactly when) to have crippled the forces of the city for two generations, and which was at length appeased by a memorable decision of some arbitrators invited from Paros. These latter, called in by mutual consent of the exhausted antagonist parties at Milêtus, found both the city and her territory in a state of general neglect and ruin. But on surveying the lands, they discovered some which still appeared to be tilled with undiminished diligence and skill; to the proprietors of these lands they consigned the government of the town, in the belief that they would manage the public affairs with as much success as their own.[495] Such a state of intestine weakness would partly explain the easy subjugation of the Milesians by Crœsus; while there was little in the habits of the Ionic cities to present the chance of united efforts against a common enemy. These cities, far from keeping up any effective political confederation, were in a state of habitual jealousy of each other, and not unfrequently in actual war.[496] The common religious festivals,—the Deliac festival as well as the Pan-Ionia, and afterwards the Ephesia in place of the Delia,—seem to have been regularly frequented by all the cities throughout the worst of times. But these assemblies had no direct political function, nor were they permitted to control that sentiment of separate city-autonomy which was paramount in the Greek mind,—though their influence was extremely precious in calling forth social sympathies. Apart from the periodical festival, meetings for special emergencies were held at the Pan-Ionic temple; but from such meetings any city, not directly implicated, kept aloof.[497] As in this case, so in others not less critical throughout the historical period, the incapacity of large political combination was the source of constant danger, and ultimately proved the cause of ruin, to the independence of all the Grecian states. Herodotus warmly commends the advice given by Thalês to his Ionic countrymen,—and given, to use his remarkable expression, “before the ruin of Ionia,”[498]—that a common senate, invested with authority over all the twelve cities, should be formed within the walls of Teôs, as the most central in position; and that all the other cities should account themselves mere demes of this aggregate commonwealth, or polis. Nor can we doubt that such was the unavailing aspiration of many a patriot of Milêtus or Ephesus, even before the final operations of Crœsus were opened against them.

[495] Herodot. v, 28. κατύπερθε δὲ τουτέων, ἐπὶ δύο γενέας ἀνδρῶν
νοσήσασα τὰ μάλιστα στάσει.

Alyattês reigned fifty-seven years, and the vigorous resistance
which the Milesians offered to him took place in the first six
years of his reign. The “two generations of intestine dissension”
may well have succeeded after the reign of Thrasybulus. This,
indeed, is a mere conjecture, yet it may be observed that
Herodotus, speaking of the time of the Ionic revolt (500 B.
C.), and intimating that Milêtus, though then peaceable, had
been for two generations at an earlier period torn by intestine
dissension, could hardly have meant these “two generations” to
apply to a time earlier than 617 B. C.

[496] Herodot. i, 17; v, 99; Athenæ. vi, p. 267. Compare K. F.
Hermann, Lehrbuch der Griech. Staats Alterthümer, sect. 77, note
28.

[497] See the remarkable case of Milêtus sending no deputies to
a Pan-Ionic meeting, being safe herself from danger (Herodot. i,
141).

[498] Herodot. i, 141-170. χρηστὴ δὲ καὶ πρὶν ἢ διαφθαρῆναι
Ἰωνίην, Θάλεω ἀνδρὸς Μιλησίου γνώμη ἐγένετο, etc.

About the Pan-Ionia and the Ephesia, see Thucyd. iii, 104;
Dionys. Halik. iv, 25; Herodot. i, 143-148. Compare also Whitte,
De Rebus Chiorum Publicis, sect. vii, pp. 22-26.