CHAP. 19. (17.)—THE NATIONS OF SCYTHIA AND THE COUNTRIES ON THE EASTERN OCEAN.
Beyond this river are the peoples of Scythia. The Persians
have called them by the general name of Sacæ,[1] which properly
belongs to only the nearest nation of them. The more ancient
writers give them the name of Aramii. The Scythians themselves give the name of "Chorsari" to the Persians, and they call
Mount Caucasus Graucasis, which means "white with snow."
The multitude of these Scythian nations is quite innumerable:
in their life and habits they much resemble the people of Parthia.
The tribes among them that are better known are the Sacæ, the
Massagetæ,[2] the Dahæ,[3] the Essedones,[4] the Ariacæ,[5] the
Rhymmici, the Pæsici, the Amardi,[6] the Histi, the Edones, the
Came, the Camacæ, the Euchatæ,[7] the Cotieri, the Anthusiani,
the Psacæ, the Arimaspi,[8] the Antacati, the Chroasai, and the
Œtei; among them the Napæi[9] are said to have been destroyed
by the Palæi. The rivers in their country that are the best
known, are the Mandragæus and the Carpasus. Indeed upon
no subject that I know of are there greater discrepancies among
writers, from the circumstance, I suppose, of these nations
being so extremely numerous, and of such migratory habits.
Alexander the Great has left it stated that the water of this
sea[10] is fresh, and M. Varro informs us, that some of it, of a
similar character, was brought to Pompey, when holding the
chief command in the Mithridatic war in its vicinity; the salt,[11]
no doubt, being overpowered by the volume of water discharged
by the rivers which flow into it. He adds also, that under the
direction of Pompey, it was ascertained that it is seven days'
journey from India to the river Icarus,[12] in the country of the
Bactri, which discharges itself into the Oxus, and that the
merchandize of India being conveyed from it[13] through the
Caspian Sea into the Cyrus, may be brought by land to Phasis
in Pontus, in five days at most. There are numerous islands
throughout the whole of the Caspian sea: the only one that is
well known is that of Tazata.[14]
1. The Sacæ probably formed one of the most numerous and most powerful of the Scythian Nomad tribes, and dwelt to the east and north-east
of the Massagetæ, as far as Servia, in the steppes of Central Asia, which are now peopled by the Kirghiz Cossacks, in whose name that of their
ancestors, the Sacæ, is traced by some geographers.
2. Meaning the "Great Getæ." They dwelt beyond the Jaxartes and
the Sea of Aral, and their country corresponds to that of the Khirghiz
Tartars in the north of Independent Tartary.
3. The Dahæ were a numerous and warlike Nomad tribe, who wandered
over the vast steppes lying to the east of the Caspian Sea. Strabo has
grouped them with the Sacæ and Massagetæ, as the great Scythian tribes
of Inner Asia, to the north of Bactriana.
4. See also B. iv. c. 20, and B. vi. c. 7. The position of the Essedones,
or perhaps more correctly, the Issedones, may probably be assigned to the
east of Ichim, in the steppes of the central border of the Kirghiz, in the
immediate vicinity of the Arimaspi, who dwelt on the northern declivity
of the Altaï chain. A communication is supposed to have been carried on
between these two peoples for the exchange of the gold that was the produce
of those mountain districts.
5. They dwelt, according to Ptolemy, along the southern banks of the
Jaxartes.
6. Or the Mardi, a warlike Asiatic tribe. Stephanus Byzantinus, following Strabo, places the Amardi near the Hyrcani, and adds, "There
are also Persian Mardi, without the a;" and, speaking of the Mardi, he
mentions them as an Hyrcanian tribe, of predatory habits, and skilled in
archery.
7. D'Anville supposes that the Euchatæ may have dwelt at the modern
Koten, in Little Bukharia. It is suggested, however, by Parisot, that
they may have possibly occupied a valley of the Himalaya, in the midst
of a country known as "Cathai," or the "desert."
8. The first extant notice of them is in Herodotus; but before him there
was the poem of Aristeas of Proconnesus, of which the title was 'Arimaspea;' and it is mainly upon the statements in it that the stories told relative to this people rest—such as their being one-eyed, and as to their stealing
the gold from the Gryphes, or Griffins, under whose custody it was placed.
Their locality is by some supposed to have been on the left bank of the
Middle Volga, in the governments of Kasan, Simbirsk, and Saratov: a locality which is sufficiently near the gold districts of the Uralian chain
to account for the legends connecting them with the Gryphes, or guardians
of the gold.
9. The former reading was, "The Napæi are said to have perished as
well as the Apellæi." Sillig has, however, in all probability, restored the
correct one. "Finding," he says, "in the work of Diodorus Siculus,
that two peoples of Scythia were called, from their two kings, who were
brothers, the Napi and the Pali, we have followed close upon the footsteps
of certain MSS. of Pliny, and have come to the conclusion that some
disputes arose between these peoples, which ultimately led to the destruction
of one of them."
10. Of the Caspian Sea.
11. Said on the supposition that it is a bay or gulf of the Scythian or
Septentrional Ocean.
12. Ansart suggests that this is the modern Rocsha.
13. From the Oxus.
14. Ansart suggests that this island is that now called Idak, one of the
Ogurtchinski group.