Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/958

 938 SCYTIIIA. The Scythian afBnities of the Neuri are iinjilieJ ratlier than categorically stated ; indeed, in aiKitlier part there is the special statement that the 'J'vras rises out of agreat lake which separates the Scythian and Neurid countries (t7/v SkvBiktjv koI ti]V Neu- pi5o V^f). This, Iiiiwever, must not be made to prove too mucii ; since the Scythians that were conterminous with the Neuri were known by no special name, but simply by the descriptive term Scythae Aroteres. [Exajipaeus; Neuui.] In Siberian geogi-aphy Narym = marsh. Hence Neuri may be a Scythian gloss. There may also have been more Neuri than one, e. g. on the Narym of the head- waters of the Dnieper, i. e. of Pinsk. A fact in favour of the Neuri being Scythian is the following. The occupants of Volhynia, wiien its history com- mences, which is as late as the 13th century, are of the same stock with the Scythians, i. e. Comanian Turks. Not only is there no evidence of their intro- duction being recent, but the name Omani (Lygii Omani) appears about the same parts in Ptolemy. East of the Borysthenes the Agricultural Scythae occupy the country as far as the Panticapes, 3 days distant. Northwards they extend 1 1 days up the Borysthenes, where they are succeeded by a desert; the desert by the Androphagi, a nation peculiar and by no means Scythian (c. 19). Above the Androphagi is a desert. The bend of the Dnieper complicates the geo- graphy here. It is safe, however, to make Eka- terinoslav the chief Georgic area, and to add to it parts of Kiev, Kherson, and Poltava, the agricul- tural conditions increasing as we move northwards. The two deserts (^iprjixoi) command notice. The first is, probably, a JMarch or political frontier, such as the old Suevi used to have between themselves and neighbours; at least, there is nothing in the conditions of the soil to make it a natural one. It is described as iprifxos iirl ttoKkSv. The other is tprjuos a.ri6ea)s, — a distinction, apparently, of some value. To be natural, however, it must be inter- preted forest rather than steppe. Kursk and Tsher- nigov give us the area of the Androphagi; Kursk having a slight amount of separate evidence in fa- vour of its having been " by no means Scythian " (c. 18). The Ilylaea, or wooded district of the Lower Dnieper, seems to have been common ground to the Scythae Georgi and Scythae Nomades; cr, perhaps it was uninhabited. The latter extend 14 days east- ward, i. e. over Taurida, part of Ekaterinoslav, and Don Kosaks, to the Gerrhus. The Palaces (ra Haev,ueva Pa(TiT)'Ca') succeed; their occupants being the Royal Scythians, the best and most numerous of the name, who look upon the others as their slaves. They extend, southwards, into the Crimea (tV Taupi/cTJi'), and, eastwards, as far as the ditch dug by the ofl'spring of the blind slaves (the statement that the Scythians blinded their slaves on account of the milk being one of the elements of the strange Servile legend previously noticed), and the JIaeotic Emporium called Krenmi. Some touch the Tanais. North of the Royal Scythians lie the Jlelanchlaeni (a probable translation of Karaknlpak = black lonnet), a different nation and not Scythian (c. 20), •with marshes, and either a desert or a terra incog- nita above them. This distinction is, almost cer- tainly, real. At the present moment a population, to all appearances aboriginal, and neither Slavonic nor Scythian (but Ugrian or Finn), occupies parts of SCYTHIA. Penza and Tamhov having, originally, extended both further west and further south. To the north the forest districts attain their maximum development. [Melanciilaeni.] The Royal Scythians may have occupied parts of Voronezh. East of the Tanais it was no longer Scythia, but the Aa|(ej of the Sauromatae. [See Saukom.vtae; BuDiNi; Geloni; Tiiyssagetae; Il'rcak.] The want of definite boundaries makes it difhcult to s.ay where the lurcae end. Beyond them to the ea.ft lay other Scythians, who, having revolted from the Royal, settled there. Up to their districts the soil was level and deep, beyond it rough and stony, with mountains beyond. These are occupied by a nation of Bald-heads, flat-nosed and bearded, Scy- thians in dress, peculiar in language, collectors of a substance called &(tx^ f''oni '^ tree called 'itovtik6i' (c.23). Their flocks and herds are few ; theirmanners so simple that noone injures them,&c. [Argippaei; Issedones ; Hyperisokei ; Arimaspi.] In the parts about the mountains of the Argippaei trade was carried on by means of seven interpreters. Let this be the caravan trade of Orenburg, near its ter- minus on the Volga, and we shall find that seven is about the number of languages that could at the present moment be brouglit together at a fair in the centre of Orenburg. For the modern Rus- sian take the language of the Sauromatae; for the Scythian that of the modern Tartars. To these we can add four Ugrian forms of speech, — the Tshu- wash, the Jlordwin, the Tsheremiss, and the Votiak, with the two forms of speech akin to the Ostiak and Permian to choose the fifth from. The Tshuwash of Kazan and the Bashkirs of Orenburg have mixed characters at the present time, — Turk and Ugrian. Rivers. — The chief river of the Herodotean Scy- thia was the Ister [DAsaBius], with its five mouths; and then the Tyras {Dniester), the Hypanis {Bog}, the Borysthenes (Zi«/e/;er), the Panticapes [sees, i;.], theHypacyris [see Carcina], the Gerrhus [see s. v.], and the Tanais {Don); the feeders of the Ister (i.e. the rivers of the present Danubian Principalities) being the Porata (Scythic, in Greek Puretus), the Tiarantos, the Araros, the Naparis, and the Ordessus (cc. 47, 48). To these add, from the country of the. Agathyrsi, the Maris (c. 49), or modern Maros of Transylvania. The difference between the ancient and modern names of rivers is nowhere greater than here, — the Maros being the only name now in use which represents the original one ; unless we choo.se to hold that, word for word, Aluta = Araros. Word for word, indeed, Naparis is Dnieper; but then the rivers are different. This creates a grave difSculty in the determination of the language to which the names of the Scythian rivers should be referred. Yet the question is important, inasmuch as, in the names, as they come down to us, we have so many glosses of some language or other. Upon the whole, however, the circumstances under which they reached Herodotus suggest the notion that they are Scythian : e. g. the express statement that Porata is a Scythian form. Again ; Hyi)anis is, word for word, Kuban, — a word of which the appearance in both Asia and Europe is best explained by supposing it to be Scythian. On the other hand, they are as little significant in the language which, amongst those at present existing, best explains the undoiibted Scythian glosses, as they are in the Slavonic, Latin, or Greek. The physical geography of Herodotean Scythia was a steppe, with occasional districts (chiefly along