Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/965

 SCYTHIA, Avars, the Ahani the Huns. [Hunni; Avares]. The migrations that make the latter, at least, re- cent occupants being entirely hypothetical. The evidence of the Huns being in the same category as the Avars, and the Avars being Turk, is conclusive. The same applies to the Alani — a population which brings us to the period of the later classics. The conditions of a population which should, at one and the same time, front Persia and send an offset round the Caspian into Southern Russia, &c., are best satisfied by the present exclusively Turk area of Independent Tartartj. Passing from the presumptuous to the special evidence, we find that the few facts of which we are in possession all point in the same direction. Physical Appearance. — This is that of the Kirghiz and Uzbeks exactly, though not that of the Ottomans of Rumelia, who are of mixed blood. Al- lowing for the change etlected by Mahomet, the same remark applies to their Manners, which are those of the Kirghiz and Turcomans. Language. — The Scythian glosses have not been satisfactorily explained, i. e. Temerinda, Arimaspi, and Exampaeus have yet to receive a derivation that any one but the inventor of it will admit. The oior-, however, in Oiur-pata is exactly the er, aer, =man, &c., a term found through all the Turk dialects. It should be added, however, that it is Latin and Keltic as well {vir, fear, gtor). Still it is Turk, and that unequivocally. The evidence, then, of the Scythae being Turk consists in a series of small particulars agreeing with the a priori probabilities rather than in any definite point of evidence. Add to this the fact that no other class gives us the same result with an equally small amount of hypothesis in the way of migration and change. This will be seen in a review of the opposite doctrines, all of which imply an unnecessary amount of unproven changes. The Mongol Ilypothesis. — This is Niebuhr's, de- veloped in his Researches into the History of the Scy- tliians, ^-c. ; and also Neumann's, in his Ilellenen im Shythenlande. It accounts for the manners and phy- siognomy, as well as the present doctrine ; but not for anything else. It violates the rule against the unne- cessary multiplication of causes, by bringing from a distant area, like Mongolia, what lies nearer, i. e. in Tartary. With Niebuhr the doctrine of fresh migra- tions to account for the Turks of the Byzantine period, and of the extirpation of the older Scythians, takes its maximum development, the least allowance being made for changes of name. " This " (the time of Lysimachus) "is the last mention of the Scythian na- tion in the region of the Ister; and, at this time, there could only be a remnant of it in Budzack " (p. 63). The Finn Ilypothesis. — This is got at by making the Scythians what the Huns were, and the Huns what the Magyars were — the Magyars being Finn. It arises out of a wrong notion of the name, Ilvn- gary, and fails to account for the difference between the Scythians and the nations to their north. The Circassian Ilypothesis. — This assumes an ex- tension of the more limited area of the northern occupants of Caucasus in the direction of Russia and Hungary. Such an extension is, in itself, probable. It fails, however, to explain any one fact in the descrijjtions of Scythia, though valid for some of the older populations. The Indo-European Ilypothesis. — This doctrine takes many forms, and rests on many bases. The VOL. II. SCYTHINI. 945 -get- in words like Massa-(/e^ae, &c., is supposed to = Goth = German. Then there are certain names which are Scythian and Persian, the Persian being Indo-European. In the extreme form of this hy- pothesis the Sacae = Saxons, and the Yuche of the Chinese authors == Goths. If the Scythians were intruders from Inde- pendent Tartary, whom did they displace ? Not the Sarmatians, who were themselves intruders. The earlier occupants were in part congeners of the Northern Caucasians. They were chiefly, however, Ugrians or Finns ; congeners of the Mordvins, Tsheremess, and Tshuwashes of Penza, Saratov, Kazan, &c. : Dacia, Thrace, and Sarmatia being the original occupancies of the Sarmatae. If so, the ethnographical history of the Herodo- tean Scythia runs thus : — there was an original occupancy of Ugrians ; there was an intrusion from the NE. by the Scythians of Independent Tartary, and there was intrusion from the SV. by the Sar- matians of Dacia. The duration of the Scythian or Tuik occupancy was from the times anterior to Herodotus to the extinction of the Cumanians in the 14th century. Of internal changes there was plenty; but of any second migration from Asia (with the exception of that of the Avars) there is no evidence. Such is the history of the Scythae. The Sacae were, perhaps, less exclusively Turk, though Turk in the main. Some of them were, probably, Mongols. The Sacae Amyrgii may have been Ugrians ; the researches of Norris upon the second of the arrow-headed alphabets having led him to the opinion that there was at least one in- vasion of Persia analogous to the Magyar invasion of Hungary, i. e. effected by members of the Ugrian stock, probably from Orenburg or Kazan. With them the root m-rd = man. History gives us no time when the Turks of the Persian frontier, the Sacae, were not pressing southwards. Sacastene (= Segestan') was one of their occupancies ; Car- mania probably another. The Parthians were of the Scythian stock ; and it is difficult to believe that, word for word, Persia is not the same as Parthia. The histoij, however, of the Turk stock is one thing; the history of the Scythian name another. It is submitted, however, that the two should be connected. This being done, the doctrine of the recent diffusion of the Turks is a doctrine that applies to the name only. There were Turk invasions of Hungary, Turk invasions of Persia, Turk invasions of China, Assyria, Asia Minor, and even north-eastern Africa, from the earliest period of histoiy. And there were Sarmatian invasions in the opposite direction, in- vasions which have ended in making Scythia Slavonic, and which (in the mind of the ])rescnt writer) began by making parts of Asia Median. Lest this be taken for an exaggeration of the Turk influence in the world's history, let it be remembered that it is only a question of' date, and that the present view only claims for the Turk conquests the i)lace in the ante- historical that they are known to have had in the historical period. With the exception of the Jlongol invasions of the 13tli century and the M.igyar occu- pancy of Hungary, every conquest in Southern Asia and Europe, from the North, has been cfl'ected by members of the stock under notice. [See Sahmatia ; Vknkdi ; Fknni ; SnoNics ; Tuucak.] [h'. G. L.] SCYTIU'NI {_'2,KvQivoi, Xen. Aiwh. iv. 7. § 18; 'S.Koudivoi, lYwi. xiv. 29; '2,Kv6-t)voi, Stejih. B. «. f.), an Asiatic people dwelling on the borders of Ar- menia, between the rivers Ilarpasus on the E. and 3p