Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/604

Rh 578 S E A S E A that Abydus had been retaken by Daurises a little before. In this connexion the Scythian embassy to King Cleomenes at Sparta (Herod., vi. 84) to arrange a combined attack on Asia becomes credible ; for, barbarians though they were, the Scythians had a political organization and many con- nexions with the lonians of the Pontic colonies, so that their envoys may well have reached Sparta at the same time with Aristagoras (499) and served as decoys for his fantastic schemes. 1 Our accounts of the Scythians begin to fail after the time of King Scyles, who affected Grecian habits and was de- posed and finally slain for sharing in Bacchic orgies (Herod., iv. 78-80) ; his death fell a little before Herodotus's visit to Olbia (c. 456). We read in an unclear context (Diod., ii. 43) of a division of the Scythians into two great tribes, the Pali and the Napae, the former of whom crossed the Don from the east and destroyed the latter and also the Tanaites. 2 These events seem to point to a change of dynasty in the royal horde. The Periplus ascribed to Scylax (346 B.C.) knows the Scythians as still occupying almost exactly the same limits as in Herodotus's time ; only in the east there is a small but significant change : the Sarmatians have already crossed the Don ( 68). King Ateas still ruled Scythia in its old extent (Strabo, vii. 307), but all that we know of the events of his reign took place south of the Danube, wars with the Triballi in Servia, with Byzantium, with the king of the Greek city of Istrus, and finally with his old ally Philip of Macedon. Philip defeated and slew Ateas near the Danube in 339 B.C. He was then over ninety years old. 3 The Scythians appear once more in the region of the Dobrudja in 313, when they helped the citizens of Callatis against Lysimachus and were defeated by him (Diod,, xix. 73). All this points to a considerable advance of their frontier southwards, and in fact Pseudo-Scymnus (Ephorus) gives Dionysopolis (a little to the west of the modern Bal- tchik) as the place where the Crobyzian and the Scythian territories met in his time (334 B.C.). 4 This apparent ad- vance of the realm contrasts singularly with the distress to which Ateas was reduced by the king of the insignificant town of Istrus, an evidence that the Scythian power was really much decayed. Ateas indeed is sometimes painted as a rude barbarian lord of a poor but valiant and hardy race, and Ephorus, who mainly follows Herodotus about Scythia, yet speaks of the Scythians in contrast with the fierce Sarmatians as corresponding to Homer's description of a just and poor people feeding on milk (Strabo, vii. 302). But Aristotle, on the contrary (Eth. Nic., vii. 8), speaks of the effeminacy of the Scythian monarchs as notorious ; and indeed there can be little doubt that the Scythians crossed the Danube and settled in the Dobrudja under pressure of the Sarmatians behind them, and that the idyllic picture drawn by Ephorus presupposes the fall of their political system. Diodorus (ii. 43) tells us that the Sarmatians ex- terminated the inhabitants of most part of Scythia, and this must have taken place in the later years of Ateas, between 346 and 339. At a later but uncertain date the great inferiority of the Scythians to the Sarmatians is illustrated by the story of Amage, the warlike consort of a debauched Sarmatian king, who with only 1 20 chosen horsemen delivered Chersonesus 1 King Ariantas, whose primitive census is mentioned in Herodotus (iv. 81), seems to have flourished at this time. 2 Pliny, H.N., vi. 50 ; comp. vi. 22, where we must read "Asam- patas, Palos, ab his Tauaitas et Napseos " and, below, " Satarchaeos, Palaeos." 8 For Ateas, see Frontin., Stratey., ii. 4, 20 ; Polyaen., vii. 44, 1 ; Aristocritus, in Clem. Al., Strom., v. p. 239 ; Justin, ix. 2 ; Lucian, Macrob., 10; ./Eschmes, C. Ctesiph., 128, p. 71. 4 Comp. Pliny, H.N., iv. 44, who calls the Scythians Arotera. in Tauris from the neighbouring Scythian king, slew him with all his followers, and gave the kingdom to his son (Polyaen., viii. 56). It is, however, not quite certain whether these were a remnant of the old Scythians ; and it is still more doubtful whether the powerful Scythian kingdom of Scilurus, who brought the Greek cities of the Crimea to the verge of ruin, but was destroyed by Mithradates Eupa- tor (105), was really a kingdom of Scolots. The last cer- tain trace of true Scythians occurs about 100 B.C. in the Olbian psephisnia in honour of Protogenes. 5 Here they appear as a small nation west of Olbia between the Thisa- matae and Saudaratse, who are anxious to take refuge in Olbia from the (Scordiscian) Galatians. Sources. Herodotus (iv. 1-82, 97-142) and Hippocrates (Dc Acre, &c., c. 17-22, in Littre's ed., ii. 66-82) are alone trustworthy, because they carefully distinguish the Scythians from the other northern nations. Ephorus (in Strabo, vii. p. 302 sq., and Scymn., Pcrieg., 773-873), Diodorus (ii. 43 sq.), and Trogus (in Justin, ii. 1-3, 5, 1-11, and Jordan., Oct., v.-vi., x.) do not do so, and must be used with great caution. Helps. Ukert, Oeog. d. Gr. und Ronur, iii. 2 (complete collection of materials from original sources) ; Niebuhr, Kleine Schriften, vol. i. (1828) ; Zeuss, Die Dcutschcn und die Nachbarstamme (1837) an admirable discussion, which established the Aryan origin of the Scythians ; Boeckh, in C. Insc. Gr., ii. 81 sq. ; K. Neumann, Eel- lenen im Skythenlande (1855) the best book, in spite of certain fundamental errors, such as the ideas that great part of the steppe was once wooded and that the Scythians were Mongols ; Miillenhotf, ''Origin and Speech of the Pontic Scythians and Sarmatians," in Monatsb. d. Berl. Ak. (1866). The best account of the trade route which in the 5th century u. c. passed through a great part of what is now Russian territory is by X. E. v. Baer, Historisclw Fragen, &e. (1873) ; comp. also Grote, Hist, of Greece, iii. 314 sq. (1850), and Duncker, ii. 430 sq. (5th ed.). There is a class of mere amateurs, especially in east Germany, who absurdly take the Scythians to have been Slavs. (A. v. G.) SEA. Any part of the ocean marked off from the general mass of water may be called a sea. In geography the name is loosely applied : for instance, the Arabian Sea is an open bay, Hudson's Bay is an enclosed sea. Seas proper lie within the transitional area which divides the permanent continental masses from the permanent ocean basins, and their boundaries are consequently subject to geological change, and to alteration by subsidence and elevation occurring in historic times. Inland Seas a:e seas entirely surrounded by land (see CASPIAN SEA, DEAD SEA, and, for general discussion, LAKE). Unclosed Seas have communication with the ocean re- stricted to one opening, which may take the form of one, two, or more straits close to each other. The best known are the White Sea of the Arctic Ocean ; the Baltic, Zuyder Zee, Hudson's Bay, Gulf of Mexico, and Mediterranean, with the Adriatic and Black Sea, of the Atlantic ; the Red Sea and Persian Gulf of the Indian Ocean ; and the Yellow Sea and Sea of Okhotsk of the Pacific. 6 They are all cut off from general oceanic circulation and very largely from tides, but the result is not stagnation. The Baltic and Black Sea are but slightly saline on account of the number of large rivers falling into them, and the fresh surface-water flows out as a regular current, liable indeed to be checked, and even reversed for a time, but in the main persistent ; while the salt water flows in uniformly as an undercurrent. A state of equilibrium is arrived at, so that periodical fluctuations of salinity do not affect the average of a num- ber of years. The water of the Mediterranean and Red Sea is much salter than that of the ocean, which therefore flows in as a surface-current, while the dense very salt water escapes below. In the case of the Baltic and Black Sea dilution by rivers, in that of the Mediterranean and Red Sea concentration by evaporation maintains a circu- 5 C. I. Gr., ii. No. 2058 ; comp. Zippel, Rom. Jlerrschaft in Illyrien, p. 155. 6 The prevalence of colour names for these seas is noteworthy.