Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/250

 234 HISTORY OF GREECE. numerous localities "which bore their name, even in the time of Herodotus, 1 after they had ceased to exist as a nation, as well as the tombs of the Cimmerian kings then shown near the Tyras, sufficiently attest this fact ; and there is reason to believe that they were like their conquerors and successors the Scythians a nomadic people, mare-milkers, moving about with their tents and herds, suitably to the nature of those unbroken steppes which theit territory presented, and which offered little except herbage in pro- fusion. Strabo tells us 2 on what authority we do not know that they, as well as the Treres and other Thracians, had des- olated Asia Minor more than once before the time of Ardys, and even earlier than Homer. The Cimmerians thus belong partly to legend partly to history ; but the Scythians formed for several centuries an important section of the Grecian contemporary world. Their name, un- noticed by Homer, occurs for the first time in the Hesiodic poems. When the Homeric Zeus in the Iliad turns his eye away from Troy towards Thrace, he sees, besides the Thracians and My- sians, other tribes, whose names cannot be made out, but whom the poet knows as milk-eaters and mare-milkers ; 3 and the sarno characteristic attributes, coupled with that of "having wagons for their dwelling-houses," appear in Hesiod connected with the name of the Scythians. 4 The navigation of the Greeks into the Euxine, gradually became more and more frequent, and during the last half of the seventh century B. c. their first settlements on its coasts were established. The foundation of Byzantium, as 1 Herodoti iv, 11-12. Hekatoeus also spoke of a town Kijtitepif (Stiabo vii, p. 294). Respecting the Cimmerians, consult Ckcrt, Skythien. p. 360, i-^gq. 3 Homer, Iliad, xiii, 4. .......... Airdf 6e iruXiv rpeitEv oaae $aeiv>, ty iTnroiroAuv Qpr/Kuv Kadopufievof alav uyuv, 'Afliuv re, AmatoTuTuv av&puiruv Compare Strabo, xii, p. 553. Hesiod, Fragm. 63-64, Marktscheffel : elf alav, inrfjvaig oiKi 1 e^ovruv. . . . f, Atyuaj re, i'Je 2vt?ac i~nri)fiotyovc. Sirabo, vii. pp. 300-302.
 * Strabo, i, pp. 6, 59, 61.