Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/254

 238 HISTORY OF GREECE. easily identified) which Herodotus calls Pantikapes, flowing iuto the Borysthenes from the eastward, formed their boundary. These nomads were the genuine Scythians, possessing the marked attributes of the race, and including among their number the regal Scythians, 1 hordes so much more populous and more effective in war than the rest, as to maintain undisputed ascen- dency, and to account all other Scythians no better than their slaves. It was to these that the Scythian kings belonged, by whom the religious and political unity of the name was main- tained, each horde having its separate chief, and to a certain extent separate worship and customs. But besides these nomads, there were also agricultural Scythians, with fixed abodes, living more or less upon bread, and raising corn for exportation, along the banks of the Borysthenes and the Hypanis. 2 And such had 1 Herodot. iv, 17-21, 46-56 ; Hippokrates, DC Ac're, Locis et Aquis, c. vi ^Eschyl. Prometh. 709 ; Justin, ii, 2. It is unnecessary to multiply citations respecting nomadic life, the same under such wide differences both of time and of latitude, the same with the " armcntarius Afer" of Virgil (Georgic, iii, 343) and the "campcstres Scythae" of Horace (Ode iii, 24, 12), and the Tartars of the present day; see Dr. Clarke's Travels in Kussia, ch. xiv, p. 310. The fourth book of Herodotus, the Tristia and Epistolae ex Ponto of Ovid, the Toxaris of Lncian (see c. 36, vol. i, p. 544 Hemst.), and the Inscription of Olbia (No. 2058 in Boeckh's Collection), convey a genuine picture of Scythian manners as seen by the near observer and resident, very different from the pleasing fancies of the distant poet respecting the innocence of pastoral life. The poisoned arrows, which Ovid so much complains of in the Sarmatians and Gctse (Trist. iii, 10, 60, among other passages, and Lucan, iii, 270), are not noticed by Herodotus in the Scythians. The dominant Golden Horde among the Tartars, in the time of Zinghis Khan, has been often spoken of; and among the different Arab tribes now in Algeria, some are noble, others enslaved ; the latter habitually, and by inheritance, servants of the former, following wherever ordered (Tableau de la Situation des Etablissemens Fran;ais en Algerie, p. 393, Paris, Mar. 1846). 1 Ephorns placed the Karpidse immediately north of the Danube (Fragm. 78, Marx ; Skymn. Chins, 102). I agree with Niebuhr that this is probably an inaccurate reproduction of the Kallippidse of Herodotus, though Boeckb ia of a different opinion (Introduct. ad Inscriptt. Sarmatie. Corpus Inscript part xi, p. 81 ). The vague and dreamy statements of Ephorns, so far as we know them from the fragments, contrast unfavorably with the comparative precision of Herodotus. The latter expressly separates the Aiidrophagi