Page:The geography of Strabo (1854) Volume 1.djvu/475

 B. vii. c. in. 7. GET^l. 461 to compare what we have advanced with the remarks of Posidonius and the other critics. Now, in the first place, they have universally proved the very contrary of the allega- tions which they had undertaken to maintain ; for where they undertook to show that amongst the ancients there was a greater amount of ignorance as to places far from Greece than there was among the moderns, they have proved the very contrary, and that not only with regard to the countries more remote, but even with respect to Greece itself ; but, as I have said before, let the other matters remain in abeyance while we consider carefully the subject now before us. Thus they say that it was through ignorance Homer and the anci- ents omitted to speak of the Scythians, and their cruelty to strangers, whom they sacrificed, devoured their flesh, and af- terwards made use of their skulls as drinking-cups, for which barbarities the sea was termed the Axine, 1 or inhospitable ; but in place of these they imagined fables as to illustrious Hippemolgi, Galactophagi, and Abii, the most just of man- kind, who never existed any where in this world. But how came it that they named the sea the Axenus, if they were so ignorant of the barbarism of that region, or of those savages who were the most barbarous on earth ? But these undoubt- edly are the Scythians ! Or in the early times were not those who dwelt beyond the Mysians, and Thracians, and Getae, Hippemolgi, (or milkers of mares,) Galactophagi, and Abii : Nay rather, they exist at this very day, being called Hamax- oeci and Nomades, living on the herd, milk and cheese, and especially on cheese made of mare's milk, and being ignorant how to lay up treasure or deal in merchandise, except the sim- ple barter of one commodity for another. How then can it be said that the poet [Homer] knew nothing of the Scythians, since he doubtless designates some of them by the names of Hippemolgi and Galactophagi ? And that the men of that nourished, simple in living, and most just of men. Iliad xiii. 5. The word which Cowper renders " blest with length of days," and Buckley " " propose to derive it from a, privative, and fiioQ, a bow, or bowless ; while others regard it as a proper name, Abii. In Lucian's Dialogues of the Dead, xv. 3, it means, without a living, poor, as derived from a, privative, and /3og, a means of living, livelihood. Cowper's meaning is made up from a, intensive, and j3to, life. 1 Pontus Axenus.