from the Ister, westward, as far as the city Carcinitis. The mountainous country above this place, in the same direction, as far as what is called the Trachean Chersonese, is possessed by the people of Taurus; this place is situated near the sea to the cast. Scythia, like Attica, is in two parts bounded by the sea, westward and to the east. The people of Taurus are circumstanced with respect to Scythia, as any other nation would be with respect to Attica, who, instead of Athenians, should inhabit the Sunian promontory, stretching from the district of Thonicus, as far as Anaphlystus. Such, comparing small things with great, is the district of Tauris: but as there may be some who have not visited these parts of Attica, I shall endeavour to explain myself more intelligibly. Suppose, that beginning at the port of Brundusium 107 another nation, and not the Iapyges 108, should occupy that country, as far as 107 Brundusium.]-This place, which is now called Brindisi, was very memorable in the annals of ancient Rome: here Augustus first took the name of Cæsar, here the poet Pacuvius was born, and here Virgil died :-It belongs to the king of Naples; and it is the opinion of modern travellers, that the kingdom of Naples possesses no place so advantageously situated for trade.-T. 108 Tapyges.The region of Iapygia has been at different times called Messapia, Calabria, and Salentum: it is now called Terra d'Otranto: it derived its name of Iapyges from the wind called Japyx: Sed Tarentum, separating it from the rest of the continent: I mention these two, but there are many other places similarly situated, to which Tauris might be compared. C. The country above Tauris, as well as that towards the sea to the east 109, is inhabited by Scythians, who possess also the lands which lie to the west of the Cimmerian Bosphorus, and the Sed vides quanto trepidet tumultu Where I suppose the Albus, contrasted to Ater, means that this wind surprized the unwary mariner, during a very severe sky. Others are of opinion, that the Iapyges were so named from Iapyx, the son of Dædalus; and that the wind was named Iapyx, from blowing in the direction of that extremity of Italy; which is indeed more conformable to the analogy of the Latin names for several other winds. 109 To the east.]-This description of Scythia is attended with great difficulties; it is not, in the first place, easy to seize the true meaning of Herodotus; in the second, I cannot believe that the description here given accords correctly with the true position of the places. I am, nevertheless, astonished that it should be generally faithful, when it is considered how scanty the knowledge of this country was: the historian must have laboured with remarkable diligence to have told us what he has. By the phrase of "the sea to the east," Bellanger understands the Palus Mæotis; but I am convinced that when he describes the sea which is to the south, and to the west, he means only to speak of different points of the Euxine.-Larcher. Palus Mæotis, as far as the Tanaïs, which empties itself into this lake; so that as you advance from the Ister inland, Scythia is terminated first by the Agathyrsi, then by the Neuri, thirdly by the Androphagi, and last of all, by the Melanchlani *. CI. Scythia thus appears to be of a quadrangular form, having two of its sides terminated by the sea, to which its other two towards the land are perfectly equal: from the Ister to the Borysthenes is a ten days journey, which is also the distance from the Borysthenes to the Palus Mæotis. Ascending from the sea inland, as far as the country of the Melanchlani, beyond Scythia, is a journey of twenty days: according to my computation, a day's journey is equal to two hundred stadia 110: thus the extent of Scythia, along Scythia may be supposed to have extended northward to the river Dresna, and its eastern branch the Sem, on the east of the Borysthenes, and to Polish Russia on the west of that river: wherefore Wolynia, the proper Ukraine, the countries of Belgerod, &c. must have formed the northern frontier of Scythia, on which side it was bounded by the tribe of Androphagi on the side of Poland, and by the Melanchlani on the side of Russia, as on the N. W. by the Neuri, and on the west by the Agathyrsi.-Rennell, p. 61. 110 Two hundred stadia.]—Authors do not agree with each other, nor indeed with themselves, about the length of the day's journey; Herodotus here gives two hundred stadia to its sides, is four thousand stadia; and through the midst of it inland, is four thousand more. CII. The Scythians, conferring with one another, conceived that of themselves they were unable to repel the forces of Darius; they therefore made application to their neighbours. The princes a day's journey; but in the fifth book he gives no more than one hundred and fifty.-It is probable that the two hundred stadia are the ordinary journey of a traveller, and the one hundred and fifty stadia the march of an army. The army of Xenophon ordinarily marched five parasangs, which he states to be equal to one hundred and fifty stadia. Strabo and Pliny make the length of the Arabian Gulph a thousand stadia, which the first of these authors says will take up a voyage of three or four days: what Livy calls a day's journey, Polybius describes as two hundred stadia, The Roman lawyers assigned to each day twenty miles, that is to say, one hundred and sixty stadia.-See Casaubon on Strabo, page 61 of the Amsterdam edition, page 23 of that of Paris. The evangelist Luke tells us, that Joseph and Mary went a day's journey before they sought the child Jesus; now Maundrel, page 64, informs us that, according to tradition, this happened at Beer, which was no more than ten miles from Jerusalem; according, therefore, to this estimation, a day's journey was no more than eighty stadia. When we recollect that the day has different acceptations, and has been divided into the natural day, the artificial day, the civil day, the astronomical day, &c. we shall the less wonder at any apparent want of exactness in the computations of space passed over in a portion of time by no means determinate.-T. also to whom they applied, held a consultation concerning the powerful army of the invader; at this meeting were assembled the princes of the Agathyrsi, Tauri, Neuri, Androphagi, Melanchlæni, Geloni, Budini, and Sauromatæ. : CIII. Of these nations, the Tauri are distinguished by these peculiar customs" All strangers shipwrecked on their coast, and particularly every Greek who falls into their hands, they sacrifice to a virgin, in the following manner; after the ceremonics of prayer, they strike the victim on the head with a club. Some affirm, that, having fixed the head upon a cross, they precipitate the body from the rock, on the craggy part of which the temple stands: others again, allowing that the head is thus exposed, deny that the body is so treated, but say that it is buried. The sacred personage to whom this sacrifice is offered, the Taurians themselves assert to be Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon. The manner in which they treat their captives is this: 111 Peculiar customs.]-These customs, as far as they relate to the religious ceremonies described in the subsequent paragraphs of this chapter, must have been rendered by the Iphigenia of Euripides, and other writers, too familiar to require any minute discussion. The story of Iphigenia also, in all its particulars, with the singular resemblance which it bears to the account of the daughter of Jephtha in the sacred. Scriptures, must be equally well known.-T. |