-Every man cuts off the head of his prisoner, and carries it to his house; this he fixes on a stake, which is placed generally at the top of the chimney thus situated, they affect to consider it as the protector of their families. Their whole subsistence is procured by acts of plunder and hostility.

112

CIV. The Agathyrsi are a people of very effeminate manners, but abounding in gold; they have their women in common, so that, being all connected by the ties of consanguinity, they know nothing of envy or of hatred: in other respects they resemble the Thracians.

CV. The Neuri observe the Scythian customs. In the age preceding this invasion of Darius, they were compelled to change their habitations, from the multitude of serpents which infested them: besides what their own soil produced, these came

112 Agathyrsi.]-The country inhabited by this people is now called Vologhda, in Muscovy: the Agathyrsi were by Juvenal called cruel;

Sauromatæque truces aut immanes Agathyrsi.

Virgil calls them the painted Agathyrsi:

Cretesque Dryopesque fremunt pictique Agathyrsi.

They are said to have received the name of Agathyrsi from Agathyrus, a son of Hercules.-T.

in far greater numbers from the deserts above them; till they were at length compelled to take refuge with the Budini; these people have the character of being magicians*. It is asserted by the Scythians, as well as by those Greeks who dwell in Scythia, that once in every year they are all of them changed into wolves 113; and that after remaining so for the space of a few days, they resume their former shape; but this I do not believe, although they swear that it is true,

CVI. The Androphagi are, perhaps, of all mankind, the rudest: they have no forms of law or justice, their employment is feeding of cattle; and though their dress is Scythian, they have a dialect appropriate to themselves.

CVII. The Melanchlani 114 have all black

* They were probably, says Rennell, an ingenious people, and exceeded their neighbours in arts as well as in hospitality. p. 93.

113 Into wolves.]-Pomponius Mela mentions the same fact, as I have observed in Vol. II. p. 369. It has been supposed by some, that this idea might arise from the circumstance of these people clothing themselves in the skins of wolves during the colder months of winter; but this is rejected by Larcher, without giving any better hypothesis to solve the fable.-T.

114 Melanchlani.]-

Melanchlanis atra yestis: & ex ea nomen.

Pomp. Melu.

garments; from whence they derive their name : these are the only people known to feed on human flesh 115 ; their manners are those of Scythia.

CVIII. The Budini 116 are a great and numerous people; their bodies are painted of a blue and red colour; they have in their country a town called Gelonus, built entirely of wood. Its walls are of a surprising height: they are on each side three hundred stadia in length; the houses and the temples are all of wood. They have temples built in the Grecian manner to Grecian deities, with the statues, altars, and shrines of wood. Every three years" they have a festival in honour of Bacchus. The Geloni are of

115 Human flesh.]-M. Larcher very naturally thinks this a passage transposed from the preceding chapter, as indeed the word Androphagi literally means eaters of human flesh.

116 Budini.]-The district possessed by this people is now called Podolia: Pliny supposes them to have been so called from using waggons drawn by oxen. -T.

The country of the Budini has been taken for that of Woroner and its neighbourhood, as well from description as position; it being, like the other, full of forests.-Rennell, p. 93.

117 Every three years.]-This feast, celebrated in honour of Bacchus, was named the Trieterica, to which there are frequent allusions in the ancient authors-See Statius:

Non hæc Trieterica vobis

Nox patrio de more venit.

From which we may presume that this was kept up throughout the night.

Grecian origin; but being expelled from the commercial towns, they established themselves amongst the Budini. Their language is a mixture of Greek and Scythian.

CIX. The Budini are distinguished equally in their language and manner of life from the Geloni: they are the original natives of the country, feeders of cattle, and the only people of the country who eat vermin. The Geloni 118, on the contrary, pay attention to agriculture, live on corn, cultivate gardens, and resemble the Budini neither in appearance nor complexion. The Greeks however are apt, though erroneously, to confound them both under the name of Geloni. Their country is covered with trees of every species where these are the thickest, there is a large and spacious lake with a marsh surrounded with reeds. In this lake are found otters, beavers, and other wild animals, who have square snouts: of these, the skins are used to border the garment 119; and their testicles are esteemed useful in hysteric discases.

118 Geloni.]-These people are called Picti by Virgil:

Pictosque Gelonos.

And by Lucan, fortes:

Georg. ii. 115.

Massagetes quo fugit equo fortesque Gelonos.-L. iii. 283. 119 Border the garment.]-It is perhaps not unworthy remark, that throughout the sacred Scriptures we find no men

120

CX. Of the Sauromatæ we have this acIn a contest which the Greeks had with

count.

tion made of furs; and this is the more extraordinary, as in Syria and Egypt, according to the accounts of modern travellers, garments lined and bordered with costly furs are the dresses of honour and of ceremony. Purple and fine linen are what we often read of in Scripture; but never of fur.-T.

120 Sauromate.]-This people were also called Sarmatæ or Sarmatians. It may perhaps tend to excite some novel and interesting ideas in the mind of the English reader, when he is informed, that among a people rude and uncivilized as these Sarmatians are here described, the tender and effeminate Ovid was compelled to consume a long and melancholy exile. It was on the banks of the Danube that he wrote those nine books of epistles, which are certainly not the least valuable of his works. The following lines are eminently.

harmonious and pathetic:

At puto cum requies medicinaque publica cura
Somnus adest, solitis nox venit orba malis,
Somnia me terrent veros imitantia casus,
Et vigilant sensus in mea damna mei;
Aut ego Sarmaticas videor vitare sagittas,
Aut dare captivas ad fera vincla manus:
Aut ubi decipior melioris imagine somni,
Aspicio patriæ tecta relicta meæ,

Et modò vobiscum quos sum veneratus amici,
Et modò cum carâ conjuge multa loquor.

T.

Herodotus relates the origin of this people in this and the subsequent chapters. The account of Diodorus Siculus differs materially: the Scythians, says this author, having subdued part of Asia, drove several colonies out of the country, and amongst them one of the Medes; this, advancing towards the Tanaïs, formed the nation of the Sauromatæ.-Larcher.