Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

of gods, beliefs, and art
hearth. Thus the bond between them is strong and the king may be seen as an intermediary
between the goddess and the people. The royal hearth is an especially sacred
place and swearing an oath by it is an act of great solemnity: a false oath can affect the
king’s health (Hist. iv. 68). Since Tabiti is really the abstract notion of fire, rather than
a personified deity, there are no physical representations of her. The concept of fire as
the primeval substance upon which the universe is based is deeply embedded in the
Indo-Iranian belief systems and plays a prominent role in Zoroastrian religion, the
roots of which can be traced back into the Early Bronze Age in Central Asia.
The second rank of deities includes Papaeus (Zeus) and Api (Gaia), who are the
father and mother of the universe. They are binary opposites: Papaeus, the sky/father,
Api, the earth (or water)/mother. Earth/water gives life, fertilizing, nourishing, and
healing all living things. In the Indo-Iranian tradition the union of sky and earth gave
rise to the other gods.
The four deities of the third rank have specific characteristics. The Scythian Hercules,
if identified with Targitaos, is the progenitor of the Scythian kings. Scythian Ares
is the god of war, who is venerated in the form of an ancient sword (below, p. 269).
Goetosyrus (Apollo) is more enigmatic, but may be associated with the sun. The
fourth deity, Argimpasa (Aphrodite Ourania), is an altogether more complex conception.
She is probably cognate with the Iranian Arti, a goddess of material abundance—a
characteristic which would have encouraged Herodotus to equate her to
Aphrodite. She is a patron of fertility, having power over sovereignty and the priestly
force, and was served by an hereditary priesthood, the Enarees.
In addition to the pantheon of seven deities worshipped by all the Scythian tribes,
there were other gods venerated in different regions. Herodotus specifically mentions
that the Royal Scythians worshipped Thagimasadas. In relating him to the
Greek god Poseidon, Herodotus was specifically thinking of Poseidon’s power as a
tamer of horses rather than any direct association with the sea.
The Scythian pantheon, then, reflects a vision of the structure of the universe. At
the head is the primeval fire, the basic essence from which everything was created.
Then followed the sky/father and earth/mother who together, or separately, were
responsible for the birth of the gods. Since the world was conceived to have four sides
regulating the universe, so four custodian deities were needed in this third range.
Between this heavenly realm and the chthonic zone beneath the earth existed the
world of people.
There will always be obscurities and inconsistencies in cosmologies that have
evolved over time. So it is with the Scythians. One problem is the identity of the
woman/snake, often presented as the daughter of a river god, who consorted with
Papaeus (Zeus). Some commentators see her as Api (Gaia). But the daughter of a mere
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