Barry Cunlife - The Scythians

the scythians as others saw them
crates himself. There are internal hints that its unknown author, usually referred
to as Pseudo-Hippocrates, may have come from Knidos. The second part of the
work, chapters 17–22, gives an intriguing and detailed account of Scythians ‘dwelling
around Lake Maeotis’ (the Sea of Azov). It deals with their physical characteristics,
way of life, gender issues, and health owing little to earlier or contemporary
accounts and giving every impression of being based on close personal observation.
Its particular value lies in the light which it throws on attitudes to gender in Scythian
society (pp. 218–20).
The ethnographic accounts of the steppe nomads given by Herodotus and
Pseudo-Hippocrates provide an unusually vivid account of a barbarian people
observed and researched by their Greek contemporaries. Through writings such as
these and through daily contact in the north Pontic coastal colonies the Scythians
became familiar to the Greek world. For Ephoros, writing in the mid fourth century,
the Scythians were one of the four great barbarian peoples of the known world, the
others being Celts, Persians, and Libyans.
A View of the Scythian World and Beyond, c.400 bc
Herodotus had a clear view of the land occupied by the people he considered to be
Scythians. It was ‘level, well-watered, and abounding in pasture’ and was crossed
by eight major rivers, each of which he names, all flowing into the Black Sea. At the
western extremity was the Ister (Danube), while the eastern limit of Scythian territory
lay on the Tanais (Don). He believed the Borysthenes (Dnieper) to be the greatest
and most productive of the rivers of the steppe.
It has upon its banks the loveliest and most excellent pastures for cattle; it contains an
abundance of the most delicious fish; its water is most pleasant to taste; its stream is
limpid while all the other rivers near it are muddy; the richest harvests spring up along
its course and where the ground is not sown, the heaviest crops of grass; while salt
forms in great plenty about its mouth without human aid.
(Hist. iv. 53)
His eulogy is probably based on personal observations made when visiting Olbia,
situated on the river estuary. From there he probably travelled inland to explore the
Scythian steppe.
Between the Danube and the Don Herodotus mentions seven distinct groups of
Scythians, giving some indication of their locations in relation to the rivers. That
there is some doubt about the identification of the rivers, combined with the fact that
the distances he gives may have been subject to scribal error (and anyway his grasp
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