Scythians

and it was while he was monarch of Sardis that the Cimmerians, driven from their homes by the nomad Scythians, came into Asia, and took Sardis, all but the acropolis.

A tribe of wandering Scythians separated itself from the rest, and escaped into Median territory.

Cyaxares and the guests who ate with him dined on the boy's flesh, and the Scythians, having done as they planned, fled to Alyattes for protection.

And this was really so, and the gates had been shut and the war-signal had been raised on the wall.

For you know, doubtless, that yesterday the Scythians, driving up at midday, killed some of the scouts who were not attending, and have perhaps taken others alive;

And the Borysthenites, having then been captured, settled again, with the Scythians willing it, I think, because of their needing the trade and the resort of the Greeks.

Anacharsis too was a Scythian, and he is recorded as surpassing many of the philosophers among the Greeks.

Celmis again and Damnameneus, the Idaean Dactyls, first found iron in Cyprus, and Delas, another Idaean, found the tempering of bronze, though Hesiod says it was a Scythian.

"Atoeas, king of the Scythians, to the people of the Byzantines:

For which reason Alexander was not improperly styled a robber by the Scythian ambassadors, as may be seen in Quintus Curtius.

Yet perhaps, as Justin says of the Scythians, he might be considered as ignorant of vice rather than acquainted with virtue;

Justin in speaking of the Scythians, describes them as “punishing theft with more severity than any other crime;

And let not the Scythians cease from sacrificing asses, as Apollodorus and Callimachus say:

Of old, then, the Scythians worshipped the dagger, the Arabs the stone, the Persians the river;

Just as, of course, the warlike Ares is named from "lifting up" (arsis) and "destruction" (anairesis), by which it seems to me that many, especially those who simply fix a sword and sacrifice to it as to Ares — and this is a Scythian custom, as Eudoxus says in the second book of his Circuit of the Earth;

From his grandfather, therefore, he would inherit enmity toward the people, for you condemned his ancestors to death and by his mother’s blood he would be a Scythian, a Greek-tongued barbarian—so that his knavery, too, is no product of our soil.

we also equipped three hundred cavalrymen and bought three hundred Scythians;

I beg you to save me, and not give me over to the hands of the rhetorician and the Scythian.

In their place has been brought in the boorishness of certain Scythians or Massagetae;

and, finding that business in Bosporus was bad owing to the war which had broken out between Paerisades and the Scythian, and that there was no market for the goods which he had brought, he was in great perplexity;

Is trampled in a mire of Scythian slain

Hard on my borders, Scythians of the north;

I broke their power; the princes of their breed

also by the Scythians, led by the Amazons, the offspring of Ares, who made the expedition to recover Hippolyte, since she had not only broken the laws which were established among them, but had become enamored of Theseus and followed him from her home to Athens and there lived with him as his consort;

Let us single out, then, the races which have the strongest instinct for domination and the greatest power of aggression—the Scythians and the Thracians and the Persians;

For while Hellas was still insignificant, our territory was invaded by the Thracians, led by Eumolpus, son of Poseidon, and by the Scythians, led by the Amazons, the daughters of Ares—not at the same time, but during the period when both races were trying to extend their dominion over Europe;

Well, Euthydemus, replied Ctesippus, they say that among the Scythians those are the happiest and best men who have a lot of gold in their own skulls—somewhat as you were saying a moment ago that dog is father;

Well, as the Scythians are said to fight, as much fleeing as pursuing;

Even today does not a great part of the Scythians clothe themselves in the hides of foxes and mice, which are soft to the touch and impenetrable to the winds?

"That you may know," he says, "that anger has in it something noble, you will see that free nations, which are the most prone to anger, are such as the Germans and Scythians.

In whom have the nations believed — the Parthians, the Medes, the Elamites, and those who dwell in Mesopotamia, Armenia, Phrygia, Cappadocia, and those who inhabit Pontus and Asia and Pamphylia, those who reside in Egypt, and those who inhabit the region of Africa beyond Cyrene, Romans and resident foreigners, and then the Jews in Jerusalem, and the other nations — as now the various tribes of the …

more foul than any Scythian, more unsettled than the wagon-dweller, more inhuman than the Massagetes, more audacious than an Amazon, darker than the fog, colder than winter, more brittle than the ice, more treacherous than the Danube, more precipitous than the Caucasus.

They say also that among certain Scythian tribes each dead man is eaten by his own people.

But we find, even in the Commentaries on Human Antiquities, that the human race has gradually grown beyond measure, while the Aborigines, or wanderers, or exiles, or any glory-seekers occupy lands — as the Scythians occupied the Parthian lands, as the Temenidae the Peloponnese, as the Athenians Asia, as the Phrygians Italy and the Phoenicians Africa — while there are also solemn migrations, which …

The Scythians overflow the Persians, the Phoenicians belch forth into Africa, the Phrygians bring forth the Romans, the Chaldaean seed is brought up into Egypt;

while in military power and number of troops it was decidedly next to that of the Scythians.

the Getae and the tribes in this part being both borderers on the Scythians, and equipped in the same manner, for they are all mounted bowmen.

But with this not only is it impossible for those in Europe to vie, but even in Asia, putting one nation against another, there is none that can stand up against the Thracians, if they are all unanimous.

the Scythian king, for instance, would never be able to extend his rule over any other nation besides his own, although the Scythians are very numerous, but he would be well content if he could maintain himself in power over his own people;