Category: Skythians
This collection takes the position that the Skythians described in the Arimaspeia were a South Caucasian people referred to as Ishkugulu in Urartian texts and Ishkuza in Assyrian texts, and need to be distinguished from an unrelated people who were also called Skythians but lived in what is now Ukraine, who will be referred to as Pontic Skythians. Since Pontic and South Caucasian Skythians have been confused with each other from the earliest accounts of them in Greek literature, this collection will attempt to identify and gather those that refer to the South Caucasian Skythians. Of special importance is a substantial account by Xenophon of Athens of an encounter with South Caucasian Skythians living in the same area where Urartian texts located them almost four centuries earlier.
Herodotos on Aristeas’ account of his journey
Posted in Arimasps, Author and poem, Eastern Sea, Extracorporeal travel, Griffins, Hyperboreans, Issedones, Kimmerians, Seizure and possession, SkythiansAnd Aristeas son of Kaustrobios, a man of Prokonnesos, composed verses saying he reached the Issedones while seized by Apollo; and dwelling above the Issedones, the one-eyed Arimasps-men; and above them, the gold-guarding griffins; and…
Herodotos on Hyperboreans
Posted in Abaris, Arimasps, Hyperboreans, SkythiansAbout the Hyperborean people, neither the Skythians nor any others of those living by them tell us anything, unless perhaps the Issedones. And I myself think even they say nothing. For if they spoke of…
Lykourgos on Abaris’ mission to Hyperborea during a legendary famine
Posted in Abaris, Hyperboreans, Skythians1. […] oh gentlemen jurors, that one is not to sacrifice in the way Menesaichmos says, and if one does, it is sacrilege. He will read you the testimony of Theogenes, being the herald to…
Iamblichos on ‘Abaris the Skythian’ as Pythagoras’ apprentice
Posted in Abaris, Hyperboreans, SkythiansIn general it is worth knowing that Pythagoras discovered many ways of teaching and training, and transmitted the appropriate portion of wisdom according to each one’s own nature and ability. And the greatest evidence is…
The Souda on ‘Skythian’ Abaris and his ‘Skythinian’ book of oracles
Posted in Abaris, Griffins, Hyperboreans, SkythiansSkythian, son of Seuthes. He wrote the so-called Skythinian Oracles and Marriage of the river Hebros and Purifications and a Theogony in prose and Arrival of Apollo among the Hyperboreans in meter. He came from…