Hyperboreoi: a nation. […] And Damastes in his On Nations: that the Issedones lived up from the Skythians; and the Arimasps further up from them; and up from the Arimasps the Rhipai mountains, from which Boreas blows, and they never lack snow; and beyond these mountains the Hyperboreans come down to the other sea.
Author: Damastes of Sigeion
Title of Work: On Nations (Περὶ ἐθνῶν, also known as Ἐθνῶν κατάλογος καὶ πόλεων and περίπλους).
Location in Work: Stephanos, Ethnikon, s.v. Ὑπερβόρεοι
Date of Work: c. 420 BCE
Original Language: Greek (Attic, as relayed)
Original Text:
Ὑπερβόρεοι· ἔθνος. [...] Δαμάστης δ᾽ἐν τῷ Περὶ ἐθνῶν ἄνω Σκυθῶν Ἰσσηδόνας οἰκεῖν, τούτων δ’ ἀνωτέρω Ἀριμασπούς, ἄνω δὲ Ἀριμασπων τὰ Ῥίπαια ὄρη, ἐξ ὧν τὸν βορέαν πνεῖν, χιόνα δὲ μηπότε αὐτὰ ἐλλείπειν. ὑπὲρ δὲ τὰ ὄρη ταῦτα Ὑπερβορέους καθήκειν εἰς τὴν ἑτέραν θάλασσαν.
Reference Edition: Billerbeck, Stephanos, s.v. Ὑπερβόρεοι
Edition Notes: Billerbeck unecessarily emended ἐλλείπειν to ἐκλείπειν, with no effect on the translation (following August Meineke’s 1849 edition, also followed by FGrH and BNJ).
Source of Date of Work: See the commentary to Damastes’ account of an Athenian mission via an Arabian lake to Sousa (to come in this collection).
Commentary:
This passage, preserved as a paraphrase in a Byzantine ethnographic encyclopedia, is very similar to Herodotos’ description of the contents of the Arimaspeia, except that Herodotos left out the Rhipai mountains, whereas Damastes as relayed by Stephanos left out the Arimaspeia’s griffins. The match between the last statement of Damastes relayed by Stephanos (ὑπὲρ δὲ τὰ ὄρη ταῦτα Ὑπερβορέους καθήκειν εἰς τὴν ἑτέραν θάλασσαν) and the parallel text in Herodotos (τούτων δὲ τοὺς Ὑπερβορέους κατήκοντας ἐπὶ θάλασσαν) is so close that it suggests a common source, which, given the brief, summary nature of the two texts, is unlikely to be the Arimaspeia itself. This could have been an earlier prose summary of the Arimaspeia or its geography, or it could have been Damastes, if his original included griffins and was earlier than Herodotos.
The fact that two of our earliest sources on the Arimaspeia use similar language to describe the Hyperboreans living on a northern sea weighs in favor of a conclusion that the Hyperborean country was located by a northern sea in the Arimaspeia. But it is also possible that the Arimaspeia described the Hyperboreans living by the world-encircling river Okeanos, and that Herodotos’ and Damastes’ texts reflect a rationalized version. The tragic play Prometheus Bound, traditionally misattributed to Aiskhylos and probably roughly contemporary with Herodotos and Damastes, drew much of its topography from the Arimaspeia and located the Hyperboreans by Okeanos.
Concordance: BNJ/FGrH Damastes (5) F1