SECTION III.

Darius prepares for an expedition against the Scythians. A digression upon the manners and customs of that nation.

A. M. 3490.

After the reduction of Babylon,* Darius made great Ant. J. C. 514. preparations for war against the Scythians, who inhabited that large tract of land which lies between the Danube and the Tanais. His pretence for undertaking this war was, to be revenged of that nation for the invasion of Asia by their ancestors:† a very frivolous and sorry pretext; and a very ridiculous ground for reviving an old quarrel, which had ceased 120 years before.

Whilst the Scythians were employed in that irruption, which lasted eight-and-twenty years, the Scythians' wives married their slaves. When the husbands were on their return home, these slaves went out to meet them with a numerous army, and disputed their entrance into their country. After some battles fought with nearly equal loss on both sides, the masters considering that it was doing too much honour to their slaves to put them upon the foot of soldiers, marched against them in the next encounter with whips in their hands, to make them remember their proper condition. This stratagem had the intended effect: for not being able to bear the sight of their masters thus armed, they all ran away.

I design in this place to imitate Herodotus, who in writing of this war takes occasion to give an ample account of all that relates to the customs and manners of the Scythians. But I shall be much more brief in my account of this matter than he is.

A digression concerning the Scythians.

Formerly there were Scythians both in Europe and Asia, most of them inhabiting those parts that lie towards the North. I design now chiefly to treat of the first, namely, of the European Scythians.

Historians, in the accounts they have left us of the manners and character of the Scythians, relate things of them that are entirely opposite and contradictory to one another. One while they represent them as the justest and most moderate people in the world: another while they describe them as a fierce and barbarous nation, which carried its cruelty to such excesses, as are shocking to human nature. This contrariety is a manifest proof, that those different characters are to be applied to different nations in that vast and extensive tract of country; and that, though they were all comprehended under one and the same general denomination of Scythians, we ought not to confound them or their characters together.

Strabo has quoted authors, who mention some Scythians dwelling upon the coast of the Euxine sea, that cut the throats of all

*Herod. 1. iv. e. 1. Justin. l. ii. c. 5.

† Mention is made of this before, in chap. iii. &c. of this vol.

Strabo, 1. vii. p. 298,

strangers who came amongst them, fed upon their flesh, and made pots and drinking vessels of their skulls, when they had dried them. Herodotus,* in describing the sacrifices which the Scythians offered to the god Mars, says, they used to offer human victims. Their manner of making treaties, according to this author's account, was very strange and particular.

They first poured wine into a large earthen vessel, and then the contracting parties, cutting their arms with a knife, let some of their blood run into the wine, and stained likewise their armour therein; after which they themselves, and all that were present, drank of that liquor, uttering the heaviest imprecations against the person that should violate the treaty.

But what the same historian relates, concerning the ceremonies observed at the funeral of their kings, is still more extraordinary. I shall only mention such of those ceremonies, as may serve to give us an idea of the cruel barbarity of this people. When their king died, they embalmed his body, and wrapped it up in wax; this done, they put it into an open chariot, and carried it from city to city, exposing it to the view of all the people under his dominion. When this circuit was finished, they laid the body down in the place appointed for the burial of it, and there they made a large grave, in which they interred the king, and with him one of his wives, his chief cup-bearer, his great chamberlain, his master of horse, his chancellor, his secretary of state, who were all put to death for that purpose. To these they added several horses, a great number of drinking vessels, and a certain part of all the furniture belonging to their deceased monarch: after which they filled up the grave, and covered it with earth. This was not all. When the anniversary of his interment came, they cut the throats of fifty more of the dead king's officers, and of the same number of horses, and, having first prepared their bodies for the purpose, by embowelling them and stuffing them with straw, they placed the officers on horseback round the king's tomb, probably to serve him as guards. These ceremonies in all appearance took their rise from a notion they might have of their king's being still alive; and upon this supposition they judged it necessary, that he should have his court and ordinary officers still about him. Whether employments, which terminated in this manner, were much sought after, I will not determine.

It is now time to pass to the consideration of their manners and customs, milder and more humane; though possibly in another sense they may appear to be equally savage. The account I am going to give of them is chiefly taken from Justin. According to this author, the Scythians lived in great innocence and simplicity. They were ignorant indeed of all arts and sciences, but then they

*Herod. l. iv. c. 62.

†This custom was still practised by the Iberians, who were originally Scythians, in the time of Tacitus, who makes mention of it. Ann. 1. xii. c. 47.

Herod. 1. iv. e. 70.

Ibid. c. 71, 72.

|| Lib. ii. c. 2.

were equally unacquainted with vice. They did not make any division of their lands amongst themselves, says Justin: it would have been in vain for them to have done it; since they did not apply themselves to cultivate them. Horace, in one of his odes, of which I shall insert a part by and by, tells us, that some of them did cultivate a certain portion of land allotted to them for one year only, at the expiration of which they were relieved by others, who succeeded them on the same conditions. They had no houses, nor settled habitation; but wandered continually with their cattle and their flocks from country to country. Their wives and children they carried along with them in wagons, covered with the skins of beasts, which were all the houses they had to dwell in. Justice* was observed and maintained amongst them through the natural temper and disposition of the people, and not by any compulsion of laws, with which they were wholly unacquainted. No crime was more severely punished among them than theft; and that with good reason. For their herds and flocks, in which all their riches consisted, being never shut up, how could they possibly subsist, if theft had not been most rigorously punished? They coveted neither silver nor gold, like the rest of mankind; and made milk and honey their principal diet. They were strangers to the use of linen or woollen manufactures; and to defend themselves from the violent and continual cold of their climate, they made use of nothing but the skins of beasts.

I said before, that these manners of the Scythians might appear to some people very wild and savage. And indeed, what can be said for a nation that has lands, and yet does not cultivate them; that has herds of cattle, of which they content themselves with eating the milk, and neglect the flesh? The wool of their sheep might supply them with warm and comfortable clothes, and yet they use no other raiment than the skins of animals. But, that which is the greatest demonstration of their ignorance and savageness, according to the general opinion of mankind, is their utter neglect of gold and silver, which have always been had in such great request in all civilized nations.

But, oh! how happy was this ignorance; how vastly preferable this savage state to our pretended politeness! This contempt of all the conveniences of life, says Justin, was attended with such an honesty and uprightness of manners, as hindered them from ever coveting their neighbours' goods. For the desire of riches can only take place, where riches can be made use of. And would to God, says the same author, we could see the same moderation prevail among the rest of mankind, and the like indifference to the goods

Justitia gentis ingeniis culta, non legibus.

Hæc continentia illis morum quoque justitiam indidit, nihil alienum concupiscentibus. Quippe ibidem divitiarum cupido est, ubi et usus. Atque utinam reliquis mortalibus similis moderatio et abstinentia alieni foret! profectò non tantum bellorum per omnia secula terris omnibus continuaretur ; neque plus hominum ferrum et arma, quàm naturalis fatorum conditio raperet.

of other people! The world would not then have seen wars perpetually succeeding one another in all ages, and in all countries: nor would the number of those that are cut off by the sword, exceed that of those who fall by the irreversible decree and law of nature. Justin finishes his character of the Scythians with a very judicious reflection. It is a surprising thing, says he, that a happy natural disposition, without the assistance of education, should have inspired the Scythians with such a wisdom and moderation, as the Grecians could not attain to, neither by the institutions of their legislators, nor the rules and precepts of all their philosophers; and that the manners of a barbarous nation should be preferable to those of a people so much improved and refined by the polite arts and sciences. So much more happy effects were produced by the ignorance of vice in the one, than by the knowledge of virtue in the other! The Scythian fathers thought, with good reason, that they left their children a valuable inheritance, when they left them in peace and union with one another. One of their kings, whose name was Scylurus, finding himself draw near his end, sent for all his children, and giving to each of them one after another a bundle of arrows tied fast together, desired them to break them. Each used his endeavours, but was not able to do it. Then untying the bundle, and giving them the arrows one by one, they were very easily broken.Let this image, says the father, be a lesson to you of the mighty advantage that results from union and concord. In order to strengthen and enlarge these domestic advantages, the Scythians used to admit their friends into the same terms of union with them as their relations. Friendship was considered by them as a sacred and inviolable alliance, which differed but little from that which nature has put between brethren, and which they could not infringe without being guilty of a heinous crime.

Ancient authors seemed to have vied with each other who should most extol the innocence of manners, that reigned among the Scythians, by magnificent encomiums. That of Horace I shall transcribe at large. That poet does not confine it entirely to the Scythians, but joins the Gete with them, who were their near neighbours. It is in that beautiful ode, where he inveighs against the luxury and irregularities of the age in which he lived. After having told us, that peace and tranquillity of mind is not to be procured either by immense riches, or sumptuous buildings, he adds, A hundred times happier are the Scythians, who roam about in their

*Prorsus ut admirabile videatur, hoc illis naturam dare, quod Græci longâ sapientium doctrinâ præceptisque philosophorum consequi nequeunt, cultosque mores incultæ barbariæ collatione superari. Tantò plus in illis proficit vitiorum ignoratio, quàm in his cognitio virtutis! † Plut. de garrul. p. 511. Lucian. in Tex. p. 51.

Campestres meliùs Scythæ,

Quorum plaustra vagas ritè trahunt domos,

Vivunt, et rigidi Getæ ;

Immetata quibus jugera liberas

Fruges et Cererem ferunt!

itinerant houses, their wagons; and happier even are the frozen Getœ. With them the earth, without being divided by land-marks, produceth her fruits, which are gathered in common. There each man's tillage is but of one year's continuance; and when that term of his labour is expired, he is relieved by a successor, who takes his place, and manures the ground on the same conditions. There the innocent step-mothers form no cruel designs against the lives of their husbands' children by a former wife. The wives do not pretend to domineer over their husbands on account of their fortunes, nor are to be corrupted by the insinuating language of spruce adulterers. The greatest portion of the maiden, is her father's and mother's virtue, her inviolable attachment to her husband, and her perfect disregard of all other men. They dare not be unfaithful, because they are convinced that infidelity is a crime, and its reward is death.

When we consider the manners and character of the Scythians without prejudice, can we possibly forbear to look upon them with esteem and admiration? Does not their manner of living, as to the exterior part of it at least, bear a great resemblance to that of the patriarchs, who had no fixed habitation; who did not till the ground; who had no other occupation than that of feeding their flocks and herds; and who dwelt in tents? Can we believe this people were much to be pitied, for not understanding, or rather for despising, the use of gold and silver? Is it not to be wished that those metals had for ever lain buried in the bowels of the earth,* and that they had never been dug from thence to become the causes and instruments of almost every crime? What advantage could gold or silver be of to the Scythians, who valued nothing but what the necessities of men actually require, and who took care to set narrow bounds to those necessities? It is no wonder, that living as they did, without houses, they should make no account of those arts that were so highly valued in other places, as architecture, sculpture, and painting; or that they should despise fine clothes and costly furniture, since they found the skins of beasts sufficient to defend them against the inclemency of the seasons. After all, can we truly say, that these pretended advantages contribute to the real happiness of life? Were those nations that had them in the greatest Nec cultura placet langior annuà, Defunctumque laboribus Equali recreat sorte vicarius.

Illic matre carentibus

Privignis mulier temperat innocens:

Nec dotata regit virum

Conjux, nec nitido fidit adultero

Dos est magna parentium

Virtus, et metuens alterius viri

Certo fœdere castitas:

Et peccare nefas, aut pretium est. mori.

Hor. Lib. iii. Od. 24.

* Aurum irrepertum, et sic meliùs situm
Cùm terra celat, spernere fortior,

Quàm cogere humanos in usus

Omne sacrum rapiente dextrâ. Hor. lib. iii. Od. 3.

VOL. II.

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