[438] Deut. xv. 19, 20; iv. 22-29; xxvi. 12-15.
[446] Deut. xiii. 12-17. Cf. Exod. xxii. 18, 20.
[455] Deut. xv. 6; xxiii. 20; xxviii. 12.
[459] Deut. xii. 12; xvi. 11, 14; xv. 12-18.
[463] Deut. xxvii. 18. Cf. Levit. xix. 14.
[469] 2 Kings xxiii. 4-25. 2 Chron. xxxiv.; xxxv. 1-9. Jesus, Son of Sirach, xlix. 1, 2.
Far from the centres of power and civilisation in Hither Asia, beyond the Caucasus and the Black Sea, dwelt wandering tribes who, in the accounts of the Greeks, were generally denoted by the common name of Scyths. It was known at an early time, among the Greeks, that these tribes which dwelt to the north of the Thracians lived on their herds, especially on the milk of their mares. Even the Homeric poems make mention of the "'horse-milkers,' of the 'Thracians,' who live poorly on milk, the most just of men." The name "Scythians" is first found in Hesiod, who calls them "horse-milking eaters of milk, who live on waggons." Æschylus says that the hordes of wandering Scythians live in desolate plains, on the shore of Oceanus, at the farthest, pathless end of the earth, on the lake Mæotis (sea of Azof), and to the east of it; "they dwell in woven tents, which move on wheels, they eat the cheese of mares, and are armed with far-shooting bows."[470]
The nations of the North come out more plainly in the history of Herodotus, who was far better informed about the North than many later authorities. "The Caspian Sea," he tells us, "is an isolated sea, fifteen days' journey in length, and eight days' journey in breadth, if the oars alone are used." Toward the east of this sea are large plains, in which dwell the Sacæ, and beyond them, on the Jaxartes, the Massagetæ; "beyond the Massagetæ are the Issedones." Beyond the Issedones dwell the Arimaspi.[471] On the other side, to the west of the Caspian Sea, is the Caucasus, the largest mountain range on the earth in the height and multitude of its mountains. This range is inhabited by many nations. Northwards of the Caucasus, and to the west as far as the northern point of the Mæotis, and to the Tanais (Don), "a great river," which comes down from the north out of a large lake in the land of the Thyssagetæ, and ends in a still larger lake--the lake of Mæotis--dwelt the Sauromatæ (the Sarmatians). Their land was one great plain, in which grew neither fruit trees nor forest trees, and it stretched upwards along the Tanais for fifteen days' journey. To the north of the land of the Sarmatians dwelt the Budini, the Thyssagetæ, and the Iyrcae. Among the Sarmatians the women, like the men, lived on horseback; they wore the same clothing as the men, and knew how to use the bow and javelin, and went with or without the men to hunt or make war,[472] and no Sarmatian maiden married till she had slain an enemy; for the Sarmatians were descendants of the Amazons, who fled from the Thermodon over the Pontus, and there took as husbands young men belonging to these Scythians who called themselves Scoloti: with these they afterwards marched to the east of the Tanais. Hence, according to Herodotus, we must fix the abode of the Sarmatians in the steppes eastward of the lower course of the Don, above the lower Volga, perhaps as far as the Yaik.