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99.
Thrace runs farther out into the sea than Scythia; and Scythia begins where a bay is formed in its coast, and the mouth of the Ister, facing southeast, is in that country.
[2]
Now I am going to describe the coast of the true Scythia from the Ister, and give its measurements. The ancient Scythian land begins at the Ister and faces south and the south wind, as far as the city called Carcinitis.
[3]
Beyond this place, the country fronting the same sea is hilly and projects into the Pontus; it is inhabited by the Tauric nation as far as what is called the Rough Peninsula; and this ends in the eastern sea.1
[4]
For the sea to the south and the sea to the east are two of the four boundary lines of Scythia, just as seas are boundaries of Attica; and the Tauri inhabit a part of Scythia like Attica, as though some other people, not Attic, were to inhabit the heights of Sunium from Thoricus to the town of Anaphlystus, if Sunium jutted farther out into the sea.
[5]
I mean, so to speak, to compare small things with great. Such a land is the Tauric country. But those who have not sailed along that part of Attica may understand from this other analogy: it is as though in Calabria some other people, not Calabrian, were to live on the promontory within a line drawn from the harbor of Brundisium to Tarentum. I am speaking of these two countries, but there are many others of a similar kind that Tauris resembles.2
1 Here = the Sea of Azov.
2 All this is no more than to say that the Tauri live on a promontory (the Tauric Chersonese), which is like the south-eastern promontory of Attica (Sunium) or the “heel” of Italy, i.e. the country east of a line drawn between the modern Brindisi and Taranto. The only difference is, says Herodotus, that the Tauri inhabit a part of Scythia yet are not Scythians, while the inhabitants of the Attic and Italian promontories are of the same stock as their neighbors.
Herodotus, with an English translation by A. D. Godley. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1920.
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References (24 total)
- Commentary references to this page
(1):
- Walter Leaf, Commentary on the Iliad (1900), 19.290
- Cross-references to this page
(7):
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 3.2.4
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), ANAPHLYSTUS
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), APU´LIA
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), BRUNDI´SIUM
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), CA´RCINA
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), IAPY´GIA
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), TAU´RICA CHERSONE´SUS
- Cross-references in notes to this page
(1):
- Polybius, Histories, The Hannibalian War — The Recovery of Tarentum
- Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page
(15):
- LSJ, Σούνιον
- LSJ, ἄγω
- LSJ, ἀνέχω
- LSJ, ἔρχομαι
- LSJ, φέρω
- LSJ, γουνός
- LSJ, ἤδη
- LSJ, μέτρ-ησις
- LSJ, παραπλέω
- LSJ, παραπλήσιος
- LSJ, παρόμοι-ος
- LSJ, πλέω
- LSJ, πόντος
- LSJ, πρόκειμαι
- LSJ, χερσόνησ-ος
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