PART 19
XIX. So much for their mode of living and their
customs. As to their seasons and their physique,
the Scythians are very different from all other men,
and, like the Egyptians, are homogeneous ; they are
the reverse of prolific, and Scythia breeds the smallest
and the fewest wild animals. For it lies right close
to the north and the Rhipaean mountains, from
which blows the north wind. The sun comes
nearest to them only at the end of its course,
when it reaches the summer solstice, and then it
warms them but slightly and for a short time. The
winds blowing from hot regions do not reach them,
save rarely, and with little force ; but from the
north there are constantly blowing winds that are
chilled by snow, ice, and many waters,
1 which, never
leaving the mountains, render them uninhabitable.
A thick fog envelops by day the plains upon which
they live, so that winter is perennial, while summer,
which is but feeble, lasts only a few days. For the
plains are high and bare, and are not encircled
with mountains, though they slope from the north.
The wild animals too that are found there are not large,
but such as can find shelter under ground. They
are stunted owing to the severe climate and the
bareness of the land, where there is neither warmth
2
nor shelter. And the changes of the seasons are
[p. 123]
neither great nor violent, the seasons being uniform
and altering but little. Wherefore the men also are
like one another in physique, since summer and
winter they always use similar food and the same
clothing, breathing a moist, thick atmosphere, drinking
water from ice and snow, and abstaining from
fatigue. For neither bodily nor mental endurance
is possible where the changes are not violent. For
these causes their physiques are gross, fleshy, showing
no joints, moist and flabby, and the lower bowels
are as moist as bowels can be. For the belly cannot
possibly dry up in a land like this, with such a nature
and such a climate, but because of their fat and the
smoothness of their flesh their physiques are similar,
men's to men's and women's to women's. For as
the seasons are alike there takes place no corruption
or deterioration in the coagulation of the seed,
3
except through the blow of some violent cause or of
some disease.
