THE COUNTRY AND ITS PEOPLES

The country

During the first half of the first millennium B.C., c. 3,000 to 2,500 years ago, the southern part of Eastern Europe was occupied mainly by peoples of Iranian stock; nowadays their only traces are the archaeological remains and topographic names of Iranian derivation scattered over that area. The main Iranian-speaking peoples of the region at that period were the Scyths and the Sarmatians (Sauromatians in Greek spelling), our knowledge of whom derives partly from the works of ancient writers, and also, to a great extent, from the study of archaeological remains.

The most important work relating to the ancient Scyths is the Histories of Herodotus. His descriptions, in the light of the results of archaeological research, are on the whole correct. However, the eastern part of Scythia seems to have been little known to him. He often generalizes from exceptional occurrences and seems to have telescoped some events which took place in about the same region but at different periods. These, and some other inconsistencies and gaps in his reports will here be corrected and supplemented by taking into account the evidence offered by the results of archaeological and linguistic research.

The vague notion of the peoples of Scythia entertained by Herodotus and his erroneous idea of the size and shape of the country, have often been commented upon. Several scholars endeavoured to draw the map of Scythia according to the data given by him (map 6) but “the different results to which they come prove that in this it is hopeless to seek more than the establishment of a few facts”.