SCYTHIA, originally (e.g., in Herodotus iv. 1-142) the country of the Scythae or the country over which the nomad Scythae were lords ; that is, the steppe from the Carpathians to the Don. With the disappearance of the Scythae as an ethnic and political entity, the name of Scythia gives place in its original seat to that of Sarmatia, and is artificially applied by geographers, on the one hand, to the Dobrogea, the lesser Scythia of Strabo, where it remained in official use until Byzantine times; on the other, to the unknown regions of northern Asia, the eastern Scythia of Strabo, the "Scythia intra et extra Imaum" of Ptolemy; but throughout classical literature Scythia generally meant all regions to the north and north-east of the Black sea, and a Scythian (Skuthes) any barbarian coming from those parts. Herodotus (/.c.) to whom, with Hippocrates, we owe our earliest knowledge of the land and its inhabitants, tries to confine the word Scyth to a certain race and its subjects, but even he seems to slip back into the wider use. Hence there is much doubt as to his exact meaning.
Geography.—Herodotus' account of Scythia falls into two irreconcilable parts: one (iv. 99 et seq.), in connection with the tale of the invasion of Darius, makes of Scythia a kind of chess board 4,000 stades square on which the combatants can make their moves quite unhindered by the great rivers ; the other (16-2o), founded on what he learned from Greeks of Olbia, and supplemented by the tales of the 7th-century traveller, Aristeas of Proconnesus, tallies more or less with the lie of the land. In accordance with this we can give the relative positions of the various tribes, and an excursus on the rivers ,(47-57) lets us define their actual seats. In western Scythia, starting from Olbia and going northwards, we have Callipidae on the lower Hypanis (Bug), Alazones where the Tyras (Dniester) and Hypanis come near each other in their middle courses, and Aroteres ("Ploughmen") above them. These tribes raised wheat, presumably in the river valleys, and sold it for export; in the eastern half from west to east were Georgi (perhaps the same as Aroteres or perhaps garden cultivators not using the plough) between the Ingul and the Borysthenes (Dnieper), nomad Scyths and royal Scyths between the Borysthenes and the Tanais (Don). Behind all these stretched a row of non-Scythian tribes from west to east : on the Maris (Maros) in Transylvania the Agathyrsi (q.v.) ; Neuri in Podolia and Kiev; Androphagi and Me lanchlaeni (qq.v.) in Poltava, Ryazan and Tambov. On the lower Don and Volga we have the Sauromatae, and on the middle course of the Volga the Budini (q.v.) with the great wooden town of Gelonus and its semi-Greek inhabitants. From this region started an important trade route eastward by the Thyssagetae (q.v.) among the southern Urals, the Iyrcae on the Tobol and Irtysh to the Kirgiz steppe, where dwelt other Scyths, regarded as colonists of those in Europe; then the traveller passed by the Argippaei in the Altai and the Issedones (q.v.) in the Tarim basin,
to the one-eyed Arimaspi (q.v.) on the borders of China, who stole their gold from the watchful griffins, and who marched with goat-footed men and Hyperboreans reaching to the sea; but this is all guess work. To the south of Scythia the Crimean moun tains were inhabited by a non-Scythic race, the Tauri (q.v.). The Sauromatae have generally been thought the same as the Sarmatae later found in their place, but Rostovtsev has raised serious diffi culties.
Ethnology.—Herodotus divides the Scythians into the agri culturists (Callipidae, Alazones, Aroteres and Ge6rgi) in the western part of the country, and the nomads with the royal Scyths to the east. The latter claimed dominion over all the rest. It is clear that we have to do with a mixed population called by foreigners after the ruling tribe. The evidence suggests that this tribe was itself of mixed blood. In the 2nd century A.D., when the steppes were dominated by the Sarmatae (q.v.), the majority of the barbarian names in the inscriptions of Olbia, Tanais and Panticapaeum were Iranian. We can infer that the Sarmatae spoke an Iranian language. Pliny speaks of their de scent from the Medes. Now the Sauromatae are represented as half-caste Scyths speaking a corrupt variety of Scythian. Pre sumably, therefore, the Scyths also spoke an Iranian dialect. But of the Scyth words preserved by Herodotus some are Iran ian; others, especially the names of deities, rather suggest a Ugrian origin. The Scyths may be regarded as a horde which came down from upper Asia and conquered Iranian-speaking people, perhaps in time adopting the speech of their subjects. The settled Scythians might be, in part, the remains of this Iranian popula tion, or the different tribes of them may have been connected with their neighbours beyond Scythian dominion—Thracian Getae and Agathyrsi, Slavonic Neuri, Finnish Androphagi and such like. The Cimmerians (q.v.) who preceded the Scythians used Iranian proper names, and possibly represented this Iranian element in greater purity. Herodotus gives three legends of the origin of the Scyths (iv. 5-12) ; these, though they contradict each other, can be reconciled with the view stated above. The first two purport to describe the origin of a people termed Scoloti, who are said to be autochthonous and have Iranian names. Surely this is the national legend of the agricultural Scythians about. Olbia, and the name Scoloti, by which modern writers have desig nated the royal Scyths, is the true designation of one subject race. The royal line of these is quite distinct from the true royal Scyths, who, like most nomad conquerors, allowed their subjects to pre serve their own organizations.