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BOOK cause, to disperse through the world its uncivilised inhabitants.

II.

Scythians

rope.

Ant. Chr.

THE emigrating Scythians crossed the Araxes, enter Eu- passed out of Asia, and invading the Kimme600-700 rians, suddenly appeared in Europe, in the seventh century before the Christian æra. Part of the Kimmerians flying into Asia Minor, some of the Scythian hordes pursued them; but, turning in a direction different from that which the Kimmerians traversed, they missed their intended prey, and fell unintentionally upon the Medes. They defeated the Medes, pressed on towards Egypt, and governed those parts of Asia for twenty-eight years, till Cyaxares, the king of Media, at last expelled them. 23

THE Scythian tribes however continued to flock into Europe; and, in the reign of Darius, their European colonies were sufficiently numerous and celebrated to excite the ambition of the Persian monarch, after his capture of Babylon; but all his efforts against them failed. 24 In the time of Herodotus, they had gained an important footing in Europe. They seem to have spread into it, from the Tanais to the Danube 25, and to have then taken a westerly direction; but their kindred colonies, in Thrace, had extended also to the south. Their most northward ramification in Europe was the tribe of the Roxolani, who dwelt above the Borysthenes, the modern Dnieper.

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26

23 Herod. Clio, s. 15. 103-106. It was at this period that Idanthyrgus, the Scythian king, overran Asia as far as Egypt. Strabo, 1007. At this time also occurred the expedition of Maduos, their king. Strabo, 106.

24 Herod. Melpom.

25 Ibid. Melp. s. 47-57

26 Strabo says,

"Above the Borysthenes dwell the last of the

I.

It would be impertinent to the great subject of CHAP. this history, to engage in a minuter discussion of the Scythian tribes. They have become better known to us, in recent periods, under the name of Getæ and Goths 27, the most celebrated of their branches.

As they spread over Europe, the Kimmerian and Keltic population retired towards the west and south. In the days of Cæsar, the most advanced tribes of the Scythian, or Gothic race, were known to the Romans under the name of Germans. They occupied all the continent but the Cimbric peninsula, and had reached and even passed the Rhine. One of their divisions, the Belgæ, had for some time established themselves in Flanders and part of France; and another body, under Ariovistus, were attempting a similar settlement near the centre of Gaul, which Cæsar prevented. It is most probable that the Belgæ in Britain were descendants of

28

known Scuthoi, the Roxolanoi. The parts beyond them are unin-
habitable from the cold." 175. He repeats this again.
66 If any
live above the Roxolanoi we know not. They are the most northern,
and inhabit the places between the Tanais (the Don), and the Borys-
thenes." p. 470.

27 That the Getæ were Goths cannot be doubted. The Getæ were the same as the Daci, or, as they were more anciently called, Davi. Hence the Greek terms for slaves in their comedies, which Terence has borrowed, Geta and Davus. Strabo, lib. vii. 467. The Getæ used the same language with the Thracians, and the Greeks called them a Thracian nation: so does Menander. Strabo, p.453–455. Ovid, who was banished to Tome, a town of Mysia, on the Euxine, frequently talks of his Getic and Scythic locality in his Epistles and Tristia. As he was so near the borders of the Sarmatians, it is a natural circumstance that their name is also mentioned in his verses; but this is no identification of nations whose origin was so distinct.

28 These two facts are fully asserted by Cæsar. He expressly distinguishes the Kelts from the Belgians in Gaul, as differing in language, laws, and customs, and ascribes to the Belgians a German origin.

BOOK
II.

The Sakai

suna probably the Saxons.

colonists or invaders from the Belgæ in Flanders and Gaul.

THE names Scythians and Scoloti were, like Galli and Kimmerians, not so much local as generic appellations. The different tribes of the Scythians, like those of the Kimmerians and Gauls, had their peculiar distinctive denominations.

THE SAXONS were a German or Teutonic, that is, a Gothic or Scythian tribe; and of the various Scythian nations which have been recorded, the Sakai, or Sacæ are the people from whom the descent of the Saxons may be inferred, with the least violation of probability. Sakai-suna, or the sons of the Sakai, abbreviated into Saksun, which is the same sound as Saxon, seems a reasonable etymology of the word Saxon. The Sakai, who in Latin are called Sacæ, were an important branch of the Scythian nation. They were so celebrated, that the Persians called all the Scythians by the name of Sacæ; and Pliny, who mentions this, remarks them among the most distinguished people of Scythia.29 Strabo places them eastward of the Caspian, and states them to have made many incursions on the Kimmerians and Treres, both far and near. They seized Bactriana, and the most fertile part of Armenia, which, from them, derived the name Sakasina; they defeated Cyrus; and they reached the Cappadoces on the Euxine.30 This important fact of a part of Armenia having been named Sakasina, is mentioned by Strabo in another place31; and seems to give a geographical locality

31

29 Pliny, lib. vi. c. 19.

20 Strabo, lib. xi. pp. 776. 778. 31 Strab. p. 124. Mr. Keppel, in his late travels, calls this "the beautiful province of Karabaugh." In a letter to the Royal Literary Society, I have traced 262 words in the Persian, Zend, and Pehlvi languages, like as many in the Anglo-Saxon.

to our primeval ancestors, and to account for the Persian words that occur in the Saxon language, as they must have come into Armenia from the northern regions of Persia.

THAT Some of the divisions of this people were really called Saka-suna, is obvious from Pliny; for he says, that the Sakai, who settled in Armenia, were named Sacassani 32, which is but Saka-suna, spelt by a person unacquainted with the meaning of the combined words. And the name Sacasena 33, which they gave to the part of Armenia they occupied, is nearly the same sound as Saxonia. It is also important to remark, that Ptolemy mentions a Scythian people, sprung from the Sakai, by the name of Saxones. If the Sakai, who reached Armenia, were called Sacassani, they may have traversed Europe with the same appellation; which being pronounced by the Romans from them, and then reduced to writing from their pronunciation, may have been spelt with the x instead of the ks, and thus Saxones would not be a greater variation from Sacassani or Saksuna, than we find between French, François, Franci, and their Greek name, Ppayy; or between Spain, Espagne, and Hispania.

Ir is not at all improbable, but that some of these marauding Sakai, or Sacassani, were gradually propelled to the western coasts of Europe, on which they were found by Ptolemy, and from which they molested the Roman Empire, in the third century of our æra. There was a people called Saxoi, on the Euxine, according to Stephanus.34

32 Pliny, lib. vi. c. 11.

53 Strabo, lib. xi. pp. 776. 778.
24 Stephanus de Urb. et Pop. p. 657.

CHAP.

I.

II.

BOOK We may consider these also, as a nation of the same parentage; who, in the wanderings of the Sakai, from Asia to the German Ocean, were left on the Euxine, as others had chosen to occupy Armenia. We may here recollect the traditional descent of Odin preserved by Snorre in the Edda and his history. This great ancestor of the Saxon and Scandinavian chieftains is represented to have migrated from a city, on the east of the Tanais, called Asgard, and a country called Asaland, which imply the city and land of the Asæ or Asians. The cause of this movement was the progress of the Romans.35 Odin is stated to have moved first into Russia, and thence into Saxony. This is not improbable. The wars between the Romans and Mithridates involved, and shook most of the barbaric nations in these parts, and may have excited the desire, and imposed the necessity of a westerly or European emigration.

Anciert Scythian

Or the ancient Scythian language, the probable language, parent of all the Gothic tongues, we have a few words preserved to us :

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and deities.

Oior

Pata

Groucasum

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Or their gods, we learn that they had seven; whose character and attributes were thought, by

35 Snorre Ynglinga Saga. c. 2. and 5.

36 Herod. Melpom. s. 52. 28. 110. Pliny, lib. vi. c. 19.

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