Scythians

The Scythians were the inhabitants of Scythia from the 6th to 3rd centuries BC.

Quotes

• Now the Scythians put out the eyes of all their slaves because of the milk which they drink; and they do as follows:—they take blow-pipes of bone just like flutes, and these they insert into the vagina of the mare and blow with their mouths, and others milk while they blow: and they say that they do this because the veins of the mare are thus filled, being blown out, and so the udder is let down. When they had drawn the milk they pour it into wooden vessels hollowed out, and they set the blind slaves in order about the vessels and agitate the milk. Then that which comes to the top they skim off, considering it the more valuable part, whereas they esteem that which settles down to be less good than the other. For this reason the Scythians put out the eyes of all whom they catch; for they are not tillers of the soil but nomads.
  • Herodotus, Histories 4.2.

• The Scythians then take the seed of this hemp and creep under the felt coverings, and then they throw the seed upon the stones which have been heated red-hot: and it burns like incense and produces a vapour so thick that no vapour-bath in Hellas would surpass it: and the Scythians being delighted with the vapour-bath howl like wolves. This is to them instead of washing, for in fact they do not wash their bodies at all in water. Their women however pound with a rough stone the wood of the cypress and cedar and frankincense tree, pouring in water with it, and then with this pounded stuff, which is thick, they plaster over all their body and also their face; and not only does a sweet smell attach to them by reason of this, but also when they take off the plaster on the next day, their skin is clean and shining.
  • Herodotus, Histories 4.75.

• … The barbarous Scythian,
  Or he that makes his generation messes
  To gorge his appetite, …
  • Shakespeare, King Lear 1.1.

• Are not the Scythians of men the wisest?
  Who when their children are first born do give them
  The milk of mares and cows to drink at once,
  And do not trust them to dishonest nurses,
  Or tutors, who of evils are the worst,
  Except the midwives only. For that class
  Is worst of all, and next to them do come
  The begging priests of mighty Cybele;
  And it is hard to find a baser lot—
  Unless indeed you speak of fishmongers,
  But they are worse than even money-changers,
  And are in fact the worst of all mankind.
  • Antiphanes, in his Hater of Wickedness, as quoted by Athenaeus, 6, 9 (Tr. C. D. Yonge)