34 plint's NATUEAL HISTOET. [Tlook VI. 



belongs to only the nearest nation of them. The more ancient 

 writers give tliem the name of Aramii. The Scythians them- 

 selves give the name of ** Chorsari" to the Persians, and they call 

 Mount Caucasus Graucasis, which means *' white with snow." 

 The multitude of these Scythian nations is quite innumerable : 

 in their life and habits they much resemble the people of Parthia. 

 The tribes among them that are better known are the Sacse, the 

 Massagetae,^^ the Dahte,^*^ the Essedones,^^ the Ariacae,^- the 

 Khymmici, the Presici, the Amardi,^^ the Histi, the Edones, the 

 Camoe, the Camaca), the Euchatee,^^ the Cotieri, the Anthusiani, 

 the Psaca), the Arinfaspi,^^ the Antacati, the Chroasai, and the 



;ire now peopled by the 3{!irghiz Cossacks, in whose name that of their 

 ancestors, the Sacse, is traced by some geographers. 



S9 Meaning the " Great Geta)." They dwelt beyond the Jaxartes and 

 tlie Sea of Aral, and their country corresponds to that of the Khirghiz 

 Tartars in the north of Independent Tartary. 



^" The Duhoe were a numerous and warlike Nomad tribe, who wandered 

 over the vast steppes lying to the east of the Caspian Sea, Strabo has 

 grouped them with the Sacoe and Massagetae, as the great Scythian tribes 

 of Inner Asia, to the north of Bactriana. 



9' See also B. iv. c. 20, and B. vi, c. 7. The position of the Essedones, 

 or perhaps more correctly, the Issedones, may probably be assigned to the 

 east of 'Ichim, in tlie steppes of the central border of the Kirghiz, in the 

 immediate vicinity of the Arimaspi, who dwelt on the northern declivity 

 of the Altai chain. A communication is supposed to have been carried on 

 between these tAvo peoples for the exchange of the gold that was the produce 

 of those mountain districts. 



'•'■'^ They dwelt, according to Ptolemy, along the southern banks of the 

 Jaxartes. 



'^'^ Or the Mardi, a warlike Asiatic tribe. Stephanus Eyzantinus, fol- 

 lowing Strabo, places the Aniardi near the Hyrcani, and adds, " There 

 are«also Persian Mardi, witliout the «/' and, speaking of the Mardi, he 

 mentions them as an Hyrcanian tribe, of predatory habits, and skilled in 

 ,afchery. 

 ^ J* B' Anvillc supposes that the Euchatse may have dwelt at the modern 

 Koten, in Little Bukharia. It is suggested, however, by Parisot, that 

 tliey may have possibly occupied a valley of the Himalaya, in the midst 

 of a country known as " Catljai," or the " desert." 



^^ The tirst extant notice of them is in Herodotus ; but before him there 

 was the poem of Aristeas of Proconnesus, of which the title was ' Ari- 

 iiKispea ;' and it is mainly upon the statements in it that the stories told re- 

 lative to this people rest — sucli as their being one-eyed, and as to their stealing 

 tlie gold from the Gryphes, or Griffins, under whose custody it was placed. 

 Their locality is by some supposed to have been on the left bank of tlie 

 ^liddlc Volga, in the governments of Kasau, Simbirsk, and Saratov : 



