34 PLINY'S NATTJEAL HISTORY. [Book VI. 



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

 writers give them 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 snojw." 

 The multitude of these Scythian nations is quite innumerabfe : 

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

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

 Massagetae, 89 the Daha3, 90 the Essedones, 91 the Ariacae, 92 the 

 Rhymmici, the Paesici, the Amardi, 93 the Histi, the Edones, the 

 Cainae, the Camacae, the Euchatae, 94 the Cotieri, the Anthusiani, 

 the Psacae, the Arimaspi, 95 the Antacati, the Chroasai, and the 



are now peopled by the Kirghiz Cossacks, in whose name that of their 

 ancestors, the Sacae, is traced by some geographers. 



89 Meaning the " Great Getaa." They dwelt heyond the Jaxartes and 

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

 Tartars in the north of Independent Tartary. 



90 The Dahse were a numerous and warlike Nomad tribe, who wandered 

 over the vast steppes lying to the east of the Caspian Sea. Strabo lias 

 grouped them with the Saca3 and Massagetae, as the great Scythian tribes 

 of Inner Asia, to the north of Bactriana. 



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

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

 east of Ichim, in the 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 two peoples for the exchange of the gold that was the produce 

 of those mountain districts. 



98 They dwelt, according to Ptolemy, along the southern banks of the 

 Jaxartes. 



33 Or the Mardi, a warlike Asiatic tribe. Stephanus Byzantinus, fol- 

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

 are also Persian Mardi, without the ;" and, speaking of the Mardi, he 

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

 archery. 



94 D'Anville supposes that the Euchatae may have dwelt at the modern 

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

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

 of a country known as " Cathai," or the u desert." 



95 The first extant notice of them is in Herodotus ; but before him there 

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

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

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

 the 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 the 

 Middle Volga, in the governments of Kasan, Simbirsk, and Saratov : u 



