4 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 69 



The true Scythians claimed to have occupied the country in which 

 they were found by the Greeks for many centuries. As shown by 

 their customs described by the Greeks, and by the remains of their 

 culture uncovered by archeological exploration, they were not wholly 

 a barbaric people ; and contrary to what may be observed with later 

 Tartar tribes, their war-like activities were directed mainly toward 

 Persia and Asia Minor rather than toward Europe. It was to avenge 

 their invasion of Medea and Persia that Darius undertook his 

 memorable incursion into their country. Proceeding- over Hellespont 

 and the Danube he reached as far as. the " Oarus " (supposed to 

 have been the Volga, but more probably the Dnieper), only to find his 

 great effort against the nomads quite futile. He finally barely escaped 

 back across the Danube with the famished remnants of his army. 



Scythia, which never formed a highly organized, cohesive political 

 or national unit comparable to that of Persia or Greece, existed, with 

 waning vigor, until the early part of the Christian era, when it gave 

 way before the Gothic, Hun and Khazar invasions ; but the name, 

 as applied both to the country and to its inhabitants, persisted for 

 many centuries afterward. 



Scythia itself was subject to invasions, which deserve some con- 

 sideration. Shortly after the commencement of the present era, 

 there are noted in Europe, and between Europe and Asia, movements 

 of peoples which are commonly referred to as " the migrations of 

 races," but which in the main were invasions for conquest or plunder, 

 or were the results of displacements, not seldom forcible, of tribal 

 groups in regions where the density of population had surpassed the 

 resources and the struggle for existence had become acute. They 

 doubtless succeeded older movements of similar nature, of which we 

 have little or no knowledge. They followed two main directions — 

 from the north southward and from the east westward. Russia that 

 was to be, was in a large measure the avenue over which these migra- 

 tions took place. 



The first of these invasions into what is now Russian territory of 

 which we have better knowledge is that of the Goths, though some 

 indications make it possible that these were preceded by less impor- 

 tant offshoots from the same stock of people. The Goths were of 

 Scandinavian origin, coming originally perhaps from or over the 

 large island in the Baltic which still bears their name (Gothland). 

 From this they easily traversed the Baltic, known in the early Russian 

 annals as the "sea of the Variags " or Scandinavians, and landed 

 somewhere on what is now the Prussian coast, in the vicinity of the 





