54 PLimr's ITATTEAI. HI8T0BT. [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 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 

 Massagetm,'^ the Dah^,'" the Essedones," the Ariacse,'' the 

 Rhymmici, the Paesici, the Amardi,'^ the Histi, the Edones, the 

 CamsB, the Camacse, the Euchatae,'* the Gotieri, the Anthusiani, 

 the Psacae, the Arimaspi/' the Antacati, the Chroasai, and the 



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

 ancestors, the Sacee, is traced by some geographers. 



89 Meaning the " Great Getse." They dwelt beyond the Jaxartes and 

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

 Tartars in the north of Independent Tartary. 



'" The DahiB 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 Sacse and Massagetse, as the great Scythian tribes 

 of Inner Asia, to the north of Bactriana. 



" See alsoB. iv. c. 20, and B. vi. e. 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. 



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

 Jaxartes. 



9' 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 a ■" and, speaking of the Mardi, he 

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

 archery. 



'* D'Anville supposes that the Eucbata! may have dwelt at the modern 

 Koten, 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 " desert." 



'5 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 

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

 S?]; locality IS by some supposed to have been on the left bank of the 

 Middle Volga, in the govemmente of Kasan, Simbirsk, and Saratov': » 



