M. L. ROUSE, B.L., ON THE TEDIGREK OF THE NATIONS. 87 



descendants preceded those of Javan in the westward march 

 and advanced much further. 



His name in the original text of Holy Writ, where it occurs 

 only twice — here (in Genesis x, 4) and in 1 Chronicles i, 5 — is 

 each time spelt with the aspirate, and inay be phonetically 

 written Thirfis. Josephus says that he was the ancestor of the 

 Thracians : let us see. And first, as to spelling : the common 

 Greek form of the name for the Thracians' country was ThrakC% 

 with the iota subscript, which denotes that it was once written 

 Thraike ; and as Threike (with Ionic modification) it appears in 

 Herodotus, while both Homer and Herodotus call a Thracian 

 Threix. Xow -iJce is the feminine adjectival ending which 

 agrees with he ge, the land, understood ; therefore the full name 

 would mean The Land of Thra.^ 



In the time of Herodotus (b.c. 450) the name was applied to 

 the whole territory that stretched northward from Macedoniat 

 to the lower course of the Ister, or Danube,{ north-east of which, 

 however, lay the tribe of the Agathyrsi,§ whom he assigns to no 

 special stock, but describes as having customs greatly resembling 

 those of the Thracians.|| Beyond the mouths of the Ister, the 

 land, eastward as far as the Tanais, or Don, and northward for 

 an equal distance, was occupied by the Scythians.lF But it will be 

 remembered that, as told by both Herodotus and Strabo, these 

 Scythians were invaders, who had displaced the Kummerioi ; and 

 in the days of those earlier settlers Thrace may have extended 

 further still ; and the next river of importance east of the Ister 

 and only sixty miles away, now called the Dniester and 

 intermediately the Danastris, bore in Herodotus's time and 

 before that the name of Tyras,** whose sound reminds us vividly 

 of the patriarch in question, while at its mouth stood for ages a 

 town bearing the same name. The town was regarded as a 



^ As a parallel we find in Her. lY, 99, " Before the Scythic land {tes 

 SJciithikes ges) lies the Thracian (or Thrace), he Threike ; and, this land 

 sweeping round, Scythia (he SklithiJce) succeeds it, the Ister at this point 

 emptying itself with its mouth towards the east wind." Just below he 

 speaks of he Skiithike khora, the Scythic country, but otherwise almost 

 everywhere simply of he Skiithike ; only once, so far as I know, as JSkuthie 

 (Ionic for Sklithia). 



t Her. y , 2, 3-9. l Id. lY, 93, 99. 



§ Id. lY, 100, 48, 49 : though he places them next to the Scythians on 

 the north, he makes the Mai'is, or Maros, an eastern Carpathian river, 

 arise in their territory : and in c. 51 (cp. 100) he really makes the upper 

 T3rras their northern boundarv. 



II Id. lY, 104. ' ^ Id. lY, 100, 101. 



*^ Herodotus spells it lonically T^res, but Ptolemy and Strabo Tyras. 



g' 



