Book 11
6.2
Upon sailing into the Caspian, on the right hand, contiguous to the Europeans, Scythians and Sarmatians occupy the country between the Tanaïs and this sea; they are chiefly Normades, or shepherd tribes, of whom I have already spoken. On the left hand are the Eastern Scythian Nomades, who extend as far as the Eastern sea, and India.
6.2
The ancient Greek historians called all the nations towards the north by the common name of Scythians, and Kelto-Scythians. Writers still more ancient than these called the nations living above the Euxine, Danube, and Adriatic, Hyperboreans, Sauromatae, and Arimaspi.i. e. the Hyperboreans above the Adriatic, the Sauromatae above the Danube, and the Arimaspi above the Euxine. But in speaking of the nations on the other side the Caspian Sea, they called some Sacae,The name Sacae is to be traced in Sakita, a district on the confines of those of Vash and Gil, situated on the north of the Gihon or Oxus, conequently in ancient Sogdiana. D’Anville others Massagetae. They were unable to give any exact account of them, although they relate the history of the war of Cyrus with the Massagetae. Concerning these nations no one has ascertained the truth, and the ancient histories of Persia, Media, and Syria have not obtained much credit on account of the credulity of the writers and their love of fable.
6.3
For these authors, having observed that those who professedly were writers of fables obtained repute and success, supposed that they also should make their writings agreeable, if, under the form of history, they related what they had never seen nor heard, (not at least from eye-witnesses,) and had no other object than to please and surprise the reader. A person would more readily believe the stories of the heroes in Hesiod, Homer, and in the tragic poets, than Ctesias, Herodotus, Hellanicus, and writers of this kind.
