48
Our custom in the matter of the hide is as follows. When a man who has been wronged by another wishes to avenge himself but sees that by himself he is not strong enough, he sacrifices a bull, cuts up and cooks the meat, spreads the hide out on the ground, and sits on it, with his hands held behind his back like a man bound by the elbows. That is our strongest appeal for aid. The meat of the bull is served up, and as the man’s kinsmen and all else who wish approach, each takes a portion of it, and then, setting his right foot upon the hide, makes a pledge according to his ability, one that he will furnish five horsemen to serve without rations or pay, another ten, another still more, another foot-soldiers, heavy- armed or light-armed, as many as he can, and another simply himself, if he is very poor. So a very large force is sometimes raised on the hide, and such an army is especially dependable as regards holding together and very hard for the enemy to conquer, since it is under oath; for setting foot on the hide is an oath.Lucian is our only authority for this curious custom; the allusions to it in Suidas and the paroemiographi (Gaisford, Bodl. 355, Coisl. 207; Leutech, Append. II, 80, Apostol. VII, 75) are mere quotations from Lucian, and Gilbert Cognatus’ mysterious reference to “Zenodotus” and “the ox of the Homolotti” derives (by way of Erasmus, Adagia: “Bos Homolottorum”) from Zenobius, II, 83: βοῦς ὁ Μολοτ- τῶν! That the Molossian custom of cutting up (but not eating) an ox in connection with making treaties has nothing to do with the Scythian usage is clear from the more detailed explanation of it in Coisl. 57 (Gaisford, p. 126).
48
Arsacomas, then, was thus engaged; and he raised some five thousand horse and twenty thousand foot, heavy-armed and light-armed together.
