Kitap 11
6.2
On the right, as one sails into the Caspian Sea, are those Scythians, or Sarmatians,See 11. 2. 1. who live in the country contiguous to Europe between the Tanaïs River and this sea; the greater part of them are nomads, of whom I have already spoken.11. 2. 1. On the left are the eastern Scythians, also nomads, who extend as far as the Eastern Sea and India. Now all the peoples towards the north were by the ancient Greek historians given the general name “Scythians” or “Celtoscythians”; but the writers of still earlier times, making distinctions between them, called those who lived above the Euxine and the Ister and the Adriatic “Hyperboreans,” “Sauromatians,” and “Arimaspians,” and they called those who lived across the Caspian Sea in part “Sacians” and in part “Massagetans,” but they were unable to give any accurate account of them, although they reported a war between CyrusCyrus the Elder. For an account of this war, see Hdt. l.201ff and the Massagetans. However, neither have the historians given an accurate and truthful account of these peoples, nor has much credit been given to the ancient history of the Persians or Medes or Syrians, on account of the credulity of the historians and their fondness for myths.
6.3
For, seeing that those who were professedly writers of myths enjoyed repute, they thought that they too would make their writings pleasing if they told in the guise of history what they had never seen, nor even heard—or at least not from persons who knew the facts—with this object alone in view, to tell what afforded their hearers pleasure and amazement. One could more easily believe Hesiod and Homer in their stories of the heroes than Ctesias, Herodotus, Hellanicus,On their writings, see Dictionary in Vol. I. and other writers of this kind.
