OLBIA. — THE SCYTfllANS. 47-, Hypanis or Bug near its mouth) became robbed of that comfort and prosperity which it had enjoyed when visited by Herodotus. In his day, the Olbians lived on good terms with the Scythian tribes in their neighborhood. They paid a stipulated tribute, giving presents besides to the prince and his immediate favor- ites ; and on these conditions, their persons and properties were respected. The Scythian prince Skyles (son of an Hellenic mother from Istrus, who had familiarized him with Greek speech and letters) had built a fine house in the town, and spent in it a month, from attachment to Greek manners and religion, while his Scythian army lay near the gates without molesting any one.^ It is true, that this proceeding cost Skyles his life ; for the Scy- thians would not tolerate their own prince in the practice of for- eign religious rites, though they did not quarrel with the same rites when observed by the Greeks.^ To their own customs the Scythians adhered tenaciously, and those customs were often sanguinary, ferocious, and brutish. Still they were warriors, rather than robbers — they abstained from habitual pillage, and maintained with the Greeks a reputation for honesty and fair dealing, which became proverbial with the early poets. Such were the Scythians as seen by Herodotus (probably about 440 to 430 B. c.) ; and the picture drawn by Ephorus a century af- terwards (about 340 b. c), appears to have been not materially different.^ But after that time it gradually altered. New tribes eeem to have come in — the Sarmatians out of the East — the Gauls out of the West ; from Thrace northward to the Tanais and the Palus Masotis, the most different tribes became inter- mingled — Gauls, Thracians, Getse, Scythians, Sarmatians, etc.* ' Ilerodot. iv. 16-18. The town was called Olbia by its inhabitants, but Burijsthenes usually by foreigners ; though it was not on the Borysthenes liver (Dnieper), but on the right bank of the Hypanis (Bug). ^ Ilerodot. iv. 7G-S0. '^ Strabo, vii. p. -302 : Skymnus Cliius, v. 112, who usually follows Ephorus. The rhetor Dion tells us (Orat. xxxvi. init.) that he went to Olbia in or- der that he might 90 through the Sajthians to the Getce. This shows that in his time (about A. d. 100) the Scythians must have been between the Bug and Dniester — the Getae nearer to the Danube — just as they had been four centuries earlier. But many new hordes were mingled with them.
- Strabo, vii. p. 296-304.
