Pliny the Elder, Natural History 6.

7
CHAP. 7.LAKE MIEOTIS AND THE ADJOINING NATIONS.
After passing Cimmerium, the coast139 is inhabited by the Motici, the Vali, the Serbi,140
the Arrechi, the Zingi, and the Psessi. We then come to the river Tanais,141 which
discharges itself into the sea by two mouths, and the banks of which are inhabited by the
Sarmat, the descendants of the Medi, it is said, a people divided into numerous tribes.
The first of these are the Sauromat Gyncocratumeni,142 the husbands of the Amazons.
Next to them are the vaz,143 the Coit,144 the Cicimeni, the Messeniani, the
Costobocci, the Choatr, the Zig,145 the Dandarii, the Thyssaget, and the Iyrc,146 as
far as certain rugged deserts and densely wooded vallies, beyond which again are the
Arimphi,147 who extend as far as the Riphan Mountains.148 The Scythians call the
river Tanais by the name of Silis, and the Motis the Temarunda, meaning the "mother of
the sea." There is149 a city also at the mouth of the Ta- nais. The neighbouring country
was inhabited first by the Carians, then by the Clazomenii and Mones, and after them
by the Panticapenses.150
There are some writers who state that there are the following nations dwelling around the
Motis, as far as the Ceraunian mountains;151 at a short distance from the shore, the
Napit, and beyond them, the Essedones, who join up to the Colchians, and dwell upon
the summits of the mountains: after these again, the Camac, the Orani, the Autac, the
Mazacasi, the Cantioc, the Agamath, the Pici, the Rimosoli, the Acascomarci, and,
upon the ridges of the Caucasus, the Itacal, the Imadochi, the Rami, the Anclac, the
Tydii, the Carastasei, and the Anthiand. The river Lagos runs from the Cathan152
mountains, and into it flows the Opharus. Upon it are the tribes of the Cauthad, and the
Opharit. Next to these are the rivers Menotharus and Imityes, which flow from the
Cissian mountains, among the peoples called the Acdei, the Carn, the Oscardei, the
Accisi, the Gabri, the Gogari, and, around the source of the Imityes, the Imityi, and the
Apatri. Some writers say that the Auchet, the Athernei, and the Asampat, Scythian
tribes, have made inroads upon this territory, and have destroyed the Tanait and the
Inapi to a man. Others again represent the Ocharius as running through the Cantici and
the Sapi, and the Tanais as passing through the territories of the Sarcharcei, the Herticei,
the Spondolici, the Synhiet, the Anasi, the Issi, the Catet, the Tagor, the Caroni, the
Neripi, the Agandei, the Mandarei, the Satarchei, and the Spalei.

Pliny the Elder, Natural History 4. 88 ff (trans. Rackham) (Roman encyclopedia C1st
A.D.) :
"Along the [Black Sea] coast [of Europe], as far as the river Tanais [the Don], are the
Maeotae [a Skythian tribe] . . . and last of all in the rear of the Maeotae are the Arimaspi.
Then come the Ripaean Mountains [the Carpathians?] and the region called Peterophorus
['wing-bringers'], because of the feather-like snow continually falling there; it is a part of
the world that lies under the condemnation of nature and is plunged in dense darkness,
and occupied only by the work of frost and the chilly lurking-places of Aquilo [Boreas
the North Wind]. Behind these mountains and beyond Aquilo there dwells--if we can
believe it--a happy race of people called the Hyperboreans, who live to extreme old age
and are famous for legendary marvels. Here are believed to be the hinges on which the
firmament turns and the extreme revolutions of the stars, with six months daylight and a
single day of the sun in retirement, not as the ignorant have said, from the spring equinox
till autumn: for these people the sun rises once in the year, at midsummer, and sets once,
at midwinter. It is a genial region, with a delightful climate and exempt from every
harmful blast. The homes of the natives are the woods and groves; they worship the gods
severally and in congregations; all discord and all sorrow is unknown. Death comes to
them only when, owing to the satiety of life, after holding a banquet and anointing their
old age with luxury, they leap from a certain rock into the sea: this mode of burial is the
most blissful. Some authorities have placed these people not in Europe but on the nearest
part of the coasts of Asia, because there is a race there with similar customs and a similar
location, named the Attaci; others have put them midway between the two suns, the
sunsets of the antipodes and our sunrise, but this is quite impossible because of the
enormous expanse of sea that comes between. Those who locate them merely in a region
having six months of daylight have recorded that they sow in the morning periods, reap at
midday, pluck the fruit from the trees at sunset, and retire into caves for the night. Nor is
it possible to doubt about this race, as so may authorities state that they regularly send the
first fruits of their harvests to Delos as offerings to Apollo, whom they specially worship.
These offerings used to be brought by virgins, who for many years were held in
veneration and hospitably entertained by the nations on the route, until because of a
violation of good faith they instituted the custom of depositing their offerings at the
nearest frontiers of the neighbouring people, and these of passing them on to their
neighbours, and so till they finally reached Delos. Later this practice itself also passed out
of use."
Pliny the Elder, Natural History 6. 34 :
"From the extreme north-north-east to the northernmost point at which the sun rises in
summer there are the Scythians, and outside of them and beyond the point where northnorth-east begins some have placed the Hyperboreans, who are said by a majority of
authorities to be in Europe. After that point the first place known is Lytharmis, a
promontory of Celtica, and the river Carambucis, where the range of the Ripaean
Mountains terminates and with it the rigour of the climate relaxes; here we have reports
of a people called the Arimphaei, a race not unlike the Hyperboreans. They dwell in
forests and live on berries; long hair is deemed to be disgraceful in the case of women

and men alike; and their manners are mild. Consequently they are reported to be deemed
a sacred race and to be left unmolested by the savage tribes uamong their neighbours, this
immunity not being confined to themselves but extended also to people who have fled to
them for refuge. Beyond them we come directly to the Scythians, Cimmerians, Cissi,
Anthi, Georgi, and a race of Amazones, the last reaching to the Caspian and Hyrcanian
Sea."