Scythopolis

“ At Damascus ten thousand Jews were slain in one hour. And at Scythopolis thirteen thousand were slain in one night. In Alexandria the Jews rose upon the Romans; and had fifty thousand of their people slain, without any regard to infancy or age. Soon after, in a contention at Totapata, forty thousand Jews perished. These contentions rose and increased, till the whole Jewish nation took up arms against the Romans, and brought on themselves their final destruction. Thus the prediction of our Saviour quoted, received in those days a striking primary fulfilment. ”

“ He turned to the man. "Get up and go back to your own home. Your faith has made you well."
The gate into Scythopolis was like a dark tunnel because the wall was so thick. Roman guards stationed on the inside examined the travelers as they passed through. If they were surprised to find a large group of Galileans in a town on the border of Samaria, they said nothing.
"This town seems different from the one that refused us," admitted James. ”

“ Scythopolis appears from certain coins [300] to have become a Hellenic city in the time of Alexander the Great. In the time of Ptolemy Euergetes I, 247-222 B. C., it was subject to Egypt, [301] but it passed to the dominions of the Seleucidæ of Antioch in 198 B. C. Upon the break-up of the Syrian empire in 65-63 B. C., Pompey made it one of the cities of the Decapolis.
The remains of the Hellenic city have now entirely disappeared with the exception of the great stone amphitheater. ”

“ His statement: "Josephus (Antt. xii. 5. 8) and Pliny (Hist. n. v. 16) affirm that Scythians had settled down there," is wholly unfounded. In Joseph. l.c. there is no word of it; nor will a critical historian accept as sufficient historical evidence of an ancient Scythian settlement in Bethshan, Pliny's l.c. aphoristic notice: Scythopolin (antea Nysam a Libero Patre, spulta nutrice ibi) Scythis deductîs. The late Byzantine author, George Syncellus, is the first to derive the name Scythopolis from the incursion of the Scythians into Palestine; cf. ”

“ In 455 Chrysippus was made the superior of the monastery of Laura, and subsequently of the church of the Resurrection, by the patriarch Juvenal. He was raised to the presbyterate, and on the elevation of his brother Cosmas, who had held the office, to the see of Scythopolis, was appointed "guardian of the Holy Cross," which he held till his death. Chrysippus was a copious author, and according to Cyril, who praises him as θαυμαστὸς συγγραφεύς, "left many works worthy of all acceptation," very few of which are extant. ”

“ The Scythians have conquered the world. There is no longer a Republic of free citizens; the world is governed by kings whose blood scarcely courses in their veins, and at whose majesty thou wouldst smile. Heavy hyperboreans denounce thy servants as frivolous.... A formidable Panbaeotia, a league of fools, weighs down upon the world with a pall of lead. Thou must fain despise even those who pay thee worship. Dost thou remember the Caledonian who half a century ago broke up thy temple with a hammer to carry it away with him to Thule? ”

“ The picture of the Scythians even with its tendency to idealization represents the people fairly. They are nomadic, poor, with a free democratic political organization without kings, and they are warriors. Their gods are the sword and the wind. Their customs are primitive. They make war on their neighbors and have special relations with the Greek states 185 on the Bosporus and Olbia and visit those on the south side of the Black Sea.
Lucian in composing his Toxaris probably had in hand a Greek romance with a Scythian background, containing certain historical and ethnographical material. ”

“ These nomads were the genuine Scythians, possessing the marked attributes of the race, and including among their number the regal Scythians, [456] —hordes so much more populous and more effective in war than the rest, as to maintain undisputed ascendency, and to account all other Scythians no better than their slaves. It was to these that the Scythian kings belonged, by whom the religious and political unity of the name was maintained,—each horde having its separate chief, and to a certain extent separate worship and customs. ”

“ Scythia was a land totally unknown to the Persians, and strange tales were told in after years of the adventures of the King and his army. The Scythians were a nomad people, and they believed themselves to be invincible. When they heard that Darius was in their land with the intention of conquering it, they "planned not to fight a pitched battle openly, but to retire before the Persians and to drive away their cattle from before them, choking up with earth the wells and the springs of water by which they passed and destroying the grass from off the ground." ”

“ And, first of all, they cut off a tract of country from the rest of Scythia by digging a broad dyke from the Tauric mountains to the vast lake of the Maeotis. Afterwards, when the Scythians tried to force an entrance, they marched out and engaged them. Many battles were fought, and the Scythians gained no advantage, until at last one of them thus addressed the remainder: "What are we doing, Scythians? We are fighting our slaves, diminishing our own number when we fall, and the number of those that belong to us when they fall by our hands. ”

“ Now when Scylas found himself king of Scythia, as he disliked the Scythic mode of life, and was attached, by his bringing up, to the manners of the Greeks, he made it his usual practice, whenever he came with his army to the town of the Borysthenites, who, according to their own account, are colonists of the Milesians- he made it his practice, I say, to leave the army before the city, and, having entered within the walls by himself, and carefully closed the gates, to exchange his Scythian dress for Grecian garments, and in this attire to walk about the forum, without guards or retinue. ”

“ To this message Idanthyrsus, the Scythian king, replied:- "This is my way, Persian. I never fear men or fly from them. I have not done so in times past, nor do I now fly from thee. There is nothing new or strange in what I do; I only follow my common mode of life in peaceful years. Now I will tell thee why I do not at once join battle with thee. We Scythians have neither towns nor cultivated lands, which might induce us, through fear of their being taken or ravaged, to be in any hurry to fight with you. ”

“ Cased in the armour of Scythians, they joined the troops of that beloved people, and the father god bidding them contend no longer against the power of the Roman, to whom Odin had given their country, promised to lead them to other fields, and give them other lands for their inheritance. The fierce Scythians yielded to the persuasive voice of him whom they only knew as the warrior Sigge, and, rather than submit to the slavery they abhorred, they forsook the tombs of their fathers, and sought an empire in the north. ”

“ Across the Gerrus are those lands called Royal, where are the best and most in number of the Scythians, who deem all other Scythians their slaves; their territory stretches southward to the Tauric land, and eastward to the fosse that was dug by the sons of the blind men, and on the Maeetian lake to the port called The Cliffs; and part of it stretches to the river Tanais. Above the Royal Scythians to the north dwell the Blackcloaks, who are of another and not a Scythian stock; and beyond the Blackcloaks the land is all marshes and uninhabited by men, so far as we know. ”

“ The King of Scythia had passed his whole life in shooting with bows and arrows, whereas the other two kings had only begun to practise when they heard of the conditions to be fulfilled by the husband of Formosante. When therefore the Scythian monarch grasped the bow, there was an eager rustle amongst the five hundred thousand in the amphitheatre. They leaned forward with straining eyes, and held their breath like one man, as they perceived a slight movement of the bow. The king's heart beat high as he felt it quiver under his hands, but, pull as hard as he might, he could not bend it further. ”

“ But none the less for this did Scyles perform the rite to the end. Now the Scythians make this Bacchic revelling a reproach against the Greeks, saying that it is not reasonable to set up a god who leads men on to madness. So when Scyles had been initiated into the Bacchic rite, some one of the Borysthenites scoffed at the Scythians: “Why,” said he, “you Scythians mock us for revelling and being possessed by the god; but now this deity has taken possession of your own king, so that he is revelling and is maddened by the god. ”

“ Such then is the Scythians’ account of their origin; they reckon that neither more nor less than a thousand years in all passed from the time of their first king Targitäus and the crossing over of Darius into their country. The kings guard this sacred gold most jealously, and every year offer to it solemn sacrifices of propitiation. Whoever at this festival falls asleep in the open air, having with him the sacred gold, is said by the Scythians not to live out the year; for which reason (they say) there is given him as much land as he can himself ride round in one day. ”

“ It may be that they are wizards; for the Scythians, and the Greeks settled in Scythia, say that once a year every one of the Neuri is turned into a wolf, and after remaining so for a few days returns again to his former shape. For myself, I cannot believe this tale; but they tell it nevertheless, yea, and swear to its truth.
106. The Man-eaters are of all men the most savage in their manner of life; they know no justice and obey no law. They are nomads, wearing a dress like the Scythian, but speaking a language of their own; they are the only people of all these that eat men. ”

“ The remainder of the Scythians sailed round Thessaly and Greece to pillage all the country, and as they were not strong enough to attack the towns which had fortified themselves, and provided for their own security, they carried off all the men that they found in the open country. ”

“ If the habits of the Scythians were such as to create in the near observer no other feeling than repugnance, their force at least inspired terror. They appeared in the eyes of Thucydidês so numerous and so formidable, that he pronounces them irresistible, if they could but unite, by any other nation within his knowledge. Herodotus, too, conceived the same idea of a race among whom every man was a warrior and a practised horse-bowman, and who were placed by their mode of life out of all reach of an enemy’s attack. ”

“ Religion.—The religion of the Scyths was nature worship. Herodotus (iv. 59) gives a list of their gods, with the Greek deities corresponding, but we cannot tell what aspect of the Greek deity is in question. He says they chiefly reverence Tabiti (Hestia) , next Papaeus and his wife Apia (Zeus and Ge) , then Oitosyros (Apollo) and Argimpasa (Aphrodite Urania) . These are common to all the Scythians, but Thamimasadas (Poseidon) is peculiar to the Royal Scyths.The names are read in various ways; it is impossible to establish the correct forms. ”

“ As far, then, as these bald people, our knowledge respecting the country and the nations before them is very good, for some Scythians frequently go there from whom it is not difficult to obtain information, as well as some Greeks belonging to the ports in Pontus. The Scythians who go to them transact business by means of seven interpreters and seven languages, but beyond the bald men no one can speak with certainty, for lofty and impassable mountains form their boundary, which no one has ever crossed ”

“ The modern Tartars are ignorant of the conquests of their ancestors; and our knowledge of the history of the Scythians is derived from their intercourse with the learned and civilized nations of the South, the Greeks, the Persians, and the Chinese. The Greeks, who navigated the Euxine, and planted their colonies along the sea-coast, made the gradual and imperfect discovery of Scythia; from the Danube, and the confines of Thrace, as far as the frozen Mæotis, the seat of eternal winter, and Mount Caucasus, which, in the language of poetry, was described as the utmost boundary of the earth. ”

“ So that these two sorts of people, when they fell into the cruel hands of the Athenians, were so totally destroyed, that there was none left to bury the dead. They who acted these things, are not Scythians, but a people who boast of humanity and mercy above all others. ”

“ That which rises to the top is drawn off, and considered the best part; the under portion is of less account. Such is the reason why the Scythians blind all those whom they take in war; it arises from their not being tillers of the ground, but a pastoral race.
When therefore the children sprung from these slaves and the Scythian women grew to manhood, and understood the circumstances of their birth, they resolved to oppose the army which was returning from Media. ”

“ No sooner had the Ionian revolt been brought to an end, and the Ionians punished for their daring, than the angry Oriental despot prepared to visit upon Athens the vengeance he had vowed. His preparations for this enterprise were great. His experience in Scythia had taught him that the Western barbarians—as he doubtless considered them—were not to be despised. For two years, in every part of his vast empire, the note of war was sounded, and men and munitions of war were actively gathered. ”

“ For the Scythians, living in solitary and desert places, had but little communication for many ages with the rest of mankind, and did not obtain their system of morality from other quarters. From the Greeks and Romans, who were the most enlightened, they derived no moral benefit. ”