Editing Scythians (section)

==Legacy==
The [[Greco-Roman world|Graeco-Roman]] peoples were profoundly fascinated by the Scythians. This fascination endured in Europe even after both the disappearance of the Scythians and the end of Graeco-Roman culture, and continued throughout [[Classical antiquity|Classical]] and [[Late antiquity|Late]] Antiquity and the [[Middle Ages]], lasting till the 18th century in the [[Modern era|Modern Period]].{{sfn|Batty|2007|p=204}}

===Antiquity===
[[File:Xerxes detail three types of Sakas cleaned up.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|For the [[Achaemenid Empire|Achaemenids]], there were three types of Sakas:
* the ''Sakā tayai paradraya'' ("beyond the sea", presumably the Scythians between the Greeks and the [[Thracians]] on the Western side of the [[Black Sea]]),
* the ''[[Sakā tigraxaudā]]'' ([[Massagetae]], "with [[Phrygian cap|pointed caps]]"),
* the {{translit|peo|Sakā haumavargā}} ("who lay down [[Haoma|Hauma]]", furthest East).
Soldiers in the service of the [[Achaemenid army]], [[Xerxes I]] tomb detail, circa 480 BC.{{sfn|Schmitt|2003a}}]]
The inroads of the Cimmerians and the Scythians into West Asia over the course of the 8th to 7th centuries BC, which were early precursors of the later invasions of West Asia by steppe nomads such as the [[Huns]], various [[Turkic peoples]], and the [[Mongol Empire|Mongols]], in [[Late Antiquity]] and the [[Middle Ages|Mediaeval Period]],{{sfn|Fuchs|2023|p=761}} had destabilised the political balance which had prevailed in the region between the dominant great powers of Assyria, Urartu, and Phrygia,{{sfn|Adalı|2017|p=75}} thus irreversibly changing the geopolitical situation of West Asia.{{sfn|Adalı|2017|p=75-76}} These Cimmerians and Scythians also influenced the developments in West Asia through the spread of the steppe nomad military technology brought by them into this region.{{sfn|Adalı|2017|p=75}}

The first mention of the Scythians in ancient Greek literature is in Hesiod's [[Catalogue of Women|{{translit|en|Catalogue of Women}}]], which refers to them as the "mare-milking Scythians" ({{langx|grc|Σκυθας ιππημολγους|translit=Skythas hippēmolgous}}) and as the "milk-drinkers who have wagons for houses" ({{langx|grc|γλακτοφαγων εις γαιαν απηναις οικι εχοντων|translit=glaktophagōn eis gaian apēnais oiki ekhontōn}}){{sfn|Sulimirski|1954|p=284}} Hesiod also referred to the Scythians along with the Ethiopians and Libyans as peoples "whose mind is over their tongue," that is who approve of prudent reserve.{{sfn|West|2002|p=444}}

[[Herodotus|Herodotus of Halicarnassus]] wrote a legendary account of the arrival of the Scythians. Herodotus's narrative also contracted the events of the Scythians' arrival into West Asia by portraying Madyes as the king led them from the steppes into West Asia.{{sfn|Kõiv|2022|p=270-271}} Herodotus also exaggerated the power of the Scythians in West Asia by claiming that they dominated all of it.{{sfn|Fuchs|2023|p=750}} Herodotus's narrative depicted Scythia as an opposite of [[Africa]], especially [[Ancient Egypt|Egypt]], which was a theme continued by other ancient Greek authors,{{sfn|West|2002|p=444}} such as [[Pseudo-Hippocrates]], who represented Greece as being the mean situated between these two extremes.{{sfn|West|2002|p=445}}

By the 5th century BC, the image of the Scythians in Athens had become the quintessential stereotype used for barbarians, (non-Greeks).{{sfn|Cunliffe|2019|p=52}} They increasingly associated the Scythians with drunkenness.{{sfn|Cunliffe|2019|p=54}} Ancient Greek authors considered the Scythians and Persians, not as related Iranic peoples, but in opposition to each other. The Scythians represented "savagery" and were linked to the Thracians, while the Persians represented "refined civilisation" and were connected to the Assyrians and Babylonians.{{sfn|Ivantchik|2006|p=147}}

The 4th century BC Greek historian, [[Ephorus|Ephorus of Cyme]], described the Scythians as one of the "four great barbarian peoples" of the known world, along with the Celts, Persians, and Libyans.{{sfn|Cunliffe|2019|p=48}} Ephorus used the perception of Anacharsis as a personification of "Barbarian wisdom" to create an idealised image of the Scythians being as an "invincible" people, which became a tradition of Greek literature.{{sfn|Ivantchik|2018}} Ephorus created a fictitious account of a legendary Scythian king, named Idanthyrsos or Iandysos, who became the ruler of all Asia.{{sfn|Ivantchik|1999a|p=498}}

The Ancient Greeks included the Scythians in their mythology, with [[Herodorus]] making a mythical Scythian named Teutarus into a herdsman who served [[Amphitryon]] and taught archery to [[Heracles]]. Herodorus also portrayed the Titan [[Prometheus]] as a Scythian king, and, by extension, described Prometheus's son [[Deucalion]] as a Scythian as well.{{sfn|Braund|2021|p=179}} The Romans confused the peoples whom they perceived as archetypical "Barbarians," namely the Scythians and the [[Celts]], into a single grouping whom they called the "Celto-Scythians" ({{langx|la|Celtoscythae}}) and supposedly living from Gaul in the west to the Pontic steppe in the east.{{sfn|Burns|2003|p=65}}

Strabo of Amasia idealised the Scythians as leading a nomadic life founded on simplicity. According to Strabo's narrative, the Scythians became "corrupted" and lost their simple and honest life because of the influence of the Greeks' "love of luxury and sensual pleasures."{{sfn|Jacobson|1995|p=16}} Following Strabo, the Scythians continued to be represented as an idealised freedom-loving and truthful people.{{sfn|Harmatta|1996|p=182}} Later [[Greco-Roman world|Graeco-Roman]] tradition transformed the Scythian prince [[Anacharsis]] into a legendary figure as a kind of "[[noble savage]]" who represented "[[Barbarian]] wisdom," due to which the ancient Greeks included him as one of the [[Seven Sages of Greece]]{{sfn|Ivantchik|2016|p=314}} and he became a popular figure in Greek literature.{{sfn|Ivantchik|2018}}

The richness of Scythian burials was already well known in Antiquity, and, by the 3rd century BC, the robbing of Scythian graves had begun,{{sfn|Sulimirski|Taylor|1991|p=551}} initially carried out by Scythians themselves.{{sfn|West|2002|p=452}}{{sfn|Parzinger|2004|p=111}} During [[Late Antiquity]] itself, another wave of grave robbery of Scythian burials occurred at the time of the Sarmatian and [[Huns|Hunnish]] domination of the Pontic Steppe, when these peoples reused older Scythian kurgans to bury their own dead.{{sfn|Parzinger|2004|p=111}}

===Mediaeval period===
[[File:Scota & Gaedel Glas.jpg|thumb|right|250px|The flight of the Scota, Goídel Glas, and the Scythians from Egypt, in a 15th-century manuscript of the [[Scotichronicon|{{translit|la-x-medieval|Scotichronicon}}]] of [[Walter Bower]]]]
Although the Scythians themselves had disappeared by the Middle Ages, the complex relations between their nomadic groupings and the settled populations of Southeast and Central Europe were continued by the Hungarians, the Bulgars, Rus and Poles.{{sfn|Olbrycht|2000b|p=132}} Mediaeval authors followed the use of the name of the Scythians as an archaising term for steppe nomads to designate the Mongols.{{sfn|Harmatta|1996|p=182}}

Various cultures of North Europe started claiming ancestry from the "Scythians" and adopted the Graeco-Roman vision of the "barbarity" of ancient peoples of Europe as legitimate records of their own ancient cultures.{{sfn|Lennon|2008|p=13-15}} In this context, the similarity of the name {{translit|la|Scythia}} with the Latin name of the Irish, {{translit|la|Scotti}},{{sfn|Williams|2016|p=139}} led to the flourishing of speculations of a Scythian ancestry of the Irish.{{sfn|Irslinger|2017|p=178-179}}{{sfn|Lennon|2008|p=7}} Drawing on the confusion of the {{translit|la|Scotti}} with both {{translit|la|Scythia}} and the {{translit|la|Picti}}, as well as on the conceptualisation of Scythia as a typical "barbarian land", [[Bede]] invented a Scythian origin for the [[Picts]] in his [[Ecclesiastical History of the English People|{{translit|la|Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum}}]].{{sfn|Merrills|2005|p=283-286}}

The Irish mythological text titled the [[Lebor Gabála Érenn|{{translit|mga|Lebor Gabála Érenn}}]] repeated this legend, and claimed that these supposed Scythian ancestors of the Irish had been invited to Egypt because the [[Pharaohs in the Bible#In the Book of Exodus|pharaoh]] admired how Nel, the son of Fénius, was knowledgeable on the world's many languages, with Nel marrying the pharaoh's daughter [[Scota]].{{sfn|Lennon|2008|p=11}} According to the {{translit|mga|Lebor Gabála Érenn}}, the Scythians fled from Egypt when pharaoh drowned after [[Moses]] [[Crossing the Red Sea|parted]] the [[Red Sea]] during the flight of the Israelites, and went back to Scythia, and from there to [[Ireland]] via [[Africa]] and [[Iberian peninsula|Spain]]{{sfn|Lennon|2008|p=11}} while Nel's and Scota's son, [[Goídel Glas]], became the eponym the [[Gaels|Gaelic people]].{{sfn|Williams|2016|p=135}}

===Modern period===
[[File:Eugène Delacroix - Ovide chez les Scythes (1862).jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.15|[[Eugène Delacroix]]'s painting of the Roman poet, Ovid, in exile among the Scythians{{sfn|Lomazoff|Ralby|2013|p=63}}]]
[[File:Scythians at the Tomb of Ovid c. 1640.jpg|thumb|''Scythians at the Tomb of [[Ovid]]'' (c. 1640), by [[Johann Heinrich Schönfeld]]]]
Drawing on the Biblical narrative and the Graeco-Roman conflation of the Scythians and Celts, [[Early modern period|early modern]] European scholars believed that the Celts were Scythians. It therefore became popular among [[Pseudohistory|pseudohistorians]] of the 15th and 16th centuries to claim that the Irish people were the "truest" inheritors of Scythian culture so as both to distinguish and denigrate Irish culture.{{sfn|Lennon|2008|p=9}} While these claims in much of Europe were abandoned during the [[Reformation]] and [[Renaissance]], British works on [[Ireland]] continued to emphasise the alleged Scythian ancestry of the Irish, until it was discredited by early 19th century advances in [[philology]].{{sfn|Lennon|2008|p=8}} During the early modern period itself, Hungarian scholars identified the [[Hungarians]] with the [[Huns]], and claimed that they descended from Scythians.{{sfn|Klaniczay|2011|p=183}} Therefore, the image of the Scythians among Hungarians was shaped into one of "[[noble savage]]s" who were valorous and honest, uncouth and hostile to "Western refinement," but at the same time defended "[[Christianity in Europe|Christian civilisation]]" from aggression from the East.{{sfn|Klaniczay|2011|p=192}}

Large scale robbery of Scythian tombs started when the [[Russian Empire]] started occupying the Pontic steppe in the 18th century:{{sfn|Parzinger|2004|p=111-112}} in 1718 the Russian [[Tsar#Russia|Tsar]] [[Peter the Great|Peter I]] issued decrees overseeing the collection of "right old and rare" objects to [[Saint Petersburg]] in exchange for compensation, and the material thus obtained became the basis of the Saint Petersburg [[Hermitage Museum|State Hermitage Museum]]'s collection of Scythian gold. This resulted in significant [[grave robbery]] of Scythian burials, due to which most of the Scythian tombs of the Russian Empire had been sacked by 1764.{{sfn|Sulimirski|Taylor|1991|p=550}} In the 19th century, Scythian kurgans in [[Ukraine]], [[Kuban]], and [[Crimea]] had been looted, so that by the 20th century, more than 85% of Scythian kurgans excavated by archaeologists had already been pillaged.{{sfn|Sulimirski|Taylor|1991|p=550}} The grave robbers of the 18th and 19th centuries were experienced enough that they almost always found the burial chambers of the tombs and stole the treasures contained within them.{{sfn|Parzinger|2004|p=111-112}}

[[File:Бой скифов со славянами.jpg|thumb|upright=1.15|''Battle between the Scythians and the Slavs'' (1881) by [[Viktor Vasnetsov]]]]
In the later 19th century, a cultural movement called {{ill|Skifstvo|lt={{translit|ru|Skifstvo}}|ru|Скифство}} ({{langx|ru|Скифство|lit=Scythianism}}) emerged in Russia whose members unreservedly referred to themselves and to Russians as a whole as {{translit|ru|Skify}} ({{langx|ru|Скифы|lit=Scythians}}).{{sfn|Bassin|2012|p=75}} Closely affiliated to the [[Left Socialist-Revolutionaries]], the {{translit|ru|Skify}} were a movement of [[Russian nationalism|Russian nationalist]] religious mysticists who saw [[Russia]] as a sort of Messiah-like figure who would usher in a new historical era of the world,{{sfn|Maslenikov|1952|p=88}} and their identification with the ancient Scythians was a positive acceptance of [[Fyodor Dostoevsky|Dostoevsky]]'s view that Europe had always seen [[Russians]] as being Asiatic.{{sfn|Bassin|2012|p=76}} The culmination of {{translit|ru|Skifstvo}} was the famous poem written in 1918 by [[Aleksandr Blok]], titled {{translit|ru|Skify}} ({{langx|ru|Скифы|lit=The Scythians}}), in which he depicted Russia as a barrier between the "warring races" of Europe and Asia, and he made use of the racist [[Yellow Peril]] ideology by threatening that Russia was capable of stopping its "protection" of Europe and allow East Asians to overrun it.{{sfn|Bassin|2012|p=77}}

The scholar [[Adrienne Mayor]] hypothesised that the legend of the [[griffin]] originated among the Scythians, who came across fossilised skeletons of the [[dinosaur]] [[Protoceratops|{{translit|la|Protoceratops}}]]. This hypothesis was contested by the palaeontologist [[Mark P. Witton]], who argued that the imagery of the griffin originated in early Bronze Age West Asia.{{sfn|Witton|Hing|2024}} The imagery of griffins in Scythian art itself was borrowed from the artistic traditions of West Asia and ancient Greece.{{sfn|Ivantchik|2018}} The scholar [[David W. Anthony|David Anthony]] has also hypothesised that the martial role of women among Scytho-Sarmatians had given rise to the Greek myths about [[Amazons]].{{sfn|Anthony|2007|p=329}} However, according to the Scythologist Askold Ivantchik, the imagery of the Amazons was already known to Homer and was originally unrelated to the Scythians, with the link between Scythians and Amazons in Greek literature beginning only later in the 5th century BC.{{sfn|Ivantchik|1999c|p=499-500}}