The Twitter Herodotus

4.1 Darius invaded Scythia to punish them for once occupying Media. After 28 yrs the S went home to find their women had lived w/the slaves.

4.2 All the Scythians' slaves are blinded. This has to do w/the fact that the Scythians drink milk, and they use their slaves to churn it.

4.3 The children of the women and these slaves fought the Scythians when they returned from Media--until the S. got the idea to use whips.

4.4 Seeing the whips, the slaves lost their fighting spirit. And the Scythians got their land back after their 28-year occupation of Media.

4.5 The Scythians say their king Targitaus had 3 sons. An omen involving sacred gold led to the youngest of them gaining the sovereignty.

4.6 The Scythian people, according to the Scythians, were descended from these three brothers.

4.7 This is how Scythia came to be, so they say. The land north of Scythia is inaccessible because the air there is filled with feathers.

4.8 But the Greeks who live around the Black Sea say that Heracles fell asleep in what is now Scythia and woke to find his mares missing.

4.9 A half-snake woman had them & would return them if H. had sex w/her. 3 sons later, she did, & H. instructed her about the boys' future.

4.10 Per H.'s instructions, she gave the sovereignty of the country to the youngest, Scythes, who was able to properly use H.'s bow & belt.

4.11 I believe a 3rd story: the nomadic Scythians, under pressure from the Massagetae, invaded & settled in what had been Cimmerian country.

4.12 There is still evidence of the Cimmerians' occupation of the land in Scythia today. Part of the country, e.g., is called Cimmeria.

4.13 A poet named Aristeas says it was the Issedones who drove the Scythians out of their land.

4.14 This Aristeas once died in a fuller's shop, but then his corpse disappeared. He reappeared years later, wrote a poem, & vanished again.

4.15 240 years later Aristeas showed up in Metapontum in Italy & told them to set up a statue of him. So there's a statue of him in Italy.

4.16 No one knows what's north of the land I'm talking about. No one I've met has been there. But I'll say what I know of these places.

4.17 Various grain-sowing ppl live along the Hypanis R. going north from the Black Sea. As far as we know no one lives beyond the Neurians.

4.18 Scythian farmers live along the Borysthenes for some distance. A ways beyond them are the Maneaters, and beyond them it's uninhabited.

4.19 East of the farmers are the Scythian nomads, who inhabit the land going east to the Gerros R. (a 14-day journey across).

4.20 East of the Gerros, along the north shore of Lake Maeotis to the Tanais R, are the Royal Scythians. North of them are the Black Cloaks.