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The Scythian ultimatum (Herodotus iv 131, 132)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Stephanie West
Stephanie West
Affiliation:
Hertford College, Oxford
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Extract

Shortly before Darius abandoned his futile pursuit of the elusive Scythians, there came to the Persians a messenger from the Scythian chiefs (iv 131, 132):

Type
Notes
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 108 , November 1988 , pp. 207 - 211
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1988

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References

1 See further Hartog, F., Le miroir d'Hérodole (Paris 1980) 67 f., 74–8Google Scholar.

2 For a very brief discussion of this practice see Gelb, I. J., A study of writing2 (Chicago 1963) 5 fGoogle Scholar, Diringer, D., The alphabet3 i (London 1968) 9.Google Scholar

3 Hermes lxx (1935), 121–76Google Scholar ( = Gesammelte Schriften ii [Basel 1975], 817–79Google Scholar; partially reproduced in Herodot: eine Auswahl aus der neueren Forschung, ed. Marg, W. (Darmstadt 1962) 455–70Google Scholar.

4 More fully, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society N.S. xvii (1885) 415–82Google Scholar.

5 The explanation in terms of a pre-arranged code sounds rather artificial. The symbolic appropriateness of chili and pepper is obvious enough, and indeed these items on their own seem almost sufficient for the purpose. Hens being timid creatures, I suspect that the chicken pieces are intended to convey a taunt.

6 The History of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, the translation of Rawlinson, G., revised and annotated by Lawrence, A. W. (London 1935) ad locGoogle Scholar.

7 ‘What a singular similarity we have here to the message that reached Darius 1800 years before,… from Toktai's predecessors, alien from him in blood, it may be, but identical in customs and mental characteristics’, The Book of Ser Marco Polo3, ed. Sir Yule, Henry and Cordier, H. (London 1903) ii 498Google Scholar. For the phraseology of the interpretation compare also the instructions issued by Genghis Khan to a subordinate dispatched in pursuit of enemies: ‘“If those, becoming winged, flying, ascend into heaven, shalt thou, Sübe'etei, becoming a gerfalcon, flying, not seize them? If, becoming marmots, digging with their nails, they enter into the earth, shalt thou, becoming an iron rod, boring, seeking them, not overtake them? If, becoming fishes, they enter into the Tenggis Sea, shalt thou, Sübe'etei, becoming a net which is cast or a net which is dragged, catching and taking them up, not take them?”’, The secret history of the Mongols, translated by Cleaves, F. W. (Cambridge, Mass, and London, 1982) i 133–4, 199Google Scholar. See also Merkelbach, R., ZPE xix (1975) 204–7Google Scholar, Karadagli, T., Fahel u. Ainos: Studien zur griechischen Ainos (Meisenheim/Glan 1981) 91–4Google Scholar.

8 See Muraviev's Journey to Khiva through the Turcoman country, 1819-20, translated from the Russian (1824) by Philipp Strahl and from the German (1871) by Captain W. S. A. Lockhart (Calcutta 1871) 67 f. Nicolai Nicolaievich Muraviev (1794-1866) was a brother of the better known Decembrist, A. N. Muraviev; he rose to be Commander-in-Chief of the Caucasus Corps. His experiences during his mission led him to press for a forward policy in that area. ‘Those who have seen Asiatic troops assert that a few companies of regulars could rout these great masses of irregulars with ease. The only difficulty would be in getting at them, and in provisioning one's own force. The Turcoman horses are very fleet, and no broken cavalry horse could possibly keep up with them; besides the uniform of a European dragoon puts him at a great disadvantage to the active Turcoman in his easy dress’ (p. 152). Had he been familiar with Hdt. iv, he might have attached more weight to these problems.

9 Haslund-Christensen, H., Mongolian journey (translated by Lyon, F. H., London 1949), 206 fGoogle Scholar; plate xi depicts the Nija girl. For biographical details see Dansk Biografisk Leksikon Bd. 6 (Copenhagen 1980) 63–5Google Scholar.

10 Volksbundliches aus Ost-Turkistan (Berlin 1916) 4 fGoogle Scholar

11 The walnut, which concludes both messages, is puzzling: has its interpretation been bowdlerized?

12 A rather sophisticated development of the conventions embodied in these two Turkestani communications may be seen in the Turkish love-letter described by Lady Mary Wortley Montague in her letter to Lady Rich (Pera, 16 March, O.S. 1717). This comprised a pearl, a clove, a jonquil, paper, a pear, soap, coal, a rose, straw, cloth, cinnamon, a match, gold thread, hair, a grape, gold wire, and pepper; the signification of each item is explained in a verse. ‘You see this letter is all in verse, and I can assure you that there is as much fancy shewn in the choice of them, as in the most studied expressions of our letters; there being, I believe, a million of verses designed for this use. There is no colour, no flower, no weed, no fruit, herb, pebble, or feather, that has not a verse belonging to it; and you may quarrel, reproach, or send letters of passion, friendship, or civility, or even of news, without even inking your fingers.’ We must wish that she had given further examples; it all sounds rather like the Victorian development of the language of flowers.

13 ‘On African symbolic messages’, Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland xiv (1884) 169–82Google Scholar.

14 For a nasty illustration of misplaced ingenuity in interpreting alien symbols see Allen, Charles, A mountain in Tibet (London 1982) 163Google Scholar. (A mail-runner, carrying white envelopes edged in black and sealed with red sealing-wax, fell into the hands of villagers with an uneasy collective conscience; interpreting the white envelope as representing the white man, the black border as his soldiers, and the red seal as government anger, they took drastic preventative action.)

15 The knotted cord left with the lonians guarding the Danube bridge (iv 98) represents a related convention. Macan's very instructive note ad loc. concludes thus: ‘That the Great King dealing with Ionian Greeks at the close of the sixth century had recourse to so simple a device… is hardly credible… The device is probably geographically true, i.e. it may have been employed by the Greek traders in their intercourse with the natives of the steppes, or by the natives among themselves’.

16 Sanctis, G. de, ‘Il messagio figurato degli Sciti a Dario’, In Memoria lui Vasile Parvan (Bucharest 1934) 110–11Google Scholar, Momigliano, A., ‘Per l'età di Ferecide Ateniese’, RFIC N.S. x (1932) 346–51Google Scholar ( = Terzo Contributo alia Storia degli Studi Classici [Rome, 1966] 335–40Google Scholar).

17 ‘The first Athenian prose writer’, Mnemosyne S.3 xiii (1947) 13–64 (esp. 52-5)Google Scholar ( = Abhandhngen zur griechischen Geschichtsschreibung, ed. Bloch, H. [Leiden 1956] 100–43Google Scholar). His view is evidently accepted by Uhl, A., who does not discuss this fragment in his monograph Pherekydes von Athen (Munich 1963)Google Scholar; see also Huxley, G., GRBS xiv (1973) 137 n. 2.Google Scholar

18 On his extensive use of anthologies see Chadwick, H., RAC ix 1144–5Google Scholar, s.v. ‘Florilegium’.

19 Cf. DK 7 A 9, B 6.

20 SPAW 1926, 131 ( = Kleine Schriften v 2 [Berlin 1971] 136Google Scholar) (‘unabhängig und daher für die novellistische Überlieferung, die bei Herodot so breiten Raum einnimmt, sehr wertvoll’.)

21 This last point is surely invalid; the Scythians, not being privy to Darius’ intentions, might very reasonably conjecture that the Persians intended permanent settlement, at least if they met with no resistance.

22 At this point a reference to Stith Thompson's Motif index of folk literature (Copenhagen 1955-1958)Google Scholar might seem appropriate; but it does not yield anything closely comparable to Herodotus’ story.

23 See further Smith, R. E. F., The origins of farming in South Russia (Paris 1959) esp. 51–87.Google Scholar

24 It is not chance that all the instances of symbolic communications discussed in this article come from the observations of foreigners; in general, the distinctive practices of oral societies are all too likely to pass away unrecorded. See further Clanchy, M. T., From memory to written record (London 1979) esp. 202–30Google Scholar.

25 On this characteristic practice (‘Umsetzen von gegenwartigen Zustanden in historische Handlung’) see Fehling, D., Die Quellenanoaben bei Herodot (Berlin 1971) 136–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. Macan on iv 98 (n. 15).

26 I would like to thank Dr Paul Coones for guidance over some unfamiliar parts of the terrain traversed in this article.